Theme: New Perspectives in Game Studies
The first instalment of CEEGS, the Central and Eastern European Game Studies conference, will take place in the city of Brno, Czech Republic. It aims to map the academic and applied game studies activities in the region of Central and Eastern Europe and to provide a platform for the sharing of knowledge, research and ideas within the region, and internationally. To highlight the aim of building connections, one of the keynote speakers will be Espen Aarseth, one of the founding fathers of the discipline of game studies and the editor-in-chief of the Game Studies journal. Besides being an academic conference, it will also focus feature panels with speakers from the region’s game design and game industry circles.
The main theme of the conference is “Digital Games in the Context of Central and Eastern Europe”.
Due to many historical, social, economic and cultural specifics of the region, digital games have developed differently in Central and Eastern Europe than in the well-documented areas such as the U.S. or Japan. Research into games has also traced a path different from the “mainstream” of game studies represented by the U.S., the U.K. and Scandinavia. This conference will question these specific developments as well as more universal theoretical and empirical questions and design challenges faced by scholars and game creators in the region. We understand the region in a broad sense, including the Visegrad countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary), the Baltic countries, the Balkans, the European successor states to the Soviet Union (Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia), and also Germany and Austria.
Being an interdisciplinary conference, we invite submissions in all fields related to the study of games, including, but not limited to, media studies, cultural studies, sociology, psychology, literature, film studies, history, philosophy, theory of art, computer science, law, and design. Although CEEGS is primarily an academic conference, we will welcome contributions not only by game researchers, but also by designers, artists, writers, critics or journalists, given that their submissions fit the theme and the aim of the conference. Despite the regional focus, we welcome abstracts from anywhere in the world. The conference language is English.
To present at the conference, you must submit a 500 word abstract of your presentation. All submissions will be reviewed by a board of reviewers, comprised of games and media scholars based in Central and Eastern Europe and appointed by the conference’s program committee.
We invite abstracts on any of the following topics:
- digital games and Central and Eastern European societies
- digital games and the national cultures of Central and Eastern Europe
- histories of digital games and homebrew computing in Central and Eastern Europe
- current trends among game players and audiences, especially in the region of Central and Eastern Europe
- current trends in game design and game industry, especially in the region of Central and Eastern Europe
- challenges and opportunities in game scholarship and education
- legal issues and market regulations concerning digital games
- non-digital games in Central and Eastern Europe – LARP, tabletop and card games
Proceedings of CEEGS 2014 (edited: Edited by Tomáš Bártek, Jan Miškov, Jaroslav Švelch)