Scholars Have Joined Your Party!: Why Academics Should Join Project Play

Last Monday, I wrote about my personal experience of London, Ontario's Project Play with the promise of writing a critical consideration of the event as a follow-up. My key point is this: events like Project Play are a great opportunity for games studies scholars to connect with the playing community. Exhibitors at Project Play included vendors, local game creators, community organizations and representatives from Fanshawe. Notably and lamentably absent were representatives from local Western University, game studies associations like DiGRA and CGSA, and middle-state publishers in the field like First-Person Scholar. I'll address each in turn.

Because Project Play brings together disparate elements of the playing community, the absence of representation from the local university was disappointing. PP is a great opportunity for gaming-minded departments like Computer Science and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies as well as organizations like the Digital Recreation, Entertainment, Art and Media (DREAM) Group operating out of the university to make community connections. It's important for any university to make local connections, but given that gaming scholars are so often also players and creators, gaming studies needs to be particularly welcoming to the community members who also often play multiple roles in the production, release, use and critique of games. Finally, showing an openness to gaming as a field of interest highlights Western University as potentially welcoming to PP attendees - it's just good marketing. I hope that next year representatives from Western and particularly its game studies-friendly departments and research groups, like those from Fanshawe, step up to support and attend PP in an official capacity.

Independent games studies organizations like DiGRA and CGSA should also consider getting a table at PP and events like it. While these organizations continue to grow, they still need grassroots connections in order to thrive. As said previously, it's often the case that gaming enthusiasts don't just play - they often create and critique as well. Game studies organizations should actively make connections with community events like PP in order to not only raise their own profile among attendees, but also to scout for potential presenters at our own events, particularly for academic attendees not yet applying their professional talents to their personal interest in gaming. The presence of game studies organizations at events like these (particularly in a university town like London) would show that game studies is increasingly a viable research area that can intersect with a wide range of fields.Making connections at events like PP increases the pool of DiGRa's and CGSA's potential attendees and contributors.

Finally, another category of game studies group that should attend events like PP is that of game studies publishers like First Person Scholar (Note: I should dislose that I'm a member of the editing team of FPS and that I'm emailing them about this forthwith). Websites, particularly those that occupy a place between academic blogging and academic journals shoulod use events like PP to court both readers and contributors. While sites like FPS publish the work of game studies scholars specifically, our readership can and should extend beyond the ranks of graduate students and faculty. Connecting with play enthusiasts would raise the profile of middle-state publishers in game studies as well as make connections with academics in other fields not currently connecting their professional work to the games they love.

If I had my way, this year, PP and other events like it would hear requests for tables from university departments and research groups, national and international game studies associations and publishers in the field. The presence of enthusiastic scholars at PP would forge key connections between the academy and the play communiy as part of an event raising funds to help children access play - that's a lot of awesome in one place. As PP demonstrates, everyone deserves a chance to play and academics should be getting in on the fun - for their own good as well as others'.

Project Funway: London, Ontario's Project Play

Copyright Project Play

This is the first of two posts on the second annual edition of Project Play, billed as "southwestern Ontario's biggest hands-on play event." While this post will be more about my personal experience at the event, the follow-up will be a more critical engagement with the event and its potential in general.

I've been eagerly waiting for Project Play since I missed out on it last year. The event aims to combine geek-friendly vendors and organizations and play opportunities ranging from cosplay contests to tabletop demos, to board games, video games and a small sea of MegaBloks. Part of the event's appeal is that on top of being so play-focused, it also raises money to donate games to organizations that help children and families. Last year, they raised over $5000 for gaming bundles donated to local organizations Merrymount Family Support Crisis Centre, Women's Community House and Women's Rural Resource Centre Strathroy and Area. Both as a play enthusiast and a game studies nerd, I was committed to making it this year, come hell or Titans.

Overall, I had a wonderful experience at this year's Project Play. Volunteers and exhibitors were friendly and the range of activities was both impressive and heart-warming to watch. I also came home with a sweet bag full of loot, mostly posters, and a mitt-ful of cards from geek-oriented vendors. The urge to splurge was a big part of my attendance - my brother and I went in looking mostly to observe and shop for decorations for our apartment. Both being a bit shy, we were interested in but a bit circumspect of the group play opportunities, so I can't speak to the experience of the event by folks more inclined to jump in without being invited / coaxed.

While I came home full of geek love and I thank the organizers and volunteers for putting on a great event, I do have three suggestions for next year. These suggestions mostly run on volunteers and organization and I fully intend to volunteer next year. Contact Project Play to do so yourself.

Previous to the event, announcements of cosplay contests and King of Tokyo tournaments were exciting, but the lack of a publicly posted schedule was frustrating. While I recognize the difficulty of organizing events like this, having a schedule to reference would help next year's attendees plan their day at the event.While posting prior to the event would be ideal, even a day-of schedule posted at the welcoming tables would be very helpful.

Another resource for attendees would be additional support navigating the campus. While the map on the event's web site was clear, the signage on the campus led us to park far from the right building. My ankle is still healing from being sprained, so the walk to and the wrong turn-induced journey through the wastes of Fanshawe's parking lots from the event led to a slight re-injury I'm nursing today. Next year, the event could use volunteers at the main entry to campus, directing attendees to the right parking lot so anyone with energy or mobility issues didn't re-enact the Journey to the West  Oxford street that we did. Additional signage including maps for those leaving the event would also be helpful.

A final suggestion for next year's event would be that play events consistently have signage or volunteers stationed there to inform and, let's be frank, coax attendees as needed. I suspect that no few of the attendees are as socially gun-shy as myself and having a friendly face to say, "Hey, this is the board game area. Are you looking to try a game or for more players to join one?" would make a big difference. Had there been more attendee outreach, I think Matt and I would have tried a turn at D&D or a board game, but instead, we mostly observed.

These observations were, though, possibly the best part of Project Play for Matt and me. We saw attendees and exhibitors in costume - many Finn hats were in evidence - we saw fruitful, relaxed interaction between people coming together to play. The event was colourful and welcoming and both of us felt very much among our geeky kind. Simply attending was really the biggest treat of the day and  we both look forward to next year.

If you think you'd like to join in next year, contact Project Play by their website, Facebook profile, or Twitter. Tell them how much you love play (and large, clear maps).

Lego Heads and Gamer Tales: CGSA 2013

My envy of those attending this year's DiGRA has me thinking back on my first attendance of the Canadian Game Studies Association's conference at the 2013 Congress of the Humanities in Victoria, B.C. CGSA was my first game studies conference and it remains a high point in my time as a game studies nerd.

Because I operate out of an English department, my area of interest sometimes leaves me feeling like a cuckoo in a nest of some other, much less annoying bird. After presenting on Mass Effect at ACCUTE in 2012, even though it was an excellent conference and I was treated very well, I was hungry for a conference in my field.

Going into the CGSA, I was nervous. Presenting on games at an English conference or being the only presenter on games at a multimedia conference is in some ways an easy job. You may feel like the responsibility of representing game studies as a vibrant and, above all, legitimate field rests solely on the shoulders of some chump who happens to be you, but you're also relatively unlikely to get called out by someone who knows game studies better than you do.

A conference in your field, however, has a whole different set of anxieties, embodied by the large number of brilliant peers you suddenly have. I imagine that every specialized conference has this effect to a certain extent, but when game studies is still being debated in some universities, when the legitimacy of the field itself is still part of the argument that has to be made in dissertation proposals, game studies conferences will continue to be more of a haven (or cabal) than ones on Shakespearean Studies, for example. The presenter swag bag in the form of a Lego figurine whose parts you could swap with other attendees certainly helped this feeling.

Blame the trading of Lego heads or the open bar after the AGM if you must, but for me, attending CGSA was like coming home. Being presented with the sheer mass of brain-power present was like being punched in the neck. But gobsmacked or not, being among scholars who assumed the importance of game studies as a base for other thinking was pretty heady stuff.

They key things I took away from this year's CGSA were three: the dual poles of Toronto and Montreal, the many hats of the presenters, and correspondingly, the exciting range of presentations. While we had scholars from all over, there were substantial camps working in Toronto and Montreal. I'm hoping to make connections in both places, likely thanks to my close friendship with the Greyhound company. I also want to know about game communities in other cities: what's going on in Edmonton and Waterloo?

Presenters ranged from game designers to game studies professors and starry-eyed graduate students in a wide range of fields. Even beyond the interdisciplinarity that typifies game studies, part of what's so attractive about the field is that creators, players  and critics so often wear all three hats. It means that conversations aren't limited to the academic perspective and increasingly, it encourages scholastically-inclined game nerds like myself to learn how to create as well as critique (note: my efforts have not yet proved fruitful).

Part of those conversations include presentations like the ones at CGSA this year, which ranged from deeply personal discussions of the relationship between gaming and anxiety (@Forestghost_), MMOs in Russia (Cat Goodfellow, who has the best name in game studies), and the problems presented by gamification (Mark Chen). On a purely selfish level, hearing about such different topics was really invigorating for my own research.

And that, I think, is the most important part of conferences like CGSA. Yes, they make important connections, they encourage cross-pollination and they keep people informed. But they send participants home excited and it's passion and the grim commitment that follows that gets the work done.

After coming home from the CGSA, I finished my dissertation proposal. Coincidence? Mostly not.