Christin Reisenhofer

Christin Reisenhofer is an educational scientist and a passionate gamer, so it came as a logical consequence that she would focus on game studies in the context of educational science. She is employed as a Praedoc University Assistant at the Department of Psychoanalytic Pedagogy at the University of Vienna and as an external lecturer for media pedagogy and didactics at the University of Krems. She is currently conducting an empirical study with co-author Andreas Gruber on the question of how adolescents experienced the Corona crisis and the significance of computer games in this context.

Andreas Gruber (University of Vienna) is a social pedagogue, BA student, and a passionate gamer as well. He studies educational science at the University of Vienna and has designed and directed (social) media training courses for children and teenagers as part of his work in socio-educational residential communities. Based on his bachelor thesis, which was developed under the guidance of seminar leader Christin Reisenhofer, he co-authored the study below.

“But without games it would have been somehow even grayer”. About computer games, adolescents, and the question of opportunities for magic in the corona crisis.

FROG 2021 – Talk

Adolescents are considered to be especially affected by negative effects of the COVID-19 crisis. Multiple stressors and challenges associated with the pandemic can impact both the psychological and physical well-being of adolescents and young adults. Above all, the challenges that arose from the pandemic, such as limited social interactions and agency, as well as severely restricted access to education and leisure time activities, led to hardships for adolescents. It is all the more interesting that initial findings from empirical studies suggest that adolescents’ gaming increased during the pandemic. Digital gaming worlds provide a wide range of experiences and interactions, potentially substituting the lack of real-life access in a way. Agency, digital relationship building, and escapism may provide relief for players, especially in times of a pandemic. But to what extent can digital games counteract the challenges experienced in the COVId-19 period through their inherent immersion and provide opportunities to form and maintain relationships? How do adolescents experience computer gaming during this time – as magical or harrowing? This talk focuses on the initial findings of the qualitative-empirical study “Ich Zocke” (I play), in which a total of 15 gamers from Austria and Germany talk about their experience of the pandemic in terms of perceived stress, challenges, and their gaming behavior. The primary focus of the presentation will be on how the adolescents express and interpret their desire, ability, and necessity to immerse in digital gaming worlds. The secondary focus will then be on how adolescents evaluate computer games in terms of digital relationships in times of social distancing. Finally, we will shed further light on which games in particular were discussed by the interviewees and also on the basis upon which the game choice has been made, especially in times of crisis.


Benjamin Hanussek

Benjamin Hanussek has a degree in archaeology (focus: archaeogaming) and is currently doing his MA in Game Studies & Engineering at the Alpen-Adria University, Klagenfurt. He leads a project on “Moral Complexity in Videogames” and functions as tutor of the Klagenfurt Critical Game Lab. Besides that, he co-develops indie titles under the banner of “CtrlZ”.

Dis/enchanted by Moral Complexity: The Magic of Moral Engagement in Videogames

FROG 2021 – Talk

Co-Author:
Tom Tucek (Klagenfurt Critical Game Lab, Alpen-Adria University)

Moral dilemmas have become an integral part of many videogame narratives nowadays. Games such as Frostpunk engage players with carefully crafted experiences that encourage players to apply their moral principles. Such an approach grants an additional, philosophical dimension to the architecture of game design, thus allowing players a more intimate, intellectual engagement with the medium. However, the phenomenon of morality remains an abstract and unactionable concept in game studies, which might provide interesting perspectives, but lacks a closer comprehension of how videogames operationalise morality to enchant or disenchant players. We argue, that at the core of this dis/enchantment is the notion of moral complexity, defined here as the degree to which a game provides alternatives and/or commentary to violence and deceit. Moral complexity engages players in different ways according to their individual moral competence – the ability to translate one’s moral principles into action. If moral complexity of a game correlates properly to moral competence, players become enchanted, which lets them experience engagement comparable to Csikszentmihalyi’s notion of flow. If they do not correlate, players become disenchanted and potentially disengage from the experience. In order to exhibit the dis/enchanting function of moral complexity in videogames, we intend to present the game Frostpunk as a state-of-the-art example. Moreover, Georg Lind’s notion of moral competence is used as a device to understand a player’s ability to engage with moral encounters. Furthermore, our concept of moral complexity is presented as a device to operationalise the phenomenon of morality in videogames. On the basis of our theoretical framework, we explain how we implemented moral complexity in a prototype game, designed for a study that tests for correlations between moral complexity, moral competence, and enjoyment of a game. In the end, we will elaborate on the difficulties we encountered in our design process and open up the room for critical discussion.


Alexis Ibarra Ibarra

Alexis Ibarra Ibarra holds a BA in International Relations by the Mexico’s Autonomous Institute of Technology (ITAM), where she also completed advanced studies in Economics and Applied Mathematics. She also holds a MA in Communication oriented to New Media and Global Processes by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She specialized in Videogames, Hermeneutics, and representation of national values. Currently, she is a student at the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Degree in Media Arts Cultures Programme. Besides being a researcher, she is an artist and writer. Her main interests are Videogames, Art, Politics, Economics, Physics, and Clinical Psychopathology.

The Magic of Videogame Art Curation: Remediating Videogames to Physical Exhibitions

FROG 2021 – Talk

The ‘Videogame’ is a medium, with very particular aesthetic characteristics, that can be used to create artworks despite some voices that still reject that idea. The aesthetic of videogames, in short, is composed by representational and symbolic aspects, mechanics, feedback systems, interactivity and participation, and, of course, the generation of the magic called immersion. They are both digital and analogue (i.e., devices, controllers, screens): ignoring the latter is disregarding an important element of their materiality. Since videogames are complex works, curating them is particularly challenging but also exciting. Some curation strategies rely on the digital nature of them (i.e., digital archives) while others dedicate to the preservation of hardware; however, these approaches make it hard to (re)create the magical sense of immersion. The curation of videogames for physical spaces such as museums, galleries, and exhibitions could help to (re)create that magic. In that regard, (re)mediation is a valuable tool that should be used to translate the magical world of videogames to the physical world. Traditional and new media approaches, installation art, Augmented Reality, as well as Virtual Reality, are strategies available for the curator. Curators should go beyond their traditional roles and offer interactive and immersive experiences that encompass the whole videogame aesthetics, even if that poses the difficult question of differentiating spaces created for pure entertainment and those created for culture and art appreciation. Therefore, the job of a curator is not only having to deal with Academia, preservation, documentation, and theory: just as videogames create magic, the curator has to create magic too.


Daniela Hau

Daniela Hau is part of the innovation department at SCRIPT (Service de Coordination de la Recherche et de l’Innovation pédagogiques et technologiques). Her work and research focuses on digital game-based learning, AI and media literacy. She is also a member of the ET2020 working group “Digital Education: Learning, Teaching and Assessment”. In March 2019, Daniela has completed her second Master’s degree in MediaGaming Pedagogy. In her “free-time” she works as a secondary school teacher for economics and (digital) communication in Luxembourg.

Digital games@school… does it really work?

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

Despite a broad consensus in research on the potential of digital games to promote learning, they have so far hardly been used in formal educational contexts. An exploratory study on the use of digital games in schools was set up to understand this discrepancy: In twelve teaching projects, important input and process variables as well as (learning) outcomes of digital game-based learning were examined. Overall, the results point out that computer games are an effective didactic instrument, which, however, must be didactically integrated into the lessons by the teacher. The selection of the game, the duration of the game and the transfer from the digital to the real world proved to be particularly relevant for a positive learning outcome.


Thomas-Gabriel Rüdiger

Dr. Thomas-Gabriel Rüdiger is a criminologist at the Institute of Police Science at the University of Police of the State of Brandenburg. As one of the first representatives of the field of cybercriminology in Germany, his research interests focus on digital crime, digital policing and criminological theories in digital space. He wrote his doctoral thesis at the University of Hamburg on cybergrooming. He is author and editor of a large number of academic publications and a frequently quoted interview partner and regularly advises political decision makers.

The risk of Cybergrooming in Onlinegames

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

Children of all ages meet in onlinegames unknown players from all over the world in a playful environment. However, children can also be confronted with the dark sides of other gamers (fraud, hatespeech but also cybergrooming). Cybergrooming describes a form of behaviour in which an offender communicates with a child to enable sexual abuse of the child. Offenders use the playful experience with children, low protection mechanisms and partly also the harmless graphics of some games. The presentation will discuss onlinegames as platforms for cybergrooming, prevention strategies and the responsibility of the society (parents, companies, police).


Josey Meyer

Josey Meyer is a senior undergraduate student at Texas A&M University, studying at Danube University Krems (Austria) this fall. She is working with four other Aggies in their educational game design program for study abroad. Previously, Josey worked at the TAMU Learning Interactive Virtual Environments (LIVE) Lab with two of her current teammates, developing art history educational games for classrooms such as ARTé: Lumiere and the upcoming ARTé: Reverie. In summer 2020, Josey interned at Blizzard Entertainment as a dungeon designer on Diablo IV and will return as an employee working on that same project upon graduation.

Reamifton North – a game about the United States Postal Service

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

Co-Authors:
Michael Black
Jared Derry
Kathryn Friesen
Montserrat Patino
(Texas A&M University)

Over the course of a semester, our team of five undergraduate Visualization students from Texas A&M University set out to create a game that explores the current political climate of the United States through the lens of the postal service. We ended up creating a prototype of Reamifton North, a resource management simulation game. You play as Cas, the new hire at the post office, and it is your job to keep the place up and running by organizing and delivering packages. In the face of a global pandemic and the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the national government took deliberate steps to sabotage the United States Postal Service (USPS). Our game is a critical response to this, which also addresses a variety of social injustices, including economic inequality, racial inequality, inadequate pandemic response, and voter suppression. Although it is currently only in the prototype stage, the full plans for the game include a story with multiple narrative paths and endings. The player would face critical decisions throughout the game that reflect events based on real-life United States politics. Gameplay becomes progressively harder as the story goes on and the post office the player works at is slowly stripped of necessary equipment as the government withdraws support. The increasingly difficult gameplay and narrative developments would aim to capture the frustration and despair felt by many people during the real-life events happening during the development of this game. Our goal was to create a game that would be representative of what is currently happening with the USPS, and the overall political climate of the United States, and to encourage the player to empathize with those most affected by these events.


Alexiei Dingli

Alexiei Dingli is a Professor of AI. He has been conducting research and working in the field of AI for the past two decades. His work was rated World Class by international experts and won various prizes including the Semantic Web Challenge, the first prize by the European Space Agency, the e-Excellence Gold Seal award, the Malta Innovation Award and the World Intellectual Property Organization award. He has published several peer reviewed papers and books. He is also involved in various AI projects with local and international organisations. He forms part of the Malta.AI national task-force.

Lil gangsta – kids playing criminals

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

When people play games (especially online ones), many do not realise that their actions can cause harm to other players. The most common kind of harm is psychological through bullying. But some of these players even form part of criminal organisations aimed at causing even more damage and at committing real world crimes. This might include financial scams or even sexual grooming which might also lead to human trafficking. One doesn’t have to be an official criminal to commit a serious crime; many people experienced online thefts and there have also been a few cases of murders too, all of which executed by normal people. Unfortunately, these platforms have become a fertile ground for all sorts of crime. And having the dark web round the corner, one can easily get access to real weapons, thus transferring virtual issues to the real life in no time. In this talk, we will have a look at various game crimes which happened in the past years, the reasons behind them and explore different ways in which they can be prevented.


Michael Wagner

Michael Wagner is the Department Head of the Digital Media Department at the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design. In this capacity he leads one of the top ranked game design programs in the United States. His research interests revolve around the fundamental principles of serious game design, particularly with respect to games for education. More recently, he started to explore the principles of immersive audio production within the context of game design and development.

The Inverted Gaming Degree Program – Re-envisioning Game Design Education in the Era of Social Distancing

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has forced most University into a prolonged remote instructional mode. One unintended consequence of this move to remote instruction is that it has proven that online driven education is a viable alternative to traditional models in higher education. This development questions traditional business models of campus universities that rely heavily on the ability to provide a rich educational on-campus experience to students as well as faculty and staff, a problem that is particularly relevant in the area of game design education as well as design education in general. This talk proposes a solution for this problem by developing a framework that separates formal and informal educational activities of campus-based game design degree programs which can be performed in an online or remote mode from those which cannot. The result is an educational approach that is not only more resilient towards emergencies or catastrophes such as a global pandemic, but is also more efficient and flexible as it opens up possibilities that have not yet been accessible within a traditional educational face to face environment. These include opportunities for low residency instruction or the integration of remote expert instructors into the on-campus learning experience. As a practical example, the paper describes out how this model is currently being implemented within the Department of Digital Media at the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University in Philadelphia. The department is home to several well-established undergraduate and graduate programs, including a top ranked game design program, that rely on a number of instructional and research labs with state of the art technology. By inverting entire programs instead of only individual classes, we are able to utilize the advantages of remote instruction while simultaneously maintaining a rich educational on-site experience that gives students access to technologies that would otherwise not be accessible to them.


Scot Osterweil

Scot Osterweil is Creative Director of the Education Arcade at MIT. Game designs include Zoombinis (math and logic), Vanished: The MIT/Smithsonian Game (environmental science), Labyrinth (math), Caduceus (medicine), and iCue (history). He is Creative Director of Learning Games Network where he led the design of the Gates Foundation funded Xenos (ESL), and Quandary, named 2013 Game of the Year (Games for Change festival). He co-authored the book Resonant Games and served as the play consultant on the Emmy Award winning Amazon TV series Tumbleleaf.

The world reborn: reimagining player identity.

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

All games offer opportunities for players to enhance their identities as effective and competent actors in their lives’ narratives. But whether acknowledged or not by their creators, games sold in the marketplace are part of a cultural conversation that is mediated by the demands of capital and hierarchies, a conversation that often distorts player self-identity in harmful ways. This talk is a challenge to game designers/writers/producers to think more deeply about player identity in the games they create, and offer suggestions for how to rethink player identity.


Jeremiah Diephuis

Jeremiah Diephuis (US/AT) was born in 1976 and grew up in the great arcades of the American Midwest. After studies in computational linguistics and communication and knowledge media, he turned his focus to the use of games for various purposes in the public sphere. He currently works as a lecturer and researcher in the Digital Media department at the Hagenberg Campus of the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria and is a founding member of the research group “Playful Interactive Environments”.

Serious Detours: A Critical Reflection on Developing Games for Education

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

Educational computer games have been promising to revolutionize our school systems since the early 1970s, with early titles such as Oregon Trail and Mathteroids demonstrating how typical school content could potentially be employed in games. However, almost fifty years later, educational games, which have effectively been subsumed by the category of serious games, are still rarely utilized in schools, at least not on a wide scale. This is in direct contrast to such statements as the fairly recent IEEE prediction that “gaming will be integrated into more than 85 percent of daily tasks by 2020.” This talk will address some of the previous successes of educational games but also the challenges they currently face. In particular, such difficult issues as determining the appropriate level of abstraction, weighing the complexity and accuracy of the underlying models and dealing with different player expectations. The presentation will draw on some of the projects that were developed in the research group “Playful Interactive Environments” as well as other serious games developed both in and outside of Austria. Finally, some experiences regarding educational game design and playtesting during the pandemic will also be shared.