FROG – Future and Reality of Gaming

FROG – Future and Reality of Gaming 2024
“Gaming the Apocalypse”

18^th Vienna Games Conference
Friday, 11 – Sunday, 13 October 2024

While thousands of enthusiastic players are gathering annually at the Game City in the Vienna City Hall, the international conference “FROG – Future and Reality of Gaming” invites to an academic discourse on the subject of games and play. This year the conference is dedicated to connections between play & games, crisis and hope, and invites game scholars, creators, educators, students, activists and enthusiasts from around the globe to come together and reflect on the apocalypse through a lens of games & play.

!!! Registration is open! Get your FROG tickets here before 7 October 2024.

Conference Mode:
The conference will take place on-site in the Vienna City Hall. Online participants can follow the conference via live stream. Live-Talks will be only possible on-site. Speakers who cannot join us in Vienna, submit a video talk. The videos will be included in the FROG YouTube playlist. A 3-minute teaser of the video talk will be played in front of the audience at the conference.

Conference Location:
Vienna City Hall
Friedrich-Schmidt-Platz 1
1010 Wien
Austria

Location on Google Maps
Practical Information

Hashtag for the conference: #FROG2024

Follow us!
Twitter: @FROG_Vienna_
Facebook: @frogvienna

We also keep you updated via @appliedgames on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Bluesky

All talks are scheduled in the CET / UTC+1 time zone (Vienna).

Friday, 11 October 2024
12:00 - 13:00	Registration
13:00 - 13:15	Welcome & Introduction
13:15 - 14:30	SAVING THE WORLD THROUGH GAMES I: EDUCATION AND BEYOND Sonja Gabriel \| KPH Vienna/Krems, Austria Gaming Against Deception: Leveraging Interactive Media to Build Digital Resilience in the Age of Misinformation Linda Rustemeier \| Goethe University, Institute for Didactics (of Mathematics and) Computer Science, Germany Can Diversity and Inclusion in Game Design for (Social Awareness) Games save the (Game Education) World? Elke Hemminger \| Protestant University of Applied Sciences Bochum, Germany Crisis Simulations and Sociological Insights: Using Digital Games for Future Scenarios in Higher Education
14:30 - 15:00	Break
15:00 - 16:35	“I HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS”: EXPERIENCING THE APOCALYPSE Felix Schniz \| University of Klagenfurt, Austria Scales of Apocalypse: Space and Affect in Dystopian Video Games between Sacred and Profane Mary Eleanora Fimbel \| Evelyn Scott School, Game Designer, Australia The Power of Unhappy Endings Ellie Chraibi \| University of Klagenfurt, Austria Inside: A Reflection of the Avatar in a Dystopian World Andreas Wieser \| University of Innsbruck, Austria Playing Civilists at War. But What about the Players?
16:35 - 17:00	Break
17:00 - 18:15	SAVING THE WORLD THROUGH GAMES II: THINGS TO CONSIDER FOR MAKERS OF GAMES Matthes Lindner \| Spielfabrique 360° UG, Germany Champions for hope: the power of future-literate game developers Krzysztof Chmielewski \| Kazimierz Wielki University, Poland Convincing the convinced – games with a message of ecology and identity. Space Gliders case study Ruth Dorothea Eggel \| Cologne Game Lab, TH Köln / University of Applied Science, Germany Towards Greener Video Game Making Processes and Practices – People and the Planet
18:15 - 18:30	Break
18:30 - 19:45	FROG DEEP DIVE PANEL Gaming & Youth Work for a better Future - Perspectives on Engagement, Identity, and Social Impact Alexander Fontó \| Beratungsstelle Extremismus, Austria Paula Gludovatz \| University for Continuing Education Krems, Austria Susanne Studeny \| SaiNetz, Austria Moderation: TBA \| WienXtra, Austria
END OF FRIDAY'S PROGRAM

Saturday, 12 October 2024
09:15 - 09:45	Registration
09:45 - 10:00	Welcome Notes
10:00 - 11:35	SAVING THE WORLD THROUGH GAMES III: 4 DIFFERENT APPROACHES Klemens Franz \| atelier198, Austria Thematic Transparency: How Metaphoric Structures in Analogue Games can help us understand Matthias Mittelberger \| Weitblick GmbH, Austria How to win the World Climate Game Kateřina Goryczka \| UMPRUM / CASUA / Klokner Institute CTU, Czech Republic IASTIJL Tijana Rupcic \| Central European University, Austria The Great Unraveling: Exploring the idea of environmental collapse and technology in dystopian video games
11:35 - 12:00	Break
12:00 - 13:00	FROG KEYNOTE Joshua Eric Sawyer \| Obsidian Entertainment, USA We Are Always Living in the Final Days
13:00 - 14:00	Lunch Break
14:00 - 14:30	FROG VIDEO-TALK TEASER Pratama Wirya Atmaja \| University of Pembangunan Nasional Veteran Jawa Timur, Indonesia How Apocalyptic Despair Turns into a Collective Hope in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Giuseppe Femia \| University of Waterloo, Canada Disability, Magic, and Technology in TTRPGs Kseniia Harshina \| University of Klagenfurt, Austria Unraveling the Romanticization of Colonial, Imperial and Authoritarian Narratives in Modern Video Games Alvin Laurentius \| Germany The Restaurant at the End of the World: Food in Postapocalyptic Games Kevin Mercer \| Southern Illinois University, USA The Cute Shall Inherit the Earth: Animal Protagonists in Post-Human Game Worlds Leonid Moyzhes \| Charles University, Czech Republic Proliferation of Cults in post-apocalyptic Videogames: Case Study of Metro: Exodus. Jonas Müller-Laackman \| State and University Library Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky, Germany How much Apocalypse in the Apocalypse? On the revelational Aspect of apocalyptic Concepts in (post-)apocalyptic Games. Victoria Mummelthei \| Freie Universität Berlin, Germany The Apocalypse Within: Portraying Psychological Resilience Through Games Like Hellblade Maksim Podvalnyi \| Institute of Business and Design (Moscow), Russian Federation Post-apocalyptic Societies of Scarcity: the Case of “Legacy: Life Among the Ruins” Kevin Rebecchi \| Université de Liège, UR Traverses, Liège Game Lab, Belgium Uncovering and End of the World: Neurodiversity in Apocalyptic Video Games
14:30 - 15:20	LEARNING TO LOVE THE BOMB: SPECTERS OF THE COLD WAR Malcolm Craig \| Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom Histories of Wars That Never Were: Tabletop role-playing games and the Cold War nuclear threat Pascal Marc Wagner \| GamesMarkt, Germany Linguistics of the Post-Apocalypse – Atomic Semiotics and its Application in Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4 and 76
15:20 - 15:40	Break
15:40 - 17:15	WE HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHOW YOU: APOCALYPTIC LANDSCAPES & ATTRACTIONS David J. Cross \| University Stuttgart, Germany Walking Towards Extinction: Psychogeography and Détournement in the Fallout Series Xaver Boxhammer \| Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany Umurangi Generation, Photographic Framing, and the Rhetoric of Apocalyptic Anticipation in the Contemporary Ecogame Štěpán Šanda \| Charles University, Czech Republic Such a disaster: Apocalypse in Eastern European Landscapes Daniel Singh \| University of Innsbruck, Austria Of romanticised ruins and provisional shelters: Architecture in games after the fall of civilisation
17:15 - 17:45	Break
17:45 - 19:00	FROG PANEL DISCUSSION OLD WORLD BLUES. ›Fallout‹ und das Spiel mit der Postapokalypse Björn Blankenheim \| freelance author and lecturer, Germany Tanja Hojahn \| Universität Regensburg, Germany Pascal Marc Wagner \| GamesMarkt, Germany Thomas Wernbacher \| University for Continuing Education Krems, Austria Moderation: Arno Görgen \| Academy of the Arts, BFH Bern, Switzerland Rudolf Inderst \| IU Internationale Hochschule, Germany
END OF SATURDAYS'S PROGRAM
20:00 - open end	Informal FROG conference dinner (see e-mail and on-site conference program for location)

Sunday, 13 October 2024
09:45 - 10:15	Registration
10:15 - 10:30	Welcome Notes
10:30 - 11:45	FIGHTING FOR YOURSELF: NEOLIBERAL FANTASIES Julia Tyll-Schranz, Mateusz Gorecki & Martin Greunz \| Verein für Geschichte der ArbeiterInnenbewegung / Rarebyte OG / Arbeiterkammer Wien, Austria Manchester 4.0 Fiona S. Schönberg \| Regensburg University, Germany Man, Man Never Changes - The Limitations of Post-Apocalyptic Fiction in the Fallout Franchise and Beyond Eugen Pfister \| Hochschule der Künste Bern - HKB, Austria / Switzerland Zombies Ate Democracy - How the Idea of Democracy and Individualism is negotiated in Zombie Games
11:45 - 12:00	Break
12:00 - 13:00	FROG KEYNOTE Dawn Stobbart \| Lancaster University, United Kingdom From Ruin to Resiliance: Thriving in Virtual Devastation
13:00 - 14:00	Lunch Break
14:00 - 14:15	MINI-WORKSHOP Christoph Kaindel \| Wiener Bildungsserver, Austria Zombie is just a state of mind
14:15 - 15:50	PROMISES OF THE APOCALYPSE Simon Huber \| University of Applied Arts, Austria Apocalyptic Thinking in Pursuit of Ludology Alexander Hurezeanu \| Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada Transcultural Imaginaries through Classic Fallout Mods from the former Eastern Bloc Mario Donick \| Germany Phantasies of Longtermism in Starfield and other space-themed digital Games Danny Hinrichs \| Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany Between Pre- and Post-Apocalypse: Disco Elysium and the Critique of Apocalyptic Escapism
15:50 - 16:10	Break
16:10 - 17:00	IT WAS EARTH ALL ALONG: APOCALYPTIC METAPHORS Flavia Mazzanti & Manuel Bonell \| Immerea, Austria Surreal Worlds and Digital Distopias: Art and Games in Times of Chaos Chris Carbonaro \| LMU Munich, Germany Those Who Live in Death – A Hauntological Approach to Elden Ring’s Eternal Post-Apocalyptic World
17:00 - 17:15	Closing Words
END OF FROG 2024

Vienna Games Conference