ИСТИНА

DiGRA 2024 will take place in Guadalajara, Mexico, 1–5 July 2024. A pre-conference will be held on the first day of the conference, on Monday 1st of July, together with a PhD Consortium and Workshops. The theme of the conference is ‘Playgrounds.’ Throughout human history, play activities have happened more likely in some places rather than others, and specifically demarcated areas for gameplay have existed for millennia. Remains of the ball court of the Mesoamerican ballgame pok-ta-pok date back to 1376 BCE (Smith 2020), and from historical records dating back more than a thousand years we know that the Chinese cuju and the Japanese kemari necessitated a dedicated space for play. In a narrower Western sense, playgrounds usually denote places for children to play safely in a confined space separated from the dangers of traffic. Playgrounds in this sense were first built in the 1850s industrial England, where curated spaces for child play were inspired by German educator Friedrich Fröbel’s innovative equipment and devices specifically designed to facilitate play. In many parts of the world, playgrounds have since come to occupy a fundamental role in building human social capacities and cultural habituation. Johan Huizinga uses the concept to describe all kinds of areas of play such as arenas, stages, screens, and the like, and suggests that they “are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart” (1998 [1938], 10). Today, ‘playground’ has multiple meanings. Jon Winder (2023, 135) points out that the term can refer to any place of recreation, public or private, and does not necessarily describe a site specifically meant for children. Current understanding approaches playgrounds as paradox spaces merging physical and virtual worlds into one or several different realities. The 21st century – the “ludic century” (Zimmerman and Chaplin 2013) – deconstructs the concept so that “almost any space can become a playground” (Sicart 2014, 7). In the age of computers and digital play, the concept of playground is shifting again. Digital games involve many aspects of traditional play spaces and culture, but at the same time, physical playgrounds with sunlight and nature incorporate aspects of digital play in their design. Today it is games played in urban spaces, those merged together with exercise functions, and digitally enhanced children’s playgrounds that challenge the contrasting of playgrounds and games. Looking specifically at children’s play, Seth Giddings (2014, 118) argues that playgrounds today are simultaneously pre-digital and post-digital as well as material and immaterial. Furthermore, we have ‘sandbox games’, ‘open world games’, and ‘adventure games’ – to name a few established video game genres that bear similarity to the operations and appeal of playgrounds. These have all paved the ground for the topical idea of the metaverse, a 4D representation of a playground accessible through VR goggles and a headset. While symbolising openness, structured freedom, and creativity, playgrounds are not only places of romantic unhindered joy. Digital and analogue playgrounds are places that urge us to ask questions related to their creation, management, and accessibility, for instance. On the one hand, they may be unwelcoming to marginalised identities in terms of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Aaron Trammell (2023, 60) points out how the “rules of the playground are different for kids with different backgrounds.” Phenomena such as hate speech, (online) bullying, and toxic gamer culture suggest that playgrounds may also give rise to forms of dark play where the rules of the game are constantly debated and renegotiated in favour of one group over others. On the other hand, these spaces may also be taken over, appropriated, and turned into sites of carnival. What will be the benefit of looking into digital play through the concept of playground? Could games research gain from the insights of educators, designers, and childhood researchers to better understand what facilitates open-ended play? These topics and reflections require research on games and play to help us make sense of how future trends will affect our societies. Nurturing the ongoing discussion between different generations using digital playgrounds from the past 40 years is essential to understanding the development of analogue and digital games for the decades to come. In this year’s edition of the DiGRA conference, we seek inspiration and theoretical support from the study and form of playgrounds. This adds a particular interest in child play and therefore invites experts who have experience in this area. Moreover, the playground metaphor can be used in framing design explorations and generally experimental approaches to game and play research, as well. We want to encourage scholarly reflection on all the diverse ways games and play act as spaces of possibility between disparate realities. Suggested themes include but are not limited to: • ontological approaches to games as playgrounds; • playground aesthetics of digital play and games; • games of the future: avantgarde and digital playgrounds; • games as media/media as games; • genres and generations: the limits of the experience; • virtual and augmented reality experiences; • games as playgrounds of new social realities; • queerness in games, playgrounds of queerness; • playing with sexuality; • hegemony of play; • playgrounds of game development; • playgrounds for identity/identification; • digital playground politics; • games as texts: playing with literature; • local/regional playground histories and game studies; • flaneurism, contemplation, and archaeogaming; • automation in and of playgrounds; • evolution of playgrounds in digital games; and • children and digital games as playgrounds. With the theme of playgrounds, DiGRA 2024 makes space for an interdisciplinary critical debate around a plethora of interconnected topics, inviting a diversity of voices and perspectives. As games and playful practices continue to shape both dominant and resisting forces in society, game studies must keep looking into playgrounds not only as objects of study, but in wider social, cultural, and political contexts. This creates potentials for interdisciplinary exchange, methodical variety, and multifaceted critique. DiGRA 2024 welcomes contributions on different game formats, expressions, and phenomena both related to digital and non-digital games. Submissions are invited into seven tracks: • Game History and Cultural Context: explorations of game histories, contemporary game cultures, and regional game studies. • Game Design, Production, and Distribution: reflections on making and research creation, processes of production and design, and the games market. • Game Analyses, Criticism, and Interpretation: analyses, close-readings, and critical discussions of game texts. • Play and Players: empirical research on play and playful behaviour, players, fandom, and game communities. • Philosophy and Theory of Play & Games: theoretical frameworks and investigations of games and play phenomena as well as metareflection on game studies methods and practices. • Serious Games and Education: research on games and play for learning, education, and therapy, and other applications beyond game studies. • Child Play: research on aesthetics, phenomenologies, politics, ecologies, technologies, materialities, sociologies, cultures, and pedagogies that refer specifically to the games, play, and playgrounds of children. There will be several special events associated with the conference, including a PhD Consortium. It will be organised on the pre-conference day, and it will allow PhD students to discuss key issues, benefit from peer support, and seek feedback from experienced scholars.