Games Symposium for Oceania and the Asia Pacific 2023

DiGRA Australia and Chinese DiGRA, in partnership with Pride at Play, are calling for short submissions from game makers, scholars, artists, writers, and players for the Games Symposium for Oceania and the Asia Pacific in Melbourne (Australia) and online, 14–15 June 2023.

The Asia Pacific is overlooked as the largest region of annual game production and consumption. This omission represents an opportunity to share games and games-adjacent research. Given the enormous diversity and variation in videogame production and engagement practices, this symposium aims to spark emerging new perspectives.

The symposium especially encourages researchers working in Chinese sectors to submit their work on game culture to share and collaborate with the workshop attendees.

The organisers invite short submissions that explore how games, and the cultures surrounding them, play out in their local contexts within Oceania, Asia Pacific regions, including overseas Chinese and Asian perspectives around the world. 

Presentations must be contextualised in Oceania or the Asia Pacific and themes may include:

• Defining Oceania and Asia Pacific games research
• Exploring intersectional identities and influencers in overseas Chinese and Asian cultures
• Navigating specific regional characteristics of making and playing games
• Highlighting different or shared lived experiences within game culture
• Contextualising gender, sexuality, race, and nationality in Oceanic and the Asia Pacific regions
• Examining national/transnational game histories and futures
• Recollecting post-mortems of game production in identity play
• Platforming local and regional aesthetics and concerns in games
• Studying gaming counter-publics, political advocacy and resistance
• Celebrating and critiquing game fandoms/role-playing/cosplay

Games Symposium application guidelines

Deadline: 1 May 2023

The organisers acknowledge the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nations as the Traditional Owners of the land. It always was, always will be, Aboriginal land. 

The Games Symposium is part of Engaging Influencers initiative, developed by the Australia Council for the Arts and funded by the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations.