News

In 2022, the University of Waterloo Games Institute secured $50,000 of funding over two years from the Ontario government to provide scholarships to students pursuing careers in the gaming and esports industries. Following a successful first round of scholarships awarded to thirteen students (two graduate and eleven undergraduate), the next round of applications is now open!

Dr. John Muñoz (Wilfrid Laurier University) has recently completed a study developing virtual reality (VR) simulations to train police officers in both Canada and the United States.

Congratulations to Dr. Oliver Schneider (Management Science and Engineering) for receiving the 2024 Graphics Interface award for Early Career Researcher!

On November 9th, Toben Racicot (English Language and Literature) and Alaire Racicot were featured in The Record about their latest graphic memoir titled “The Night in Tilly’s Field.”

First Person Scholar (FPS), a middle-state publication supported and published by the Games Institute, has released its latest special issue titled “Gaming Paratexts.”

On October 15th, Jennifer Bentley (Manager of Events and Engagement) and Karina Graf (Associate Director, Marketing and Digital Sales) from WatSPEED visited the GI for a demo of select research projects by GI members.

Congratulations to GI faculty members Drs. Lennart Nacke (Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business) and Marcel O’Gorman (English Language and Literature) who have been appointed University Research Chairs at Waterloo.

The Games Institute is excited to announce the CfP for the upcoming International Conference on Games and Narrative 2025 (ICGaN'25). This year’s conference theme is “Adapt, Adopt, Adjust: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Adaptation, Storytelling, and Simulation” asks us to consider the power of adapted and adaptive narratives, experiences, genres, and mechanics. 

Games Institute (GI) faculty member Dr. Shana MacDonald (Communications Arts) successfully secured a $74, 232 grant for the “Exploring the visual culture of misogyny across material and digital archives” project.

GI members present at The Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY). The conference takes place in Tampere, Finland from October 14 to October 17, 2024. GI members attended to present their papers, in-progress studies, and projects.