2025: Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2025: Games at the Crossroads

Published: 2025-06-16

Papers

Communicative Artificial Intelligence for Nonplayer Characters in Digital Games: Mapping the Field

Dom Ford
- PDF
Trajectories of Professionalization as Game Developer in 2000s Brazil: stories from Tectoy Digital/Zeebo Interactive Studios/Tectoy Studios

Bruno de Paula
- PDF
"Love's a Game, Wanna Play?" Games in and around Taylor Swift's Music

Elina Koskinen, Lobna Hassan
- PDF
Tentacle to the Metal: Ecosophy, Metamodernism, and Splatoon 3

Nikolas Matovinovic
- PDF
Towards a Southern Epistemology in Game Studies: Gaming Practices, Ideological Struggle, and Common Sense in Latin America

Marco Jaramillo
- PDF
Party Games as a Crossroad Between Strangers: A Mixed-Methods Study

Leland Masek, Daphne Bachmann, Yutong Wang, Mohammad Asif Ibtehaz
- PDF
The Evolution of Liberalism in the XCOM Franchise Reboot

J. M. L. Whittington
- PDF
Uncanny Homecoming: The Temporality of Dwelling and Return in Digital Games

Justyna Janik, Daniel Vella
- PDF
Still failing to disclose loot box presence: Identifying illegal UK video game ads using Meta's advertising repository

Leon Y Xiao, Elena Petrovskaya, Callum Deery, Solip Park, Philip W. S. Newall
- PDF
Writing the World: Personal Journals in Video Games

Kübra Aksay
- PDF
Out of Bounds: Exploring Beyond the Map

Hollie Wistow
- PDF
Creating video games in Barcelona: field, capital(s), habitus and belonging

Juan Francisco Torres Díaz, Joel Feliu, Adriana Gil Juárez
- PDF
This Gift of a Fragile Vessel: Encountering Perspectives on the Real in Slay the Princess

Péter Kristóf Makai
- PDF
Roleplay with chatbots on character.ai: A new direction for online gaming?

Kristine Ask, Tanja Sihvonen
- PDF
Impact of Full-Body Haptic Feedback on the Sense of Presence, Affective Experience, and Game Engagement in a VR Game

Naman Merchant, Ecem Ince, Jung In Jung, Haocheng Yang, Andrea Szymkowiak
- PDF
Playing World War II. Designing a simulation game on the Resistance in Turin in collaboration with the historical archive.

Mauro Mola
- PDF
Following the Bunny: Gendered Labor and Digital Play in Livestreaming Cultures

Thomas Apperley
- PDF
Diode Games: Rediscovering the Bridge between Analog and Video Gaming through the Elektor Magazine

Pierre-Yves Hurel, Johan Cuda, Sophie Bémelmans, Yannick Rochat
- PDF
Reshaping Esports Fandom: Insights into Platformization from B.stage and LCK Communities

Yeochan Park, Jinhee Yang, Yaewon Jin
- PDF
Oedipus at the Crossroads: Tragic Agency in Contemporary Videogame

Xinyue Zhang
- PDF
Save-Scumming: A Novel Exploration of Video Game Play

George Farmer, Danielle Kelly, Amanda Jones-Rincon
- PDF
Assemblages of Awareness: Exploring the Role of La Valise de Lise in Addressing Older Adult Mistreatment through Collaborative Play and Cultural Adaptation

Constance Lafontaine, Kim Sawchuk, Sarita Israel
- PDF
An "easy life" or "no freedom of expression"? Men's experiences of game culture

Kristine Jørgensen, Hilde G. Corneliussen, Arne Graham Christiaan Campbell
- PDF
Returning to The Last of Us: The Aesthetics and Contexts of Remaking & Remastering The Last of Us Franchise

Scott Knight, Jakub Majewski
- PDF
Bridging Virtual and Real-World Charity: The Role of Interactive Narratives in Ant Forest

Ming Ying
- PDF
Playing With Videogames on YouTube in East Asia

Martin Roth
- PDF
Watching different play styles: The pleasure of transgressive play in Tears of the Kingdom

Xin Pan
- PDF
Fair Play Perspectives: Bridging Research, Design, and Industry

Ida Kathrine Hammeleff Jorgensen, Jessica Enevold Duncan
- PDF
Memorializing the Dead with Games

Martin Gibbs, Marcus Carter, Fraser Allison
- PDF
Between Action and Inaction: A Distant-Play Reading of The Longing

Kübra Aksay, Astrid Ensslin, Sebastian R. Richter
- PDF
Chludens.ch: Developing an interactive archive for Swiss vintage games and its community

Noemi Chow
- PDF
"One-and-a-Quarter Way Relationships": Understanding Authenticity and Asymmetry In Gaming Podcast Audiences

Ryan Stanton
- PDF
From Military Simulation to Ludic War: A Generational Typology of the Mobilization of Play

Dennis Jansen
- PDF
"We were the porters of overseas media." -- An investigation into the gaming information media under the influence of the state

Lifeng Huang
- PDF
Fifty Shades of Red. Depictions of the Eastern Bloc in American and European Cold War-themed real time strategies

Szymon Kukulak
- PDF
Indie vs. AAA: A Model for the Educational Potential of Artificial Intelligence in Video Games

Piotr Siuda, Piotr Siuda, Piotr Siuda
- PDF
Fake VS Fictional Games: On Dark and Deceptive Representations of Non-Actual Games

Nele Van de Mosselaer
- PDF
From Wuxia to Cultivation Games: Reimagining Chinese Cosmology in Digital Space

Morgan Yu Hao
- PDF
At the Crossroads of Game Studies and Business Ethics: What are the Sustainability Obligations of Stakeholders in the Game Industry?

Thorsten Busch, Tanja Sihvonen, Florence Chee
- PDF
Virtual Burden: Representations of Animal Disabilities in Video Games and Their Posthuman Contexts

Jan Stasienko, Agnieszka Dytman-Stasienko
- PDF
Undead ecologies: Reconceptualising zombiism in videogames

Lawrence May
- PDF
Private Servers Are More than Video Game Piracy

Geoffrey Hill, Martin Gibbs, Melissa Rogerson
- PDF
The gaming habitus: An exploration of gender and class differences among student gamers

Rune Klevjer, Jan Fredrik Hovden
- PDF
Excitatio Corcyrae: Embracing history through mindful game design

Sofia Despoina Kyrgiafini, Ioannis Ntionias
- PDF
Navigating The 'Gamer Space'

Caitlin Veal
- PDF
Preliminary Results from a Systematic Review of Narrative Game-based Interventions for Mental Health

Nisha Devasia, Jamie Espinosa-Briones, Julie Kientz
- PDF
Understanding the paradox of MetroidBrainias: The case of Animal Well

Xin Pan, Wenting Cheng
- PDF
Exploring Gender, Identity and Belongingness: The Role of AI-driven Social Features of the Gaming Platforms in Shaping Chinese Female Gamers' Experiences

Weijie Huang
- PDF
Production and reception of Yugoslav past through Roblox games

Elisabetta Zurovac, Gaia Amadori
- PDF
Design Decisions and Obstacles in Serious Game Design: Insights from Design Cases

Rafael Leonardo da Silva, Esther Daniells, Marium Baig
- PDF
Soulslike Posthumanism: Open Subjectivity and East Asian Philosophy

Marco Caracciolo
- PDF
Making Friends with Death: Posthuman Post-Life Play

Poppy Wilde
- PDF
By the Law of the Wolf. Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Heart of the Forest between global, national, and fictional

Tomasz Majkowski, Aleksandra Prokopek, Magdalena Kozyra
- PDF
WildStar's rogue archives: exploring an anarchaeological approach to defunct games

Lawrence May, James Manning
- PDF
Unexpected Feelings: Counterfactual History in The Seven Cities of Gold (1984)

Diego Calderara
- PDF
Assessing the landscape of illegal loot box advertising in Belgium

Elena Petrovskaya, Leon Y Xiao, Nicole Khoo, Amanda Roberts
- PDF
"We'll always go with what's more sustainable": Understanding the Financialised Logics of Game Development

Taylor Hardwick, Ben Egliston, Marcus Carter
- PDF
On Simema: The Radical Passivity of Self-Playing Games

Doug Stark
- PDF
A Dating Sim Without the Dating: New Adventures at the Crossroads of Literature and Games

Jon Stone
- PDF
From Extended Self to Posthuman Other: Empathy and Morality in Encounters with AI Characters

Theresa Krampe, Melanie Kreitler
- PDF
Cruising in Apulia. Mediterranea Inferno at the Crossroads of Queer Desire and Political Crisis

Giorgio Chiappa
- PDF
A Call for an Appalachian Game Studies

J. M. L. Whittington
- PDF
The Military-Entertainment Hero Complex: Playing the War Hero

Caighlan Smith
- PDF
Ludotariat: problematizing the gaming class

Michał Kłosiński
- PDF
Swiss Pinball Culture: Between Nostalgia and Revival

Mela Kocher
- PDF
Crafting Comfort: Postdigital Practices in Current Cozy Games

Bettina Bódi, Jan-Noël Thon
- PDF
"Planting World Seeds": Procedural Content Generation, Labour and Conceptual Art in Digital Games

Finn Dawson
- PDF
Understanding Transmedia Character-Centric Discourse in Gacha Games: A Social Semiotic Analysis of Genshin Impact

Haoning Li
- PDF
Discourse Analysis of Game Mechanics: A Methodological Proposition

Camila Freitas
- PDF
A Plague Tale: Autoethnography and Authenticity in Historical Games Research

Nick Webber, Poppy Wilde
- PDF
How Video Game Journalists Cover Sexual Misconduct in the Industry

John Fennimore
- PDF
Game Localisation in Live Game Streaming: A Practice-Led Case Study

Dody M.H. Chen
- PDF
Decisions in the Loop: An Empirical Study of Narrative Time and Player Agency in Hades and Twelve Minutes

Brent Van Mol
- PDF
Dies Irae in a fantasy world: Gregorian sequence and Requiem motifs in Heroes of Might and Magic series

Radosław Walczak
- PDF
Transforming Shibuya through the power of graffiti, fashion, music, and friendship.

William Helmke
- PDF
Conspiracy Thinking and Videogame Interpretation

Nele Van de Mosselaer, Kathleen Murphy-Hollies
- PDF
P(l)aying for Love: Capitalizing on patterns of contemporary romance fiction in PlayMe Studio's MeChat

Magdalena Bednorz
- PDF
Racketeering, Cartels, Collusion and Extortion: Exploring the Language of Player-Organized 'Criminality' in MMORPGs

Nick Webber
- PDF
Feasible Antiquity: Ancient History in the Unity, Unreal, Godot and itch.io Asset Stores

Brent Van Mol, Alexander Vandewalle
- PDF
Divided by Politics, United by Play: Computing in East and West Germany during the 1980s

Regina Seiwald
- PDF
Zoos as utopian enclaves in Ark Nova

Michal Jutkiewicz
- PDF
The Fractured Imbunche: a Study of Chilean Horror Games

Val Caroca Escauriaza
- PDF
Queer enclosure in the cinematic adaptation of The Last of Us

Bjarke Liboriussen
- PDF
Inducing and non-inducing interpretations of the sinograph in Word Game

Yue-Jin Ho
- PDF
Bird Games - an exploration into game experience design for children within the Central Energy Trust Wildbase Recovery Centre.

Tanya Marriott
- PDF
Game Jams as Pedagogic Playgrounds for Problem Deconstruction and Reflective Learning

Lindsay Grace
- PDF
"You have to prove yourself all the time": Misogyny and countermeasures in game journalism

Antonia Maria Wurm
- PDF
The Spike Video Game Awards Are Dead, Long Live the Game Awards: Reconsidering Awards Shows as the Struggle for a Field of Cultural Production

Andrei Zanescu
- PDF
Gameplay-Elicited interviews: Exploring Worldness and the Processes of Play

Mike Hyslop Graham
- PDF
Gothic Forests and Magic Flights: Examining the Gothic False Hero in Campbell's Hero's Journey

Jacqueline Moran
- PDF
Fighting Against Return: a taxonomy of time loops in digital games

Matteo Genovesi
- PDF
Love as a service in otome games

Joleen Blom
- PDF
Shifting The Meta: Bridging The Gap Between Scholar and Developer Perspectives of the Post-Pandemic Game Industry

John Redinbo, Gwendolyn Patwardhan, Maxwell Foxman, David Jeong
- PDF
Shaping Time in Games: Developer Approaches to Temporality

Thomas Byers, Martin Gibbs, Bjorn Nansen
- PDF
Half Stress, Half Party: Play and Labor at Mattel in the Early Videogame Industry

Tom Boellstorff, Braxton Soderman
- PDF
Games for Fun and Games for Blood: A Framework for Understanding In-Game Violence

Charalampos Apartoglou
- PDF
Virtual Roads, Real Ecologies: Driving Games, Coziness, and Petroculture

Bettina Bodi
- PDF
Encounters with the Self as Other: Empathy in the Games of Nomada Studio

Melanie Kreitler
- PDF
"It's a real con": Parent Attitudes Toward Children's Game Spending

Marcus Carter, Taylor Hardwick, Stephanie Harkin
- PDF
(Semi-)Peripheral Gameplay in Video Games

Stanisław Krawczyk
- PDF
Iterating the Past: Using Game Analytic Methods in Historical Game Studies

Keerthi Sridharan
- PDF
Playfully Conservative: Reinventing Nintendo's Platform Games through Materiality in Yoshi's Crafted World

Josef Tichý
- PDF
Masculinity in gaming discourses: A general overview of an ongoing project, and some early findings

Ida Martine Rysjedal
- PDF
History of Artist-Gamemaking: The Art of Tomorrow - Selectparks.net "artists exploring computer games as an emerging, artistic medium"

Helen Stuckey
- PDF
Studying the Invisible: Femininity and Gaming in Girls' Lifestyle Magazines

Stephanie Harkin
- PDF
Rewriting the Script: Navigating Cybernetic Dynamics and Ethical Expression in Modular Narrative Games—The Case of Storyteller

Jingyan Lin
- PDF
Expanded Abstract_Gaming in the Gray: The Making of "Mindie" Games in China's In/Formal Network

Ningxi Guo
- PDF
Towards Ethical Guidelines for Videogame Character Creation with GenAI

Jana Hecktor, Theresa Krampe
- PDF
Alternative localities: Queering Time and Space through Videogame Play

Hollie Wistow
- PDF
Cosmoludics: Sylvia Wynter, C. L. R. James, and the Crossroad of Cricket

Doug Stark
- PDF
LUDIFYING DIGITAL PROTESTS IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH: THE BANGLADESH SCENARIO

Souvik Mukherjee, Piuli Basu
- PDF
Making Bodies Possible: Exploring Transformative Justice in Esports

Tom Legierse, Maria Ruotsalainen
- PDF
Hardcore Gamers in Ballgowns: At the Crossroads of Gender and Play

Ashley Guajardo
- PDF
Exploring Waste and Garbage through a Digital Game: The Case of Stardew Valley

Agata Zarzycka
- PDF
Speculative Games: Games Envisioning Possible Futures

Tonguc Sezen, Digdem Sezen
- PDF
Golden Goal: Altruism versus Toxicity and the Soul of Football (Soccer) Simulators

Iain Donald, Andrew Reid
- PDF
LAN is Dead, Long Live LAN

Aidan Strong, Elliot B. Yu
- PDF
At the Crossroads of Art and Games: NPCs in Contemporary Video Art

Rob Gallagher
- PDF
Pokimane, Myna Snacks and the Cookie Controversy: Combating Platform Dependency by Performing as the Streamer-Entrepreneur

Pauline Munnich
- PDF
The Human Encounter as a Designable Surface: Leveraging Insights from Larp Design to Enable Democratic Participation

Johanna Koljonen, Jaakko Stenros
- PDF
Playing the Othered Self as Wukong: a Resilience in Speculative-Mythological Games

Yifan Wang
- PDF
Gaming the Political Arena: An Analysis of Political Messaging on Twitch in Germany

Maria Grub, Antonia Wurm, Julian Kauk
- PDF
Affording Playfulness in Daniel Benmergui's Storyteller

Kieron Brown
- PDF
The digital imaginary of esports: A League of Legends Worlds case study

Josh Jarrett, David Murphy
- PDF
The expectation game: Exposing hidden assumptions in a game studies classroom.

René Glas, Jasper van Vught
- PDF
Playing with Identity: Racebending in the God of War Series

Kimberly Dennin
- PDF
Cross-Border Conflicts in Gaming: Indo-Pak Tensions in Competitive Multiplayer Spaces

Tushya Sachan, Dinesh Chhabra
- PDF
Suicide Livestreams in NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD

Julián Gutiérrez Carrera, Joleen Blom
- PDF
Otium and Walking Simulators

Jan-Noël Thon
- PDF
At the crossroads of innovation and regulation: legal implications of using AI in game development.

Maciej Niezgoda
- PDF
Mutual Incorporation: On Eating and Being Eaten in Bugsnax (2020)

Merlyn Seller
- PDF
Assassin's Creed Syndicate and the Depiction of Female "Britishness" in Victorian London

Andrew Reid, Iain Donald, Hailey Austin, Fruzsina Pittner
- PDF
Just Can't Get Enough: Exploring the concept of tolerance in gaming and gambling

Joseph Macey, Maris Catania
- PDF
Copyright and games preservation: lessons and opportunities in de-colonization

Abby Rekas, Matt Voigts
- PDF
Folklore-driven representations of femininity in Slavic-coded video games: the figure of Baba Yaga

Aleksandra Mochocka
- PDF
Silent In-game Concerts: Text-Based Musical Performances in MUDs

Karina Moritzen Barbosa
- PDF
Music beyond gameplay: embodied experience of acoustic music in the covers of original game soundtracks

Aleksandra Mochocka, Radosław Piotr Walczak
- PDF
Between preservation and nostalgic fantasy. Approaches to fanmade remasters

Krzysztof Olszamowski
- PDF
Beyond Metagames: Analyzing Metareference in Videogames

Theresa Krampe, Jan-Noël Thon
- PDF
Gaming streamers as influencers and intermediaries: Differentializing the micro, meso and macro contexts of streaming

Jeffrey Wimmer, Antonia Wurm
- PDF
Failure: Dealing with Non-Existence in Videogames

Sebastian R. Richter
- PDF
Posthuman Gaming in a Time of Planetary Crisis: Human Agency at the Crossroads of Technology and Ecology in Signalis

Wing Tung Jamie Tse, Eric Peterson
- PDF
Two Routes to Research and their Implications for Avatar-based Interviewing

Matthew Pulis, Luke Joseph Buhagiar
- PDF
Exploring Collaborative Practices in Video Game Development: An Ethnographic Study

Laureline Chiapello
- PDF
Mindful and Mindless Gaming: Two Approaches to Emotional Regulation Through Play

Tiernan Cahill
- PDF
"The Protagonist Training Project": How Simulator-Style Produsage on Social Media Shapes Our Gamified Daily

Sunny Jie Yang
- PDF
Playfulness in Comics

Kieron Brown, Jan-Noël Thon
- PDF
Moral Ambiguity in Playdead games

Fabrizio Fulio Bragoni, Marvic Catania, Dean Muscat
- PDF
Games that Play You: Outmersion, Game Bleed, and Transformative Vulnerability in Hellblade

Juliana Ruseva
- PDF
Playing with Perspectives: German Planspiele as Tools for Political Education

Regina Seiwald
- PDF
Preserving Japanese Indie Games at BitSummit Drift 2024

Michael Pennington, James Newman
- PDF
Theatre of (Virtual) Dreams: Exploring the Cultural Heritage Value of Stadiums in the EA FC/FIFA Franchise

Iain Donald, Andrew Reid
- PDF
On the Aesthetic Relevance of Difficulty in Games

Johan Kalmanlehto
- PDF
We. The Revolution: Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, Authenticity.

Andrew Reid, Iain Donald
- PDF
AI Nightmares: Videogames and The Uncanny Valley in Images Generated by Artificial Intelligence

Ana Laura Torquato, Caio Tulio Olimpio Pereira da Costa
- PDF
Virtual Memories of Displacement: A Narrative Game in VR Exploring Refugee Stories through Symbolic Interaction

Anastasios Theodoropoulos, Marios Ilias Ntetzonai, Yannis Aggelakos
- PDF
Speak with blocks: Minecraft, environmental education and activism

Gaia Amadori
- PDF
History and operational mechanisms in the video game industry: the case of the Turin cluster

Nicola Costalunga, Riccardo Fassone
- PDF
(Dis)Embodiment: Trans Hauntings in Kitty Horrorshow's Corpus

Merlyn Seller
- PDF
The Lost 87%: Towards Improved Access to Games for Game Design Education

Lane D. Koughan, Jin Ha Lee
- PDF
Crossover Kingdom: Narration, Gamification, and the Platform Unconscious of Kingdom Hearts and Disney Parks

Luna Loganayagam, Samuel Pizelo
- PDF
Shades of Grey in the Gaming Industry: A Case Study of Commercial Boosting in China

Samson Tang, Ningxi Guo
- PDF
Measuring the impact of an educational project mediated by indie games on students' personal, social and learning to learn competence: work in progress

Raquel Palomera, Jorge Oceja
- PDF
An EEG hyperscanning setup to investigate collaboration in games

Stefan Glasauer, Margarete Jahrmann, Georg Luif, Theresa Demmer, Matthew Pelowski
- PDF
Avatar and Real Me: Identity Anxiety of Chinese Mobile Otome Game Players—A Case Study of Papergames

Yutong Wang
- PDF
A Game Developer's Perspective on Social Impact Video Games: Conclusions from a Qualitative Study

Damian Gałuszka
- PDF
Cozy History? Frameworks, Contrasts, and Affect in Cozy Historical Video Games

Alexander Vandewalle
- PDF
Rhetorics of Puppy Love and Death in The Pale Beyond (2023)

Eleonora Imbierowicz
- PDF
Becoming, Not Being: Rethinking Mental Illness at the Crossroads of Videogame Representation

Sina Torabi, Jasvinder Mann
- PDF
Card pack and loot box spending are both positively correlated with problem gambling but not linked to negative mental health

Leon Y Xiao, David Zendle, Elena Petrovskaya, Rune K. L. Nielsen, Philip W. S. Newall
- PDF
More than Let's Plays? Towards a content analysis of game-related YouTube videos

Vincenzo Idone Cassone, Martin Roth
- PDF
"Spatial Rape": Interleaving House of Leaves with MyHouse.pk3

Péter Kristóf Makai
- PDF
"Test Trophy Please Ignore": Achievements as Paratexts in Palimpsestic Readings of Remasters and Remakes

Loris Rimaz, Michael Wagnières, Yannick Rochat
- PDF
Making cozy games: How game developers build (and talk about) cozy games

Mia Consalvo, Kelly Boudreau, Andrew Phelps
- PDF

Abstracts

"GOLD GOLD GOLD": Gambling-like elements on Twitch and Kick

Eva Grosemans, Robin Bosmans, Rozane De Cock, Maarten Denoo, Bieke Zaman

3
- PDF
Representations in Video Game: The Tension Between Accuracy and Creativity

Kevin Rebecchi, Elisa Vial

4
- PDF
What can video games tell us about neurodiversity and autism?

Kevin Rebecchi

4
- PDF
The characterization of Julius Caesar in video games

Noah Pintelon

4
- PDF
Eco-Play Designing nature games with Kiwi Conservation club

Tanya Marriott

4
- PDF
Backyard Survival Ecology of Killer Insects and Violent Nature in Grounded (2022)

Vickie Monthong

3
- PDF
The impact of tax credits on the Irish games production landscape too little, too late, too limited?

Mario O'Brien

3
- PDF
Identity at the Crossroads: Cultural Negotiation in Player-Character Relationships

Naijia Liu

3
- PDF
Micro-Resistance in Romance: Gender Identity and Agency in a 3D Otome Game

Yufan Wen, Xi Chen, Hao Sun

5
- PDF
From Movable to Still Images: On the Pictorial Practices of Screenshotting Game Cultures

Kevin Pauliks, Jens Ruchatz

4
- PDF
Fantasy Beyond History: Games as Method for Ecocritical Understandings of Time and Change.

Vinicius Marino Carvalho

5
- PDF
Preserving Hmong Batik Through Video Games

Sha Huang

3
- PDF
A Space for Everyone Gender Demographics and Board Gamers

johnathan Harrington

3
- PDF
Love is Not Around Wandan-likes & Narratives of Self-Actualisation

johnathan Harrington

3
- PDF