Conference Call For Papers: Games in/between China and the West

12 and 13 April 2022

The Chinese gaming market is known as a global powerhouse, generating billions of pounds of revenue and interacting with nearly 700 million gamers. The rapid growth of the Chinese gaming industry has drawn the attention of scholars and game producers alike, both eager to understand the political, social, and commercial side of the Chinese games market and gaming culture. Increasingly, UK games companies have been looking to ‘break into’ the Chinese market, but have been met with challenges including cultural differences, the language barrier, regulatory issues, and a lack of knowledge of the Chinese gaming culture.

This conference intends to bring in and curate talks from researchers in China, the UK/Europe, and beyond, with a focus on cross-cultural (China-West) research in games. We hope to bring together researchers from different regions to build a better understanding of the opportunities and barriers to academic and industry collaboration.

With this in mind, we are particularly interested in panels and/or papers that are co-authored between Chinese and Western participants.

Possible topics include but are not limited to Chinese/Western:

• Games Industries
• Games Market Overviews
• Games Cultures, audiences and/or market preferences
• Games Design and Aesthetics
• Regulation and licensing – barriers and opportunity, changing regulations, time restrictions, age rating
• Esports
• Case Studies / examples of co-production – Chinese games in the Western market, Western games companies un/successfully in the Chinese market
• Intellectual Property – concerns, law, hard v soft regulations
• Clones, copies, reskinning and/or shanzhai
• Transmedia – comics, films, television, merchandise, advertising, toys, physical games etc.
• Fan art / user-generated content
• LGBTQIA+ themes/representation
• Production methodologies and timelines
• Cross platform play
• International games collaborations
• Localisation/culturalisation/translation
• Applied / serious / training games / educational software
• Historical games and contexts

Extended abstracts (500-1000 words) for 20-minute papers should be submitted before 30 January 2022. Please let us know if you would like to submit 3-5 papers to make up a panel at the conference.

Selected papers will be offered to submit fuller papers (5,000-8,000 words) for peer review in a themed Special Issue of the Gaming and Virtual Worlds journal. Please indicate on the form if you would like to be considered for a full paper in the special issue to be published in 2023.

We particularly welcome papers that bring together research/ers from China and the West.

Submit your abstract/panel and sign up to be considered for the journal special issue here: https://forms.office.com/r/rucUvst6XA

Please contact Dr Hailey Austin (h.austin@abertay.ac.uk) with any questions.

A note on format:

This conference will take place asynchronously online across 2 half day sessions. All paper presentations will be pre-recorded, with the opportunity for a live Q&A during each of the half days. There will also be a networking event for continued connection and the curation of co-authorship and participation across nations. 

Schedule:

30 January 2022 – deadline for submission of abstracts and panel proposals

Mid February 2022 – participants notified of successful abstracts

15 March 15 2022 – deadline for pre-recorded presentations

1 April 2022 – publication of pre-recorded presentations on InGame International website

12 and 13 April 2022- Conference Q&A with presenters and attendees, virtual networking

2023 – publication of select papers in Gaming and Virtual Worlds Journal

InGAME International is funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council.