Events

Join Elaine Gómez as she will describe the importance of representation in games and digital media. She will speak to how gaming has the power to destroy the perpetuation of stereotypical perceptions and will explain how games can be designed to create social impact in meaningful ways.

This event corresponds with an in-person workshop. Separate registration required and seating is limited.

Due to technological advancements, communicating with computer systems using natural language has become a casual phenomenon. Speech-based systems, like Siri or Cortana, have become widely popular among people due to their convenience. Speech interaction encompasses a social component as it reflects the fundamental human capacity for communication and enables interpersonal engagement through verbal exchange. This makes human-agent interaction an essential topic of research in the field of human-computer interaction.

This panel highlights emerging scholars in Black game studies. Panelists will present recent and/or ongoing work, sharing a glimpse of the emerging research questions animating the field. Topics include Black worldbuilding in and across games (Fletcher), perceptions of Black male exceptionalism in gaming cultures (Dashiell), and the relationship between avatar representation and Black user experience in social VR (DeVeaux).

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. This panel talks about "The First Three Years", 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.

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.

This is a free, virtual event! Registration required.

In this workshop, members of the worker cooperative game studio SoftChaos will discuss how building structures of care and accessibility into the team's day-to-day working environment can strengthen the creative process of developing games, and will lead participants in interactive exercises to inspire them to bring similar ideas to their own work contexts. The workshop will take place online over two hours.