Events

This hybrid panel covers the exploration of biometrics (or physiological measures) in game user research, driven by advancements in sensing technologies and the increased accessibility of signal processing tools.

Join us for an online information session specifically for guidance counsellors/advisors who will be supporting students through the Engineering and/or Mathematics undergraduate application process at the University of Waterloo. We will discuss admission processes and changes this year as well as highlight some important deadlines for your students.

Are you interested in studying Engineering or Architecture at the University of Waterloo but don't know where to start? Our webinar, "Which Waterloo Engineering Program is Right for You?", will showcase our 15 programs in the Faculty of Engineering - current students/program advisors and representatives from our admissions team will share an overview of each program and answer questions during a live Q&A.

Are you a Canadian or Permanent Resident student interested in hearing more about how to apply to Waterloo Engineering? The "Applying to Waterloo Engineering" webinars will focus on the admissions process and cover how to apply, tips for your Admissions Information Form (AIF), and more! Our panelists include our Director/Associate Director of Admissions as well as current students who successfully went through the process themselves.

Are you an international or study permit student interested in learning more about how to apply to Waterloo Engineering? The "Applying to Waterloo Engineering" webinars will focus on the admissions process and cover how to apply, tips for your Admissions Information Form (AIF), and more! Our panelists include our Director/Associate Director of Admissions as well as current students who successfully went through the process themselves.

With recent waves of layoffs, high-profile workplace harassment cases, and a notoriously short career length for gender minorities and people of colour, the transition of new workers into the game industry involves navigating a spate of barriers to equity and success that have been understudied in academic research. The First Three Years is an ongoing longitudinal study of graduates of game programs in Canada and the United States, following the journey of 207 students as they move into the game industry. In this workshop, our research team will summarise the primary challenges students have identified in their game programs. This summary includes equity and diversity issues inherent in common curricular practices such as the efficacy of capstone courses and internships, the inclusion of crunch-like practices in the classroom, the systematic failure to inform students of actual workplace conditions, and the mismatch between student preparation and industry hiring practices. Afterwards, participants will address whether/how these problems manifest in their own institutions, and what solutions might improve equity outcomes for students seeking careers in games.

This event is part of the “ADE for Game Communities: Enculturing Anti-Racism, Decolonization, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (ADE) in Games Research and Creation” series from the ADE Committee of the Games Institute, University of Waterloo, and is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

An enduring appeal of interactive entertainment media such as video games is that they invite the user to co-create the on-screen experience. More than an invitation, these experiences demand near-constant attention from players—and do so on myriad dimensions, including cognitive (problem-solving), emotional (affective reactions), apparatus (control or interface intuitiveness), exertional (physical activity) and social (attending to social agents). Individually and combined, these sources of demand are mediators for understanding the relationship between formal features of interactive media and intended (or unintended) outcomes of usage.

This presentation will present and review an interactivity-as-demand model based on prior and ongoing research into video games and virtual reality technologies, with specific implications for game design and player psychology.

Speaker Bio: Nick Bowman (PhD, Michigan State University) is an Associate Professor of Emerging Media at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. His research focuses on the uses and effects of interactive and immersive media, with specific interests in social media, video games, and metaverse technologies. He has published more than

125 peer-reviewed manuscripts and co-authored more than 200 competitively selected conference presentations. He is the editor of Journal of Media Psychology and associate editor for Technology, Mind, and Behavior. Recently, he completed a term as the Fulbright Taiwan Wu Jing-Jyi Arts & Culture Fellow and the National Chengchi University in Taipei, where he was researching the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social demands of virtual reality experiences, including video gaming and digital advertising campaigns. He is a lifelong gamer, part-time mechanic, and an excited-yet-skeptical futurist.

What if we could make complex social and cultural questions playable? And what if we could do so through interactions with familiar digital interfaces set in alternative presents and near futures? The work I will discuss sits at the intersection between the design traditions of speculative and critical design on the one hand, and the philosophies and best practices of game design, playful media and interaction design on the other. It turns out, though, that an arranged marriage between these traditions produces unusual offspring. In this talk, grounded in examples including outsourcing religious tolerance to technological solutions, Indigenous Hawaiians undertaking space travel, matrimonial websites from the near future, and flirtatious AI chatbot therapists, I make the case for paratopian design, which is neither utopian
nor dystopian, but proposes paradigm shifts that invite us to reconceptualize and reconsider the building blocks of "here" & "now".

This event is part of the “ADE for Game Communities: Enculturing Anti-Racism, Decolonization, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (ADE) in Games Research and Creation” series from the ADE Committee of the Games Institute, University of Waterloo, and is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Rilla Khaled is an Associate Professor of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montréal. She directs the Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) Research Centre. Her work focuses on how playful media can improve daily life, and spans designing award-winning games, creating speculative prototypes of near-future technologies, working with BIPOC communities to materialise inclusive futures, establishing foundations for recoverable, materials-based game design research, and articulating boundaries for experimental uses of AI.

Are you applying to Waterloo Engineering and looking for tips to improve your application? "Tips for Applying to Waterloo Engineering" will provide another opportunity for prospective students to ask their questions about the admissions process and hear from our Engineering admissions team on tips for success.

This panel highlights emerging scholars in Asian/American games studies.

Panelists will present recent and/or ongoing work, sharing a glimpse of the emerging research questions animating the field. Topics include He’s analysis of NPC discourse, particularly the phenomena of NPC streaming, as an Asiatic form, Ganzon’s examination of Filipino political activism in digital games that extend public and community spaces, and Howard’s inquiry on 'region locking' in online games as racial practices.

This event is part of the “ADE for Game Communities: Enculturing Anti-Racism, Decolonization, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (ADE) in Games Research and Creation” series from the ADE Committee of the Games Institute, University of Waterloo, and is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Speakers:

Dr. Sarah Christina Ganzon is an Assistant Professor of Gaming, Media and Communication at Simon Fraser University. Her research revolves mostly around the areas of game studies and digital fandoms. Recently, she finished her thesis on otome games in English, and otome game players. She holds a PhD in Communication Studies at Concordia University and an MA in English Literature from Cardiff University. Prior to starting her doctorate, she taught courses in literature and the humanities at the University of the Philippines, University of Santo Tomas and Far Eastern University.

Dr. Huan He is an Assistant Professor of English at Vanderbilt University.

Recently, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan’s Digital Studies Institute. His research engages Asian/American literature and culture, digital studies, and critical game studies. Currently titled The Racial Interface, his book project examines the racial associations linking Asian Americans and information technologies. His research appears/is forthcoming in Configurations, College Literature: A Journal of Critical Literary Studies, Media-N and an anthology on Asian American game studies. He also writes poetry, which can be found in Poetry, Sewanee Review, A Public Space, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere.

Dr. Matthew Jungsuk Howard, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at Loyola University, Chicago's School of Communication. He writes "gyopo media histories" that explore the intertwinement of the "Korean Wave" of globalized circulation of South Korean popular culture and peninsular diasporas, particularly in North America. He is particularly interested in the media-cultural histories of race, ethnicity, and nationality. When he is not spoiling all of our favourite entertainment forms, Matt can be found chasing his step-pug Morty around the house, sneaking treats to his baby conure, Jennie, and withering under Goober the Cat's disdainful gaze.