Pre-Conference
Paper submission deadline: 15 April 2023
Decision notification: 29 May 2023
The Conference
7 – 9 September 2023
A three-day event featuring presentations, workshops, and networking opportunities.
|
Day 1 – Thu, 7 September |
| 09:00-09:30 |
Coffee and registration |
| 09:30-10:00 |
Introduction and opening remarks |
| 10:00-11:30 |
| Benjamin Hanußek & Monika Stobiecka |
(In)humane Architecture? Post-Soviet Heritage in Videogames |
| Magdalena M. Strobl |
“But Somewhere Along the Way, I Started Changing”: Death Stranding’s Road Towards Mindfulness and Environmental Awareness Through the Act of Walking |
| Sarah Beyvers |
Navigating Oppression: The Explorability of Gendered and Classed Spaces in the (Neo-)Victorian City |
|
| 11:30-11:45 |
Coffee |
| 11:45-13:15 |
| Rüdiger Brandis |
Decay and the Practice of Historiography in Kentucky Route Zero |
| René Schallegger |
Of Dead Heroes and Growing Networks: Crisis, Agency, and Solidarity in Canadian Videogames |
|
| 13:15-14:15 |
Lunch |
| 14:15-15:45 |
| Charlotte Stevens |
Representing and Remediating Video Games in Chinese Television |
| Thitinan Boonpap Common |
Life simulation video games and identity learning among the young gamers in Thailand: the case study of ‘The Sims’ |
|
| 15:45-16:00 |
Coffee |
| 16:00-17:30 |
| Tamara Urach |
“Watch for fairies, fen-folk, and fiends.” – How Assassin’s Creed Valhalla explores hostility towards (Celtic) pagan people and practices in the multi-cultural world of the British Isles of the late 9th century. |
| Matthew Hellenbrand |
“In the Beginning was the Word”: Pentiment, Game Design, and New Cultures of Story-telling |
| Eliseo Guardado Salguero |
An archaeological narrative analysis in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, DLC: Dragonborn |
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Day 2 – Fri, 8 September |
| 09:00-09:30 |
Coffee |
| 09:30-11:00 |
| Katja Aller |
Irreducible Elements of Magic – An Exploration of Heritage and Identity through (Magical Realist) Object Narratives in What Remains of Edith Finch |
| Kseniia Harshina & Tom Tucek |
Virtual Spaces as Safe Spaces of Exploration for Various Identities |
| Pedro Ferreira |
Experimenting ethical challenges, dilemmas and tensions of serious games |
|
| 11:00-11:15 |
Coffee |
| 11:15-12:45 |
|
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| Betty Neumann |
Womb of Woe. Exploring Pregnancy in AMNESIA: REBIRTH |
| Christina Obmann |
Embodied game play: Exploring human and non-human experiences through affective game design |
|
| 12:45-13:45 |
Lunch |
| 13:45-15:15 |
| Nicole Kilzer |
A Turning Point – Queer Representation in Gone Home |
|
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| Laura Arnott |
The performance of queer identities in the gameplay of Final Fantasy VII (1997) and Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) |
|
| 15:15-15:30 |
Coffee |
| 15:30-17:00 |
| Yiğit Soncul and James Williamson |
In Defence of Poor and Imperfect Gaming: A Workshop |
| Or: |
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| Michael Steinkellner |
Creating Virtual Worlds with Sound Design |
|
| 17:30-Open |
Social Event |
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Day 3 – Sat, 9 September |
| 09:00-09:30 |
Coffee |
| 09:30-11:00 |
| Felix Schniz |
The Ludic Close-Up: Developing a Micro-Qualitative Methodology for Game Studies |
| Daniel Riha |
What do We know about How Players of Video Games potentially rate a Wilhelm Scream ? A Bayesian Statistical Analysis |
| Florian Kelle |
Everybody asks ‘What is play?’: And nobody asks ‘Where is play?’ |
|
| 11:00-11:15 |
Coffee |
| 11:15-12:45 |
| Ylva Schütz |
Cultivating kindness in a tiny MORPG: Book of Travels as a walking simulator hybrid with cooperative play |
| Kristina Jevtic |
Playing Time Capsules: Layered Temporalities in Gone Home and Return of the Obra Dinn |
| Christoph Kaindel |
August in Ischl. A Salzkammergut Sommerfrische Simulator set in the fateful year of 1853 |
|
| 12:45-13:15 |
Lunch |
| 13:15-14:00 |
Final panel discussion and outlook |
Post-Conference
There will be a publication of proceedings broadly dealing with exploration, as well as a thematic anthology concerned with the special focus of VGC 2023: walking simulators.
A precise timeline of post-conference publication procedures will be announced after the conference.
