First International Conference on Facets of Virtual Environments

27-29 July, 2009, Berlin, Germany

FaVE (Facets of Virtual Environments) 2009 is a refereed international academic conference devoted to persistent, multi-user virtual environments. The recent rise of World of Warcraft®, Second Life® and similar applications has caught the imagination of the public and scholars alike, yet until now the study of virtual environments has been subordinated to a collection of subtopics of established academic disciplines.

Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Tuesday 1st September-Friday 4th September 2009
Brunel University, West London, United Kingdom,
 
The South of Britain Consortium are pleased to announce the first Call for Papers for the Digital Games Research Association 2009. DiGRA is an organisation that embraces all aspects of game studies, and the conference aims to provide a diverse platform for discussion, and a lively forum for debate. We therefore welcome papers from any discipline focused on any aspect of games, play, game culture and the games industry. The conference will be the fourth DiGRA conference, following Utrecht, Vancouver and Tokyo, and welcomes contributions from scholars working in any area of interest to the association. The official business of the Subject Association will also be conducted at the conference.
 
The Conference invites the following proposals for consideration:

• Individual or Collaborative Papers
• Panels
• Workshops
• Posters
• Graduate Student Roundtable Papers

Fourth Annual Games for Health Conference 2008
May 8-9, 2008
Baltimore Convention Center
Baltimore, Maryland

The Games for Health Conference offers a rich platform for learning, promotion, networking and business development for organizations interested in the intersection between games and health. Topics to be covered include exergaming, medical simulation, interactive messaging, health behavior change, medical informatics, physical therapy, and game development. The conference will offer demo rooms that will feature hands-on ability to play with various games.

More than 300 individuals from 100 organizations (academic institutions, government agencies and foundations/are these a subset of the orgs) are expected to attend.

Vienna Games Conference
17-19th Octover, 2008
University of Vienna, Austria

Digital games have become a driving factor of contemporary cultural, social, and economic development. They are enablers of global cultural exchange and serve as entry points for media participation. However, the cultural, social and economic significance of games usually remains underestimated or misunderstood by the general public. In 2007, the City of Vienna decided to host 'Game City', a high profile event bringing together representatives of the games industry, non-profit orga nizations, academia and the general public for the discussion of the current state of computer games, digital youth cultures and games research. One key element of 'Game City' was the Vienna Games Conference, which had the objective of serving as a public information platform as well as an international networking event for game researchers of various disciplines. Due to the overwhelming success of this concept, the 'Game City' event and the Vienna Games Conference will be held again in the fall of 2008.

Sat 7th June 2008
Research Institute for Media Art and Design
University of Bedfordshire, Park Square, Luton LU1 3JU

Which ever title you select, ‘Consumer’, ‘Audience’, ‘Receiver’, Player’, ‘Operator’, or ‘Gamer’, the fundamental issues remain the same in videogames: who and what is the Operator? What role do Gamers play within their communities or within their cultures? How do Players situate themselves in a competitive or casual environment and make sense of the game in light of genre, reception and history? How is the game used, culturally, socially and psychologically?

May 8-10th, 2008
Universität Potsdam,  Campus Neues Palais,  Am Neuen Palais 10,  D-14469 Potsdam, Germany

Scholars in any field who take a professional interest in the phenomenon of computer games are invited to submit papers to the international conference "The Philosophy of Computer Games 2008" which will be held in Potsdam, Germany on May 8-10, 2008.

Accepted papers will have a clear focus on philosophy and philosophical issues in relation to computer games. They will also attempt to use specific examples rather than merely invoke "computer games" in general terms. We invite submissions focusing on, but not limited to, the following three headings:

14-15th February 2008
Queensland University of Technology, Creative Industries Precinct, Brisbane, Australia

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation presents a symposium to explore:

• struggles over the use and reuse of IP
• rights and responsibilities of modders and machinima creators
• jurisdictional issues
• the clashes between developers and lawyers in creating terms of access
• the legitimacy or legality of terms in End User Licence Agreements and Terms of Service

ITIS: Integrating Technologies for Interactive Stories
Call for Participation
7th January 2008 - Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Interactive Story has the potential to revolutionise entertainment. As a research area, however, it is becoming increasingly disparate; although groundbreaking work is being done, there has thus far been only minimal consideration of integration. To effectively further the field, the exchange of ideas and the consideration of their integration have become necessary. Without such an effort, there may be no way to create a single interactive story system of sufficiently high quality. The ITIS workshop aims to encourage the integration of techniques for interactive stories and further collaboration between research groups. It will bring together researchers from different aspects of interactive stories, and should aid in ultimately leading to interactive story systems which are more complete and entertaining.

The Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University in Copenhagen is pleased to announce The [Player] Conference, a conference for games researchers taking place August 26th - 29th 2008.

There is no escaping the player in games research. Whether the focus is on formal aspects of games or on studies of actual gamers, the player is an intrinsic part of the gaming situation. Despite this, the underlying assumptions that inform the notion of the player are often not made explicit in the work of game scholars, regardless of their academic background. This is problematic in itself, but even more so in the inter-disciplinary field of games research where unclear terminology may cloud communication across the borders of academic traditions.

GDCSE'08
February 28-March 3, 2008
On board the Celebrity Century cruise ship departing from Miami, FL

Submissions deadline: 22 Oct 2007

GDCSE '08 – the Third Annual Microsoft Academic Days Conference on Game Development in Computer Science Education – is a focal point for academic efforts using computer and console games within the Computer Science curriculum. Jointly sponsored by Microsoft Research and Electronic Arts, the conference is targeted at both computer science educators and researchers, promoting new efforts in the creation and management of courses and curriculum using game development. The conference, now in its third year, will be held aboard the Celebrity Century cruise ship, departing from and returning to Miami, FL with port calls in Key West and Cozumel, Mexico. GDCSE'08 will include talks by invited speakers, presentation of peer-reviewed papers, hands-on tutorials and birds-of-a-feather meetings focusing on a range of topics related to the use of games in computer science education. Researchers and educators are invited to share insights and cutting-edge results relating to the use of games and game technologies in both formal and informal educational contexts.