Thursday – 14th June 2018 – British DiGRA

Timetable	Mellor – Digital Kiln (100)	Cadman – Lecture Room – G026 (123)	Cadman – Lab – C117A (48)	Cadman – Lab – C117B (36)
9:00 – 9.45	Registration
9.45 – 10:00		Welcome
10:00 – 11:15		Keynote – Matt Barr That’s Edutainment! The Successful Mating of Games and Education
11:15 – 11:30	BREAK
11.30 – 13.00	Breakout space	Papers x 3 A Glimpse of Lacan: the Erotic in Video Games Leonardo Abate Emergent Systems in Mao: Negotiating the Meaning of a Game by Playing the Rules Jessica Tang	Abstracts x 3 Ready, Player Two: ‘Gamer Girlfriends’ and Affective Labour Mahli-Ann Butt ‘As a Healer, Is It My Job to DPS?’ The Complex Negotiations of a MMORPG Class Playstyle Between the Player Community, Game Developers, and Game Design Usva Friman Broadcasting the Gendered Self Stavroula Dargonaki	Paper paramedics Session 1 (sign up required) CLOSED SESSION
13.00 – 14.00	Lunch (Digital Kiln)
14.00 – 15.30	Breakout space	Papers x 2 Designing Sugaropolis: Digital Games as a Medium for Conveying Transnational Narratives Robin Sloan Innovative Digital Games to Improve Science Education through Storytelling, Mystery and myth. Sabina Maraffi (presented by Francesco M. Sacerdoti)	Abstracts x 3 The Sensing Sim: Games which question the Phenomenal World Merlin Seller Intelligibility, the ‘magic cycle’, and ‘cognitive mapping’ – whither ‘mystagogy’? Feng Zhu Creating Worlds with Words: Exploring the Language of Digital Games with a Corpus-Driven Approach Alicia Copeland	Paper paramedics Session 2 (sign up required) CLOSED SESSION Lara Coulson
15.30 – 16.00	BREAK
16.00 – 17.00	Breakout space	Panel Who are our students designing for? Ranging perspectives of Games Related Educators Dr. Kelly Bourdeau (remote) Dr. Robin Sloan Kaye Elling Dr. Ian Sturrock Nia Wearn	Abstracts x 2 Game Balance as Creative: Destruction in League of Legends Joshua Jarrett What are the Socio-Political Implications of the Record-Breaking Popularity of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds? Carina Assunção
17.00 – 17.30		BDiGRA UK chapter meet (all welcome!)
18:30 – 23:30	Evening Social Event

Friday – 15th June 2018 – Games Teaching Day

Timetable	Mellor – Digital Kiln (100)	Cadman – Lecture Room – G026 (123)	Cadman – Lab – C117A (48)	Cadman – Lab – C117B (36)
9:30 – 9.45	Registration
9.45 – 10.00		Welcome
10:00 – 11:15		Opening State of The Games Industry and Educational Challenges. TIGA and UKIE Panel
11:15 – 11.30	BREAK
11:30 – 13.00	Philip Oliver – Rebellion Lessons from 4 decades of games development.	Round Table Discussion The trials and tribulations of teaching technology and Game Studies – steps forward in pedagogy. Nia Wearn (Moderator) Ying-Ying Law Alan O’Dea Mike Beardwood	Abstracts x 3 A Queer Reading of Mass Effect 2 as a Greek-inspired Epic Edith Gras Flow It, Show It, Play It: Hair in Digital Games Andra Ivanescu	Breakout Space
13.00 – 14.00	LUNCH
14.00 – 15.30	Technology in Game Teaching Session. Using frameworks in game engines for teaching. Mike Beardwood	Teaching students to run an esports event Ying-Ying Law	Abstracts x 3 (including paramedic abstracts) Loss and Isolation in Shadow of the Colossus Miguel Cesar Identifying the Design Features That Lead to Engaging Magic Systems Within Games Lara Coulson	Breakout Space
15:30 – 16:00		Breakout Space	Games Research at Staffordshire University – Research Group and PhD opportunities.
16:00 – 16:30
16:30 -17:00

Call for Papers (published 19/2/2018)

British DiGRA 2018

The second annual conference of British DiGRA.

14th – 15th June 2018

Staffordshire University, Stoke on Trent

The Medium is the Game

Since 2003 and the first DiGRA convention in 2003, we have seen a huge change in the ways that Games Studies understands itself and has conveyed itself as a discipline to (and sometimes within) other critical media. This conference takes as its theme the media of the game, playfully repositioning the 2018 DiGRA theme of ‘The Game is the Message’.

We welcome submissions that move beyond digital gaming, for example submissions relating to boardgames LARP, pervasive games or other forms of analog gaming.

We actively encourage early scholars and PhD candidates, as well as more established voices.

Submissions should consider, but not be restricted to, the following topics in this light:

Revisiting Games as Inter/Multidisciplinary subject
Gaming as Media
Representation in Games
Playfulness and the Medium of Games (Why/Not so Serious…?)
Building games
Pedagogical practice and gaming
Game design/development/theory – the un/holy? trinity
Changes in gaming culture
After the Storm (post gamergate theory)
Games production as critical medium
eSports theory

We welcome the following submission types:

Full papers, of 5000 – 7000 words, to be presented as papers in a panel session.

A template for full papers is attached. – BDiGRA_Template_2018.doc

Abstracts of 500 words, to be presented in a series of quickfire round table sessions.

Please follow the relevant areas of the template, including Abstract, Keywords and References.

Workshops to last approx half a day – to be submitted as precis of approx 500 – 1000 words underlining core objectives and aims.

Discussion panels – to be submitted as precis of approx 500 – 1000 words underlining core objectives and aims.

Please submit work to BritishDigra@gmail.com by 31st March 2018. Papers and abstracts should be anonymised, but please make sure you identify yourself in the e-mail so that we can respond when the paper has been reviewed.

Acceptance of papers 14th April 2018

Selected proceedings will be published in a special edition of ToDiGRA, in second quarter 2019.

We have decided to charge a small attendance fee of £25 to cover costs. Any surplus funding will be carried over to future BDiGRA events. An eventbrite with details of this will be forthcoming.

All attendees are expected to abide by the BDiGRA Inclusivity Policy:

http://bdigra.org.uk/inclusivity-policy

Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Nia Wearn, Ying-Ying Law, Alan O’Dea