Call for Papers
2nd Workshop on Eudaimonia in Digital Games
At the 2024 Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) Conference
Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
Workshop: May 21, 2024
https://sites.google.com/view/eudaimonia-in-games/
FDG 2024: May 21-24, 2024
https://fdg2024.org/
IMPORTANT DATES
Submission deadline: March 7, 2024 AoE
Notification: March 27, 2024
Camera ready: March 31, 2024
Workshop date: May 21, 2024
OVERVIEW
Researchers and practitioners interested in the eudaimonic emotional experience that can arise from video game design and play are invited to submit to the 2nd Workshop on Eudaimonia in Digital Games at FDG2024.
All fields and viewpoints are welcome and encouraged! Please share with your colleagues and circulate amongst your networks.
Related topics include but are not limited to the following:
- games for change/games with a purpose
- empathy games/deep games
- designing for the mixed affect / reflective emotional experience
- emotional attachment to game characters
- user experience studies of games players
- AI for empathic and/or emotionally engaging NPCs
- exploring different types of challenge and agency in the context of emotionally resonant games
- player motivational models
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
The concept of eudaimonia in the study of video games has been the subject of increasing interest in recent years, especially as juxtaposed to the idea of hedonia which is often assumed as lying at the heart of most video game play experiences. However, there is a lack of consensus on what eudaimonia exactly is, how it manifests in the player experience, and what effect it could have on the emotional experience of game play.
Building on a successful 1st year at last year’s FDG’23, this workshop seeks to bring together researchers from across a broad range of games research fields, such as those represented at FDG. We will discuss this emerging and important concept and potentially create a cross-disciplinary research agenda for delving deeper into how this foundational concept of wellbeing can be applied within the field of digital games.
BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION
Digital games like Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed or Call of Duty evidently provide a different kind of emotional experience to games, such as Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, Papers, Please and Journey. However, we stumble when we attempt to articulate exactly what that difference is.
One area that provides promise are the ideas of hedonia and eudaimonia from positive psychology, as applied to media entertainment. Media research has explored the ideas of hedonistic vs. eudaimonic entertainment as a means for understanding why viewers purposefully view ‘difficult’ films that do not necessarily give pleasure as it is commonly understood.
Until recently, most games-related research focused on the hedonic gameplay experience. However, eudaimonia in video games is a growing field. Recent work has posited the idea of a ‘eudaimonic gameplay experience’ as applied to digital games, to distinguish it from the ‘eudaimonic entertainment experience’ as applied to film and moving image.
However, the eudaimonic emotional experience obtained from digital games remains difficult to accurately describe and ‘pin down’. Whilst there are areas of commonality, there still exists a wide range of interpretations and understandings of the concept. Not only this, but much discussion is focused within the domains of psychology and media and communication studies, and less in other areas that could contribute and benefit such as artificial intelligence (AI), HCI, humanities art and design or other fields.
We therefore propose a workshop to bring together a wide range of academics – such as is represented at FDG, to share and discuss their own understandings and usages of the concept. We hope this will provide a stimulus not only for discussion, but for new lines of research, and providing a benchmark moment in the history of the concept of eudaimonia within digital games.
OBJECTIVES
This workshop aims to:
- Identify areas of common ground and new gaps and opportunities for research into eudaimonia in digital games.
- Establish and develop agreement around issues and opportunities and, in doing so, work towards a research agenda and common understanding.
- Provide a forum for researchers from disparate areas to share their knowledge and ideas with those they would not normally encounter in their research and learn from each other.
The overall vision for the workshop is that researchers from a wide range of fields come together to share and discuss their own take on eudaimonia and, in doing so, inspire and educate those in different fields to themselves in a reciprocal fashion.
Papers should be submitted via FDG EasyChair by the end of 7th March (AoE).
Submissions should be up to 2 pages (excluding references) in ACM SIGCONF (two-column) version of the ACM Primary Template. The submissions must be original and relevant to the workshop. Examples include, but are not limited to, position papers summarising authors’ existing research in this area and how it relates to the workshop theme, papers that review the related literature and offer a new perspective, and papers that describe work-in-progress research.
The submissions will be anonymous and will be blind peer-reviewed by the programme committee. Accepted papers will be included in the FDG Conference proceedings and the ACM Digital Library.
At least one author of each accepted position paper must register for and attend the workshop.
For further questions please contact the workshop organisers at eudaimoniaingames@gmail.com.
ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Tom Cole
Lecturer in Games Development
University of Greenwich, UK
Alena Denisova
Lecturer in Computer Science
University of York, UK
Jo Iacovides
Senior Lecturer in HCI
University of York, UK