[game_preservation] DiGRA panel further information

[Dan Pinchbeck]

Hi all,

As promised, so more information on the DiGRA conference and the
proposed panel session. 

This is from DiGRA's site (www.digra.org) regarding the call for papers:

DiGRA 2009 - Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice
and Theory

Brunel University, West London, United Kingdom, Tuesday 1st September --
Friday 4th September 2009

The South of Britain Consortium are pleased to announce the 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. 


:


DiGRA themselves are a body of academics and researchers ranging right
across games as a field, with a tendency toward the theoretical, and a
focus best described as humanities and social sciences, rather than
technical. The last few conferences have been extremely interesting and
generally speaking, pretty much all games researchers keep a close eye
on the proceedings or attempt to present (or at least attend). In terms
of games and culture, in which sub-field I'd position preservation
(please correct me if that's horribly out of line), it's basically *the*
academic conference to be at. 


:


In terms of the panel, this is what is required:

Panel proposals – 3 – 4 papers which address a common theme, a common
research method, a shared conceptual issue etc.

or 

Workshops – proposals are invited for 2 – 3 hour workshops that address
a range of themes relevant to the aims of the association. Workshops
that are particularly targeted at a wide audience are most welcome.

To submit, abstracts (500-700 words) of each paper are required (full
papers can also be submitted, but it's a little tight on time for that).
The workshop is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure we have enough
time to fill it. What I'd suggest is therefore the following:

Game Preservation Panel 
Paper One: The state of play in game preservation and the role of the
academic community in this 
(Please excuse the corny pun, and note this really is a suggestion only.
I think this would be the opportunity for the SIG to plant it's flag in
the ground and gather support and encourage debate amongst the academic
community)
Paper Two: Migration, Emulation and the KEEP project
(in which we discuss the particular issues with game preservation, the
methodologies adopted, and why KEEP is a significant project)

That leaves two papers to fill. We can do this in one of two ways:

1. Come up with a prioritised paper: in other words, a topic the SIG
agrees must be covered in the panel and that someone agrees to write and
present
2. Place an open call on the SIG and through games network and archiving
email lists to invite contributions. I prefer this option - it also
gives us a chance to see what academic work is being done out there and
possibly draw new researchers to the SIG

The work to be done would therefore be:

a. Write the draft core proposal (I can do this)
b. Agree who is writing and presenting Paper One (I can't do this, I'll
cover paper two with colleagues here, and I'm happy to offer to chair
the session)
c. Either agree on 1-2 papers and authors and write those abstracts!
d. Or draft a call (I can do this), release it (I can do this, but
others will need to spread the word too) and put together a small
editorial team to read any abstracts received and decide what will be
included (I can co-ordinate this, but will need 2-3 other names to
undertake the review process)


Think we can do this? Please let me know thoughts, etc.

Dan

PS - GDC: not sure it
's going to happen this time around, but we will
probably disthat it would be a very good thing to have something technical, rather
than just conceptual, on the table before attending... ;)





Dan Pinchbeck
Advanced Games Research Group
School of Creative Technologies
University of Portsmouth, UK

www.thechineseroom.co.uk