Deadline Extended: Games as Research Environments Workshop at FDG 2017

[Angie Avera]

Hi everyone! 

The deadline for submissions for the Workshop on Tracing the Boundaries of Games as Research Environments has been extended! We are accepting 2-4 page position papers, written in extended abstract format. 

Deadline for submissions: Now May 22, 2017!

Details and submissions: gamesasresearchenvironments.wordpress.com/

FDG 2017, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, August 14-17, 2017

Games as research environments offer solutions to common problems facing empirical research such as providing opportunity for increased replicability, enhancing the ability to simulate complex environments, acting as reliable testbeds and generating expansive data on subject interactions. For these reasons, across disciplines, researchers are increasingly enlisting the use of games. This trend is not without challenges, however, and currently not enough is known about how games could be fully utilized in service as rigorous research environments and the cost, complexity and rigor needed to produce these types of games remains high.

This workshop aims to facilitate a discussion surrounding the major challenges faced and lessons learned by those using games as research environments. Additionally, this workshop will provide an opportunity for researchers to gain a more complete understanding of the various applications of games as research environments across domains.

For more information, please refer to the call for participation.

The focus of the workshop will be to advance the collective understanding of a) the types of phenomena, problems and questions games are being used to study, b) the implications of extrapolating data from simulated environments to the the real-world, c) the theoretical, computational and design hurdles researchers consistently face and d) the potential value and concerns in employing games as research environments.

 Topics Include: 

● What are games as research environments?

● Why would we use games to learn about the world?

● ‘Serious games’ for research.

● Reliability and validity of using games as research environments

● Game design approaches with specific research in mind

● Criteria for selecting existing games for specific purposes

● Games for psychology and behavioral research

● The design of stimuli that accounts for complex constructs such as social interaction and behaviors

● Studies of games used for a specific domain or discipline

● Games as research environments for the design of game components

● Games as a testbed to validate algorithms

● How do games impact your research environment?

● A priori problems: design, creating valid stimuli for independent variables, adaptation, hypotheses, decision to include or exclude fun elements for serious games

● A posteriori problems: data analysis, filtering, qualitative vs. quantitative, player telemetry, challenges with conclusions and takeaways

We look forward to your submissions! Please let me know if you have any questions. 

Thank you, 

Angie Avera

angela...@gmail.com