Theme: Ludic Expressions
Keynotes: Jesper Juul, Clara Fernandez-Vara, Melanie Swalwell
Although often considered toys, entertainment products, and pastimes disconnected from the real life, games have been recognized by both academics and designers as a means to express ideas, opinions, feelings, and experiences. Games can promote or subvert ideology, induce hope or fear, or make us feel empathy or enmity towards their characters. Games are never completely innocent, and always – in ways both subtle and explicit – interact with the social or political context; they provide us with designed experiences intended to make us feel or think in certain ways.
The fifth annual CEEGS conference wants to bring focus to the expressive potential of digital and non-digital games. It aims to explore what – and how – is expressed through games and how players interact with and interpret ludic expressions in their own practices. We welcome academic contributions related to the exploration of games as an expressive medium from any relevant disciplinary perspective, including the following topics:
- structural and ontological properties of games as a medium of expression
- aesthetic explorations of games
- histories of ludic expressions
- relationship of games to other media
- games and affect
- game design as an interdisciplinary and reflective endeavor
- sociology and ethnography of game design
- technology and computation as an opportunity or obstacle in ludic expression
- local, regional, and international trends in game design and game cultures
- player reception of ludic expressions
- subversive and transgressive game design and gameplay
- critique of design and industry paradigms
- current trends in game industries and their effects on content of games
- in-game representations of real-life events and social phenomena
- games, activism and tactical media
- the “indie” game paradigm and expressivity
- fringe and outsider games
- game design education between the needs of industry and artistic visions
- expressions about games – player and fan discourses
- players’ expressions beyond gameplay