CfP: Under the Mask: Perspectives on the Gamer

2008-03-05 17:46 | Posted by jpzagal | Permanent Link | Conferences and Seminars , Call for Papers

Research Institute for Media Art and Design, University of Bedfordshire, Luton

June 7th 2008

Which ever title you select, ‘Consumer’, ‘Audience’, ‘Receiver’, Player’, ‘Operator’, or ‘Gamer’, the fundamental issues remain the same in videogames: who and what is the Operator? What role do Gamers play within their communities or within their cultures? How do Players situate themselves in a competitive or casual environment and make sense of the game in light of genre, reception and history? How is the game used, culturally, socially and psychologically?

This conference aims to address the issues that surround the Player of videogames as contributor and consumer of specific cultures, not only through presentation and discussion, but also through actively engaging with games and Gamers. The President of DiGRA, Professor Tanya Krzywinska, will provide the keynote.

A number of Professional Gamers are attending the conference to demonstrate their expertise and share their experiences, whilst throughout the day competitions will be held on the various formats available, with a variety of game hardware and software prizes on offer. In creating such an environment, the organizers hope that the participants will able to explore the sociological, psychological, and ludological issues in a game-playing context.

These include:

• What takes place between Player and screen? • Do original control interfaces (Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution, Nintendo Wii, mobile games et cetera) adjust social behaviour? • Does genre affect social participation and reception and in particular the positioning of the Operator? • What role does gender play in multiplayer gaming? • Are there consequences of play for Gamers, psychologically and socially?

Also of interest is the notion of the ‘fan’ in games: fiction, art, walkthroughs, and game interpretations - what do these communities have to say on the place of the Player within their communal/cultural hierarchy?

Call for papers

• New methodologies or adapted methodologies for studying the Gamer;

• Case studies of Players interacting with novel control interfaces;

• Case studies of Players in social settings;

• Case studies of the relationship between gender and games;

• Case studies of Players in competitive/professional settings;

• Approaches to gamers and gamers in the light of Psychoanalysis and Analytical Psychology;

• Studies on Methodologies for genre;

• The role of competition and casual and or social gaming within game culture and

• Fan fiction and Fan Art.

Topics may include: sport simulations, racing games, first-person shooters, performance games (Dance, Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero etc), mobile games, original control hardware, sociological methodologies (adapted and new), audience reception, gender studies, psychoanalysis/analytical psychology, behavioural case studies, professional gaming, competitive gaming, social gaming, ‘girl’ games, game art, fan fiction, fan art, and so on.

Abstracts of 250 words, accompanied by contact details and a brief biography to be received by the 30th of March to: gamer@beds.ac.uk

Conference proceedings for ‘Under the Mask: Perspectives on the Gamer’ are currently being considered, with a selection of British publishers showing strong interest in using the conference to instigate a bi-annual journal focusing upon the question of the ‘Gamer’.

'Convergence: the International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies' welcomes submissions of full papers on games and gamers from conference participants. The next submissions deadline for an open issue of the journal is the 30th of November 2008. See http://www.beds.ac.uk/convergence