April 2-3, 2027
University of North Carolina at Greensboro

The UNCG Videogaming and Esports Studies (VES) program, with support from UNCG’s 
ARCADE (Applied Research in Computer Arts, Digitization, and Esports), invites proposals for
our third annual game studies conference!

This year’s theme explores navigation as a capacious term — how do we navigate or not 
navigate in a game (walking, running, jumping, climbing, warping, fast traveling, etc.), what 
choices do we have regarding navigation, and what affordances do games offer for navigation?

Navigation is also temporal; we navigate a game’s pacing and urgency, the ways in which it
organizes and presents time. Our varied experiences of time during play consciously and 
subconsciously affect the worlds we play in as well. We welcome ideas of navigation in terms of 
moving avatars or sprites around digital game worlds (or dwelling in them), interacting with ingame menus and geographies, and the interaction of gaming peripherals and bodyminds. We 
also seek ideas of navigation at the nexus of game world and real world, such as Chris Chesher’s 
comparison of game maps and satellite navigation as examples of entwined digital spatial 
practices.* We envision expanding this relationship to gestural titles like Pokémon Go that 
involve physical movement or games for managing physical therapy, household chores, fitness, 
etc.

The 2027 interdisciplinary UNCG Game Studies Conference seeks proposals for academic, 
creative, or non-traditional scholarship engaging with the theme and related topics. We 
welcome proposals about video and analog games from undergraduate students, graduate 
students, faculty, and independent and emerging scholars.

Proposals might consider, but are not limited to, such ideas as:
• Questions of agency, embodiment, immersion, etc., especially concerning dialogue 
choices, menus, world design, and habitation
• Spatial and temporal media
• Intersections between games and the real world (e.g. disability studies and “crip time,” 
race, gender, economics, housing, architecture, and landscapes)
• Intersections between modes of movement within and across the digital-physical divide 
(e.g. online international communities, migration studies, tourism, and travel)
• In-game navigation and maps reflecting contemporary and historical biases, 
understandings of culture, nation, and geographies, and geographical or spatial 
disparities
• Games designed for health, wellness, or therapeutic functions
• Games designed for causes, such as environmentalism or mental health advocacy
• Pedagogy and multimodal approaches to teaching, including topics such as using serious 
games to teach geography

We invite proposals from individuals, panels of no more than four presenters, roundtable 
discussions, and non-traditional sessions. The organizing committee will assemble panels from 
the accepted individual proposals. Some proposals will be accepted as Talk-and-Play 
presentations, which include the audience’s ability to play a portion of the game included in 
your presentation. For these we will use the UNCG Esports Arena, which offers a presentation 
area and 48 gaming PCs for attendees.

Share proposals by Sunday, October 25, via the form on our website: https://uncgegongamestudiesconference.com/ 
Proposals should include the following:
• A title
• A 500-word maximum abstract for individual proposals
• A 1,000-word maximum abstract for panels and roundtables, including the common 
subject, theme, or other connective material

There will be options in the proposal form to indicate in-person or remote attendance for your 
presentation, A/V needs, or other specific requests.
Please send any questions to uncggamestudiesconference@gmail.com. Visit our website for 
conference information.

If you are looking for resources for writing your abstract, we have a folder with helpful 
information available on request to the above email, and we will have an abstract review 
window from September 28 to October 5. If you want to take advantage of an abstract review, 
please complete the proposal form before October 5. We will begin reading and writing our 
feedback on September 28, with responses going out in the order we received the proposal 
drafts. We will also have support resources available for any accepted panelists who have little 
or no conference experience.

Sources:
* Chris Chesher, “Navigating sociotechnical spaces: Comparing computer games and sat 
navs as digital spatial media,” Convergence 18(3), 2012, pp. 315-30.