Theme: Distributed Game Studies?
This year we would like to work with a concept borrowed from computer science via software studies. The concept of “distributed game studies” (inspired by “distributed computing”) suggests a perspective that emphasises networking and decentralisation. Components of a distributed system work and interact in synergy in order to achieve a common goal. They consist of components on networked hosts that interact via middleware so that they appear as an integrated facility. In distributed systems, resources need to be shared by more than one user and several computations are being executed simultaneously, potentially interacting with each other.
Such system:
- is easy to extend and modify,
- allows integration of new components,
- possesses the ability to accommodate a growing load in the future,
- can be scalable,
- is open to additional resources which can be added in order to host additional components,
- is indifferent to actual place of computation and data storage,
- continues to work in the presence of a fault.
Such description can be employed in the analysis of games, especially in terms of their susceptibility to modification and adoption of new content; and can also be applied to the structure of the field of game studies itself, as well as its knowledge production practices.
In our conference, we are primarily interested in emphasising the relevance of regional clusters in our discipline and ensuring reliable, systematic communication between them. We invite participants to address how different approaches to the game medium can synergise, resulting in the convergence of ideas and broadening the scope of the academic discourse of game studies. We would also like to encourage addressing the properties of “distributed system” paradigm: resource sharing, openness, concurrency, scalability, transparency and fault tolerance, as the inspiration for the following game studies issues:
- circulation of knowledge in the area, emerging initiatives, hubs and research projects;
- different readings of games and fan “takeovers” of franchises and game worlds;
- susceptibility to extension: modding, expanding, remaking;
- new business models (DLCs, games in episodes/seasons);
- web-based, social, multiplayer online (massive and not) games;
- multipurpose/serious games;
- games becoming mainstream;
- changes in game industry system (indie vs. big companies, niche gaming, crowdfunding and its issues)
- economies of scale change and technological change;
- non-linear and local histories of digital and non-digital games;
- introduction of VR technologies, haptic interfaces, alternate reality games etc.;
- diversification of the game development community;
- changes in the ‘gamer’ identity;
- inclusion of non-digital games into game studies;
- “unfinishedness” of games which are released as incomplete products;
- indie games and their openness to failure;
- innovative productions, game experiments;
- art/alt games; glitch aesthetics; game hacking, exploiting; subversive gameplay;
- local games: discourses of nationality, ethnicity and regionality;
- ideology, representation and genre problems in video games.