November 2, 2007
Upcoming Conference Deadlines
Since our jobs thread seems to be a useful resource, perhaps it would also be good to collect some of the upcoming conference deadlines of interest to GTxA folks.
14 November (less than two weeks from now) is the deadline for ISEA 2008 submissions.
18 November (also quite close) is the deadline for Digital Humanities 2008 submissions.
30 November is the deadline for the 2008 Electronic Literature Organization conference (calls for presentations and a media art show). I’m excited to have a U.S. conference on digital literature with an open call. It’s been a while.
On a different note, I was pleased to see the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery at full strength in 2007. Now I hear they’ve completely overhauled the submission process for all areas of SIGGRAPH — putting them together into one group of General Submissions. Given the shift, it seems good to get the word out early. The general deadline is 30 January 2008. Support materials must be uploaded by 27 February 2008.
November 5th, 2007 at 11:01 am
The Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University in Copenhagen is pleased to announce The [Player] Conference, a conference for games researchers taking place August 26th – 29th 2008.
There is no escaping the player in games research. Whether the focus is on formal aspects of games or on studies of actual gamers, the player is an intrinsic part of the gaming situation. Despite this, the underlying assumptions that inform the notion of the player are often not made explicit in the work of game scholars, regardless of their academic background. This is problematic in itself, but even more so in the inter-disciplinary field of games research where unclear terminology may cloud communication across the borders of academic traditions.
The central focus for The [Player] Conference is to uncover the assumptions that inform our work as game scholars with regards to the player and to consider how we think about and study the player as embodied, represented, derived, historical, idealised – to mention only a few of the positions the notion of player may be put in.
While all papers should focus on the player in some respect or other, there is a diversity of topics to consider. The topics include but are not limited to:
– Conceptions and definitions of players within different disciplines.
– Ideal and real players.
– Player experience, emotions, affects and cognitions.
– Player agency.
– Player taxonomies.
– Methodological issues of studies that deal with players.
– Ontology of player representations.
– The player’s perception and comprehension of the gaming situation.
– Player motivations.
– The position created by the game for the player.
– Player expectations.
– The player as subject and object.
– The player in history.
– Playing for academic purposes.
– The many different roles of players.
– Videogame’s possible effects on players.
– Assumptions about players within academia and the industry.
– Control of player creativity and communities.
We invite submissions of full papers and panels by the 31st March 2008. All submissions will undergo a double blind review process. Notification of acceptance will be announced by the 5th of May 2008. The maximum word limit for full papers is 10000, and 600 pr participant for panels. Note that the panels should focus on debating a chosen topic both among its participants and with the audience.
Inquiries can be sent to player2008@itu.dk. More information will be available on http://game.itu.dk/player/ shortly.
November 9th, 2007 at 9:28 am
CALL FOR PAPERS
The 1st International Workshop on Collaborative Games (CoGames 2008)
May 19-23, 2008
The Hyatt Regency Irvine
Irvine, California, USA
Submission Deadline: December 21, 2007
Call for Papers
***************
This Workshop on Collaborative Games – to be held as part of the 2008
International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems (CTS 2008) –
will focus on the area of collaborative gaming, with emphasis on new game
concepts, new technologies, technology evaluations, new usage areas of
collaborative games, and games prototypes. The aim is to have a dedicated
session that fosters closer interactions among researchers, industry and users
communities, providing an excellent opportunity for them to meet and discuss
their ideas. We invite original contributions from researchers in academia and
computer industry on these emerging and important areas of information
technology.
Topics of Interest include (but are not limited to):
* Collaborative games, game technology and game frameworks
* Platforms for collaborative games
* Usability of collaborative games
* Mobile collaborative games and game frameworks
* Quality of service in collaborative games
* Online games
* Reliability and availability in collaborative games
* Real-time collaborative games over wireless networks
* Integration and interoperability of collaborative games
* Pervasive/ubiquitous collaborative games
* Requirement engineering of collaborative games
* Design and software architecture of collaborative games
* Data mining in collaborative games
* Database support for collaborative games
* Testing and prototyping of collaborative games
* Context-aware gaming
* Collaborative serious games
* Security in collaborative games
* Repository management of collaborative games
* Tools and systems for Games
* Animation and Virtual Reality in game design
* Learning and Adaptation in Games
* Human, social and psychological aspects of games
* Business modelling and economic aspects of collaborative games
* Networking issues in collaborative gaming
A complete call for papers for CoGames 2008 can be found at:
http://cisedu.us/cis/cts/08/workshops/W3-CoGames2008-cfp.html
Instructions for Authors:
*************************
Electronic submissions are encouraged and should be sent directly to
alfw@idi.ntnu.no and heri@idi.ntnu.no. Paper reception will be acknowledged by
e-mail within 48 hours.
The format should be compliant with and follows the CTS 2008 format
(instructions available at http://cisedu.us/cis/cts/08/). Papers drafts
submitted for review should not exceed 10 pages. Some papers can be accepted as
short papers, with a total length reduced to 5 pages. If accepted, the final
manuscript must follow the CTS 2008 format that is to be made available on the
conference Web site. The format is similar to ACM/IEEE conference formats.
Submissions should include the title, authors name, affiliation, e-mail address,
fax number and postal address. In case of multiple authors, an indication of
which author is responsible for correspondence should also be included.
All submitted papers and posters will be rigorously reviewed by the technical
program committee members and the reviewers they invite. Papers will be
selected based on their originality, timeliness, significance, relevance, and
clarity of presentation. Initial selection will be based on full papers.
Submission implies the willingness of at least one of the authors to register
and present the paper, once accepted. All accepted papers are required to be
presented and will be included in the conference proceedings.
Workshop Organizers
*******************
The technical program committee of CoGames 2008 is co-chaired by
Alf Inge Wang, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Email: alfw@idi.ntnu.no
Heri Ramampiaro, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Email: heri@idi.ntnu.no
Harald Øverby, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Email: haraldov@item.ntnu.no
Technical Program Committee
***************************
The members of the program committee are:
* Louise Barkhuus, University of California, San Diego, USA
* Sergiu Dascalu, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
* Eelke Folmer, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
* Andre Furtado, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil
* Phil Grant, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
* Kalle Jegers, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
* Gerd Kortuem, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
* Ling Liu, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
* Tony Mannien, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
* Anders Nordby, Hedmark University College, Hamar, Norway
* Mads Nygård, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
* Markku Oivo, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
* Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
* Pierre Tiako, Langston University, Oklahoma, USA
Important Dates:
****************
Paper Submission Deadline December 21, 2007
Notification of Acceptance February 8, 2008
Registration & Camera-Ready Paper Due March 3, 2008
For information or questions about the full Symposium’s program, tutorials,
exhibits, demos, panel and special sessions organization, please consult the
conference web site at URL: http://cisedu.us/cis/cts/08/ or contact the
symposium co-chairs: Bill McQuay at AFRL/IFSD, WPAFB
(William.McQuay@wpafb.af.mil) or Waleed W. Smari at the Dept. of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, University of Dayton (Waleed.Smari@notes.udayton.edu).
November 17th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
*Breaking the Magic Circle*
Call for Papers: Game Studies Seminar, Tampere 10-11 April, 2008
One of the classic theories of games and play was presented by Johan Huizinga in his work Homo Ludens (orig. from 1938). Huizinga wrote about the free and voluntary nature of play, how it is “an activity connected with no material interest” and how it “proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space”, involving and absorbing players utterly into a separate world set off from the “ordinary” life, while being created and maintained by communities of players.
Huizinga’s view has become widely known within contemporary game studies, and it is often referred as the ‘Magic Circle’ view on games and play. This concept has also been widely criticised, as it has become increasingly obvious how various “games external” areas play an important role in digital play, and also because digital games have become more widely enmeshed with and applied into various economical, educational and other social and cultural processes and uses.
“Breaking the Magic Circle” seminar invites presentations from multiple points of view, including theoretical as well as empirically based studies into that question or expand existing conceptions regarding digital games and play. Particular fields of study might include, but are not limited to:
• pervasive, mobile or location based gaming,
• alternate reality gaming
• casual, non-immersive or coincidental forms of play,
• professional gaming,
• money gaming, betting and gambling within digital games and play.
The seminar is fourth in the annual series of game studies working paper seminars organised by the Games Research Lab in the University of Tampere. Due to the work-in-progress emphasis, we strongly encourage submitting late breaking results, working papers and/or submissions from graduate students. Early considerations from projects currently in progress are most welcome, as the purpose of the seminar is to have peer-to-peer discussions and thereby provide support in refining and improving research work in this area. After the seminar, separate consideration will be given to various options of publishing the seminar papers.
The papers to be presented will be chosen based on abstract review. Full papers are distributed prior the event to all participants, in order to facilitate discussion.
The two-day event consists of themed sessions that aim to introduce current research projects and discuss ongoing work in studies of games, play and their relation to surrounding phenomena. The seminar will be chaired by professor Frans Mäyrä (Hypermedia Laboratory, University of Tampere). Paper commentators include researchers Markus Montola, Aki Järvinen and Simon Niedenthal, associate professor of interaction design.
The seminar will be held in Tampere, Finland and will be free of charge; the number of participants will be restricted.
Important Dates
• Abstract Deadline: January 15, 2008
• Notification of Acceptance: January 30, 2008
• Full Paper deadline: March 27, 2007
• Seminar dates: April 10-11, 2007
Submission Guidelines
Abstract submissions should include maximum of 1.000 words (excluding references). Abstracts should be send to info-gamestudies{at}uta.fi as plain text only (no attachments). Guidelines for submitting a full seminar paper will be provided with the notification of acceptance.
Our aim is that everyone participating has been able to read materials submitted to the seminar, therefore the maximum length for a full paper is set to 6.000 words (excluding references). Note also that the presentations held at the seminar should also encourage discussion, instead of only repeating the information presented in the papers. Tentatively, every paper will be presented for 10 minutes and discussed for 20 minutes.
November 19th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Call for Papers
The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference 2008
We hereby invite scholars in any field who take a professional interest in the phenomenon of computer games to submit papers to the international conference “The Philosophy of Computer Games 2008”, to be held in Potsdam, Germany, on May 8-10, 2008.
Accepted papers will have a clear focus on philosophy and philosophical issues in relation to computer games. They will also attempt to use specific examples rather than merely invoke “computer games” in general terms. We invite submissions focusing on, but not limited to, the following three headings:
Action|Space
Papers submitted under this heading should address issues relating to the experiential, interactional and cognitive dimensions of computer game play. What is the nature of perceptual experience in game space? How should we understand the relationship between action, interaction and space in computer game environments? How should we think about players’ aesthetic, emotive and(/or) rational responses to what goes on inside the game space?
Ethics / Politics
What are the ethical responsibilities of game-makers in exerting influence on individual gamers and society in general? What role, if any, can games serve as a critical cultural corrective in relation to traditional forms of media and communicative practices, for example in economy and politics? Also: what is the nature of the ethical norms that apply within the gaming context, and what are the factors that allow or delimit philosophical justifications of their application there or elsewhere?
The Magic Circle
Terms such as “fictionality”, “virtuality”, “simulation” or “representation” are often used to indicate specific functions of objects in games. But what is the nature of the phenomena these terms refer to in the interactive field of game play? And what is the structure of gaming-processes? What is the mediality of digital games? We are especially interested in discussions that aim at how the notion of a self-contained “magic circle” ˆ representing an imagined border between play and reality, or the internal and external limits of game-programs ˆ is being challenged by forms of individual action and social inter action which tend to transcend such limits.
Your paper should not exceed 25 000 characters (excluding blanks) and be accompanied by an abstract of 300 words. Please specify the primary focus (topic) of your submission.
Deadline for submissions is February 15, 2008. Send your paper and abstract to submissions@gamephilosophy.org.
All submitted papers will be subject to double blind peer review, and the program committee will make a final selection of papers for the conference on the basis of this.
Notification of accepted papers will be sent out by March 12, 2008.
——
Dieter Mersch
Olav Asheim
Patrick Coppock
Espen Aarseth
The conference is a collaboration between the following institutions:
– Institute for Arts and Media, European Media Studies at the University of Potsdam, Germany
– Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo, Norway
– Department of Social, Cognitive and Quantitative Science at the University of Modena & Reggio Emilia, Italy
– Center for Computer Games Research at the IT-University of Copenhagen, Denmark
– Philosophical Project Centre (FPS), Oslo, Norway
For more information, visit http://www.gamephilosophy.org
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Digital Humanities papers deadline entended to November 25th.