Thinking game culture: perspectives of game science. Game science conference as part of the Krönchen Convention

Conference text

This conference aims to use the concept of game culture in the singular as an analytical focus in order to examine the cultural significance of games in their diverse manifestations. The focus is not only on games in the narrower sense, but also on game-like structures and practices in areas such as politics, business, science, education and everyday life. Game culture is thus understood as a constitutive or catalytic element of social processes that opens up new perspectives on social dynamics.

The double format of convention and symposium invites participants to discuss the balance of proximity and distance between research and play culture: How do we as researchers deal with problematic parts of gaming culture? How do we successfully intervene in internal discourses, especially in the face of reactionary tendencies within gaming culture (Gamergate, authenticity debate)? The convention offers the opportunity to come into contact with the knowledge bases of the communities and to integrate them into our academic perspective. We look forward to a productive dialog and the liveliness that the community will bring.

The German-language examination of the phenomenon of games is currently experiencing a conceptual expansion: while game studies traditionally focuses on digital games, game studies is opening up a broader understanding of game(s) as a cultural practice. The concept of game culture is taking center stage: it not only refers to the diversity of playful artefacts and practices, but also to play as an attitude, as a specific form of relating to the world that manifests itself in different social contexts. "Play culture" is deliberately meant here as a collective singular that articulates what is common in the diversity of different play practices and communities: a playful mode that allows play cultures to be analyzed across and together.

Thinking game and culture together runs through the history of game research: from the roots of the subject in a wide variety of disciplines to its current form as institutionalized game studies. As early as 1938, the cultural historian Johan Huizinga formulated his famous thesis in the subtitle to "Homo Ludens" that the origin of culture lies in play; and Brian Sutton-Smith reflected on "Toys as Culture" in 1986. Public gaming events such as LAN parties made gaming visible as a 'subculture' from the 1990s onwards, and "video game culture" has long since been identified as an object of study at the intersection of games and cultural studies (Shaw 2010). In this context, games are not only expanding their own cultural spaces, but are also perceived and researched as an important component of the wider contemporary culture (Muriel/Crawford 2018).

Game research approaches continue to be distributed across disciplines such as board game studies, (digital) game studies, media studies, education, social sciences and literary studies. As the cultural studies perspective stands at odds with these approaches, it can perform an integrative function. It allows us, in the sense of game studies as extended play & game studies, to focus on game-shaped phenomena and practices as producers and components of culture, regardless of whether these take place in a rule-based manner, using certain media technology, or with the aim of conveying learning content. (Adamowsky 2014)

Conference program

09:45 Welcome

10:00 Field of tension 'game': game culture between styles, practices and communities

Junes Albert / Luke Peukert, University of Bayreuth

10:30 One, none or several game cultures? On the transcendent spaces of interference between digital and analog games

Michael Conrad, University of Konstanz

11:00 Play Culture and the Psychology of Play

Federico Alvarez Igarzábal, HBK Essen

11:30 Play-Along: A methodological approach to analyzing play culture as a social phenomenon

Rouven Kaiser, University of Augsburg - Center for Climate Resilience

12:00 Lunch break

14:00 Dispositif of the virtual: Total Refusal's machinima as a critical gaming practice

Jingwen Li, University of Potsdam

14:30 Who knows the most movies with Bill Murray? Cinephile: A Card Game as a form of film mediation and maturity test

Christian Alexius, Philipps University Marburg

15:00 Devil's game?! Game mechanics and social interactions in the series "The Devil's Plan"

Ron Heckler, German Society e. V.

15:30 The history of in-game concerts: Ludomusical performances from MUDs to MMOs

Karina Moritzen, Universitat Oldenburg/Universidade Federal Fluminense

16:00 The big quake 5: A case study on the influence of the "killer game" debate(s) on the development of the LAN scene in Germany

David Betzing, University of Lucerne, SNF-Starting Grant project "The Microcomputer as a Medium of Transformation in Europe, 1980-2000"

16:30 Wandering between worlds - transmediality and economization in the trading card game Magic: The Gathering

Martin Jehle, Philipps University Marburg / University of Hildesheim Foundation

17:00 With meeples and dice through regional history. Game culture in academic and library contexts

Robin Reschke / Martin Munke, SLUB Dresden

17:30 From games of chance to strategy games: forms and functions of the Robinson game from the 19th century to the present day

Jana Vijayakumaran, University of Duisburg-Essen

18:00 Final discussion

18:15 End of the conference program

(subject to change)

Note on admission

Please register via the following e-mail address: info@spielformen.net. Registered participants of the conference will receive a discount code for the Con-Ticket, with which they pay the reduced admission price.

Literature

Adamowsky, Natascha (2014): Game Studies and Cultural Studies. In: Klaus Sachs-Hombach Klaus/Jan-Noel Thon (eds.): Game Studies. Current approaches to computer game research. Cologne: Herbert von Halem Verlag.

Huizinga, Johan (1956): Homo ludens. Vom Ursprung der Kultur im Spiel (= Rowohlts deutsche Enzyklopädie, Vol. 21). Hamburg: Rowohlt.

Muriel, Daniel/Crawford, Garry (2018): Video Games as Culture: Considering the Role and Importance of Video Games in Contemporary Society. London: Routledge.

Shaw, Adrienne (2010): What Is Video Game Culture? Cultural Studies and Game Studies. Games and Culture, 5(4), 403-424.

Sutton-Smith, Brian (1986): Toys as culture. New York: Gardner Press, Inc.