CfP: Workshop on Users and Evaluation of Interactive Storytelling

For long, Interactive Storytelling (IS) has been a constant focus of interest of scholars from various areas. However, in spite of the
attention that specific domains of IS have received (e.g. development of tools, applications and systems), there is little prior work on
connecting those notions with users’ experiences. The main purpose of this workshop is to move forward on the study of users’ experience of interactive stories by working on the identification of the variables, dynamics and methods that could contribute to explain it. It proposes participants to jointly navigate through different practices, theories, approaches, and concepts that need to be taken into account for properly shaping the complex experience of perceiving those artifacts and applications. The ultimate goal of the workshop is advancing in the definition of a model that allows measuring user engagement during consumption of interactive narratives.

http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/icids2010/EvaluationWorkshop

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CFP: 2011 PCA/ACA National Convention in San Antonio, TX (Game Studies Area)

The Game Studies area of the National Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association Conference invites proposals for papers and panels on games and game studies for the joint meeting of the National Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association and the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Associations Conference to be held Wednesday, April 20, through Saturday, April 23, 2010, at the Marriott Rivercenter San Antonio and the Marriott-San Antonio Riverwalk in San Antonio, TX.

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CfP: Games and HCI Workshop at OZCHI 2010

The workshop is about the design of the game interface, its philosophies, its foibles, its moments of achievement and delight with a view to the next generation of game design. We are interested in taking this “long engagement” to its logical next step, where the two partners in the relationship (game interface design and HCI) act as equal participants in the design and evolution of new and innovative experiences.

Where: OZCHI 2010 Queensland University of Technology, Gardens Point Campus, Brisbane

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Report: Preserving Virtual Worlds

The Preserving Virtual Worlds project is a collaborative research venture of the Rochester Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of Maryland, the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Linden Lab, conducted as part of Preserving Creative America, an initiative of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the US Library of Congress. The primary goals of the project have been to investigate issues surrounding the preservation of video games and interactive fiction through a series of case studies of games and literature from various periods in computing history, and to develop basic standards for metadata and content representation of these
digital artifacts for long-term archival storage. The final report of this project has just been released here:

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/17097

New Book: Hollywood Gamers: Digital Convergence in the Film and Video Game Industries by Robert Alan Brookey

"In touring the half-world of film-games, Brookey shows how brands are cross-marketed and why the production of multimedia brands has failed to live up to the talk." -Edward Castronova, Indiana University

For years, major film studios have licensed products related to their most popular films; video game spin-offs have become an important part of these licensing practices. Where blockbuster films are concerned, the video game release has become the rule rather than the exception. In Hollywood Gamers, Robert Alan Brookey explores the business conditions and technological developments that have facilitated the convergence of the film and video game industries. Brookey treats video games as rhetorical texts and critically examines several games to determine how specific industrial conditions are manifest in game design. Among the games (and films) discussed are Lord of the Rings, The Godfather, Spider-Man, and Iron Man.

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