Call for Papers
Abstract Deadline: January 1, 2007
This conference, which uses Open Conference Systems developed by the Public Knowledge Project, enables participants to submit abstracts online at http://worlds.gameology.org/submit.php.
Presentations can include:
- Single papers (abstract max of 500 words)
- Multiple paper sessions (overview max of 300 words)
- Cross-Over Presentation with the Comics Conference (abstract max of 500 words)
- Roundtable or Workshop (abstract max of 500 words)
Call for Papers Announcement
The University of Florida's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Department of English are pleased to announce the 2007 UF Conference on Games and Digital Media: "World Building: Space and Community," which will be held in Gainesville, Florida, on March 1-2, 2007, in conjunction with the annual Conference on Comics, which will be March 3-4.
This third annual conference on games will focus on the construction of digital worlds, with particular emphasis on the various spatialities of games and other digital media. We are especially interested in spatiality as it is employed in the construction of virtual worlds both in terms of the graphemic representation of game objects, as well as the dual role these spaces perform as both narrative structures and sites of play. We are also interested in spatiality as it relates to the development of social space (including online spaces like World of Warcraft and gaming message boards) as well as the relationship of real-world locations like arcades and game cafes to the play experience.
Confirmed speakers include Scott Jennings, senior designer for NCSoft and writer for The Rantings of Lum The Mad and Broken Toys, Dave Szulborski, ARG designer (Chasing the Wish, Art of the Heist) and author of This Is Not A Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming, and Nick Montfort, author of Twisty Little Passages and co-editor of the New Media Reader.
Possible topics include but are not limited to:
- Classic roleplaying games, and their construction of narrative and social spaces.
- Narrative eccentricity of gaming worlds (Extra lives, continues, linear level design, etc)
- Single-screen games ( Pong , Tetris , Popcap's web-based games, etc)
- The spaces beyond the screen (Pits, the sky, halls of mirrors, etc)
- Constraints of gaming (Forced scrolling, immovable objects, level timers, etc)
- Play as narrative advancement (The restriction of game plots to plots that involve frequent breaks for violence)
- Human opponents, monsters, and bots
- Hints and Advice (Informal social networks and professional help)
- Playing together (MMOG clans, hanging out in the basement, and family gaming)
- Games as performance (DDR, party games, and speedruns)
- Alternative reality games (As social spaces and as worlds "layered" on the real world)
- Artificial socities and virtual pets (The Sims, Civilization, and Tamagochi)
- Spaces of play (Arcades and gaming cafes)
- Representations of three-dimensional spaces on the screen (Old side-scrollers, the fake-3D of Doom, and "true" 3D gaming)
- The many failures of virtual reality
- Stories in/about gaming (Roleplaying stories, official fiction, historical reenactment)
- Competitiveness in gaming (High score lists, tournaments, and professional gaming)
- Games on television (Captain Power, the Super Mario Super Show, and G4)
- Digital reworkings (Photoshopping, machinima, and fanvids)
- Gaming and "geek" culture (Penny Arcade, gaming conventions, the legacy of E3)
- Interfaces and the mediation of mediality
We also encourage submissions that cross over with the Comics conference, on the topic of "World Building: Seriality and History," particularly those that consider the role of time and space across multiple media. We will also consider two-part submissions on related topics to be presented across the two conferences, and other proposals that push the formal constraints of a conference presentation.
Abstract submissions should be approximately 250-500 words in length. Presentations will be 15 minutes with 5 minutes of question and answer. The deadline for abstract submissions is January 1, 2007.
