The Futures of Games and Game Studies

Our Prof. Stefano Gualeni is among the invited speakers for the upcoming "The Futures of Games and Game Studies Symposium and Consortium", organized by Eludamos (the Journal for Computer Game Culture) together with the Centre for Computer Game Studies at the IT University of Copenhagen.

Among the other speakers are a few familiar faces for the Institute of Digital Games:

Hans-Joachim Backe, (IT University of Copenhagen), Hanna Wirman, (IT University of Copenhagen), and Dooley Murphy (University of Copenhagen). You might also be interested in knowing that Dooley will also be with us in Malta for the upcoming reading group session (on April the 28th), when we are going to read and discuss his latest work on empathy in Virtual Reality. Please contact Dr. Daniel Vella if you are interested in participating.

But back to "The Futures of Games and Game Studies Symposium and Consortium": the event will be streamed, and you can find the public part of the program here.
Stefano will be presenting some thoughts, ideas, and future directions for research connected to his upcoming new book (with Riccardo Fassone, University of Turin) in a 40-min. talk titled

On Fictional Games
ABSTRACT: Fictional Games are playful activities and ludic artefacts that are conceptualized as part of fictional worlds. Fictional games are meant to trigger the imagination of the appreciator of a work of fiction and cannot actually be – or at least were not originally meant to be – played. Our 2022 book (forthcoming for Bloomsbury Academic, with Riccardo Fassone) titled Fictional Games is an initial exploration of that uncharted scholarly theme in our community. It is also an occasion for rethinking the idea of games in general. In this talk, Stefano will present some salient philosophical and expressive use of these kinds of imaginary, unplayable games.

The talk will be streaming live on April the 8th at 9 am. Join us! :)

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Game Studies Research in Digital Humanties

Videogames are one of the key forms in today’s cultural landscape, taking their place alongside more established forms like theatre, film, TV, literature and performance art. Their impact is something we take seriously at the Institute of Digital Games. The Digital Humanities Research Group explore and study what games are, what they do, and how we experience them. Current research threads include tracking and mapping the differences in representation between traditional fiction and virtual reality, the player-avatar relationship in games, architecture and the built environment in game worlds, music and musicking practices in games, and the use of videogames as philosophical tools.

Interested to know more? Contact us!

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