[DiGRA Italia] Indie Game Studies workshop a DiGRA 2018, Torino, 24 Luglio

[Paolo Ruffino]

Sono lieto di annunciare il workshop Indie Game Studies.
L'evento si svolge nell'ambito di DiGRA 2018 a Torino, il giorno 24
Luglio, dalle
14:30 alle 18:30, stanza C3
<https://easychair.org/smart-program/DIGRA2018/2018-07-24.html>.

La partecipazione e' libera ma i posti sono limitati. Se siete interessati
contattatemi a pruffino at lincoln.ac.uk

Copio di seguito la presentazione del workshop con la descrizione gli
interventi dei partecipanti.

A presto,


*INTRODUCTION*
At DiGRA 2013 (Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA), the Indie
Game Studies panel and dedicated issue of the journal Loading…, curated by
Prof Bart Simon, brought the emerging forms of independent game development
to the attention of game scholars (Parker 2014). Five years later, the
indie scene has become richer and varied, and has been adapting to mutating
contexts of production and distribution. Festivals, incubators for
start-ups and small companies, workshops and mentoring schemes, have been
proliferating in the USA, Canada, Australia, Northern Europe, and the
United Kingdom. Numerous independent companies have been founded in the
geographical areas where the video game industry was already solid, and a
significant presence is establishing in parts of the world that have been
traditionally distant from the main hubs of video game development.

While the differences (economic, managerial, ideological) with the
mainstream productions have always been contested, the recent proliferation
of independent companies has further confused the boundaries that appeared
to separate the independent territories from the ‘official’ video game
industry. In 2013 the trade association TIGA estimated that in the United
Kingdom ‘83% of all studios that started up in 2011 and 2012 were
independent (as opposed to publisher owned)’ (TIGA 2013). It has been
estimated that, in 2014, 95% of video game companies in the United Kingdom
were micro or small businesses, according to NESTA (2014) and the British
government (GOV.uk 2014). In Australia, independent companies now form the
‘backbone’ of game development (Apperley and Golding 2015, 61; Banks and
Cunningham 2016). In 2013, a survey involving 2,500 North American game
developers revealed that 53% of them identified as ‘indie’ (GDC 2013), and
a subsequent survey by IGDA revealed that 48% of US game developers
self-identified as independent (IGDA 2014). Independence is no longer a
marginal or alternative mode of production, if it ever was, but the most
common type of organization within the video game industry. It appears that
almost every game developer is now partially or temporarily ‘indie’ within
their career, and the trend is expected to grow, consistently with the
recent developments of the cinema, music, and fashion industries
(Hesmondhalgh 2013, McRobbie 2016).

The workshop will explore the current state, meanings, and values
associated with independence in video game culture, through a series of
contributions and findings that analyse the domain from different
perspectives, disciplines and geographical specificities. What is at stake,
in 2018, when making claims of autonomy, self-management, and creative
control? Are indie games helping improve the diversity deficit in game
makers and audiences? Is there still room for independence, in a production
context where short-term contracts, individualism, and financial risks are
considered necessary to be involved in game development?

The workshop picks up where the 2013 DiGRA panel left off, bringing
together the most current research and theorizing on the topic of “indie
game studies.” Speakers, including some of from the original panel in
Atlanta, will present and compare research in a series of short (approx. 15
minutes) presentations. The presentation will culminate in a discussion, to
which participants will be invited to contribute, identifying patterns,
controversies and gaps, with a view toward continuing towards further
collaboration, research, publication and dissemination.


*Speakers’ contributions:*

*Indie Game Studies – 5 years later*Paolo Ruffino (Lecturer in Media
Studies, University of Lincoln, UK)

Ruffino will introduce the workshop. Drawing on Felan Parker’s proposal of
 ‘indie game studies’, the workshop gathers some of the international
scholars who are currently doing research on independent game development
(Parker 2014). This presentation looks at the various approaches to the
study of independence. It also questions the reasons for doing research on
this topic in this particular historical moment, while developers are
starting to organise in local/global unions and networks of mutual
assistance. It also draws on regionally specific studies regarding the
meaning and values of independence, with a view on mapping the contemporary
topics and questions of academic research in the field.

*Game Production Studies: Theory, Method and Practice*
Casey O’Donnell (Associate Professor in the Department of Media and
Information at Michigan State University, USA)

Dr. O'Donnell's addition to this workshop is rooted in a deep interest and
care for game production studies, beginning with his early dissertation
work with AAA game developers and subsequently working in a variety of
fields doing research on game production in the educational, crowdsourcing
and "indie" communities. O'Donnell's focus will be on the theories, methods
and practices of performing indie game production studies. Game Production
Studies explore the wide array of processes, practices, texts, technologies
and aspects that take place in and surrounding the game production process.
This process is often referred to generally as "game development," which
while rooted in the practice of making games actually constitutes a wide
variety of tasks, disciplinary perspectives, processes, people and
institutions.


*Indiepocalypse*Nadav Lipkin (Assistant Professor of Media, Communication
and Technology at La Roche College, Pittsburgh, PA, USA)

In his 2013 article for Loading…, Lipkin went about defining independent
games. A fear at the heart of that discussion was that larger corporations
would co-opt the indie movement by producing games that look indie without
being independent from dominant production practices. Since then,
subsequent research suggests a different concern is perhaps more worthy of
examination. For this workshop, Lipkin will discuss the Indiepocalypse and
focus on how the biggest threat to independents is not the mainstream but
each other. Overproduction, a glamorization of insecure and unpaid labor,
and mainstream distribution partners (especially Steam) who have
contradictory financial interests need to be better understood. By
examining these conditions, Lipkin intends to connect the games industry
more closely to examinations of other creative industries plagued by
similarly poor labor and economic conditions.


*Some notes on the indiefication of game development*Olli Sotamaa
(Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Game Lab, School of Information Sciences
at University of Tampere, Finland)

This presentation will draw on my study of the Finnish game development
scene that has been going on for almost a decade now. While Finland
arguably is a small node in the global circuits of game production, well
known hit games like Rovio’s Angry Birds and Supercell’s Clash of Clans
have attracted attention worldwide. Following Garda & Grabarczyk (2016), I
consider it important to highlight how the notions of independent games are
always connected to given time and place. Accordingly, I examine how
independence and ‘indie’ get a particular meaning in a North-European game
development scene defined by small domestic market and early focus on
mobile games.

Drawing from diverse examples ranging from Housemarque, an independent
studio founded in 1995 and a nominee for the Best Indie Studio in Develop
Awards 2018, to Arvi Teikari, the designer of IGF 2018 winner Baba is You,
this presentation explores the different understandings of indie in an
environment that has never hosted a strong AAA industry. As at least some
of the game development practices look increasingly similar, it is clear
that we need to take a closer look at the production networks (Tyni 2017)
and cultural intermediaries (Parker, Whitson & Simon 2018) and explore how
they differ between individual games and companies.


*The other side of the spectrum – how indies saved VR*Paweł Grabarczyk
(Post-Doc at ITU Copenhagen, Denmark)

As has been pointed out (Juul 2015, Garda & Grabarczyk 2016) pixel art and
low (or at least relatively humble) production values have become the de
facto aesthetic standard for contemporary independent games. Indie games
can typically be run on modest computers as they do not require expensive
graphics cards or fast processors. The result of this common association is
that independent games with relatively high production values are sometimes
dubbed as “AAA indie” (Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice can be a good example of
this). Contrary to this VR technologies are typically associated with
expensive, high end machines because they require both: the purchase of a
relatively powerful computer and the purchase of the headset itself. On the
face of it, VR games and indie aesthetics could not be further apart. It is
thus very surprising that this expensive technology attracted a substantial
number of independent developers (for example, there are currently 1864
games tagged as “independent” “VR” games on the Steam platform). More
importantly, many of the most successful VR games belong to the indie
category (Job Simulator, SuperHot VR, Beat Saber).

I believe that this phenomenon demands further study, because it escapes
some of the existing classifications and conceptualizations of independent
games market (the move from retro-aesthetics being the most obvious reason
for this). I argue that there are three reasons why independent developers
were attracted to VR platforms. The first reason is the move from pixel art
to low poly art which has been visible in many recent games (and which made
the transition from “flat” games to VR games possible). The second reason
is the spirit of innovation which permeates both communities (indie
developers and VR developers). The third, most intriguing factor is that VR
games created an economic niche which resulted from the lack of so called
“AAA” games being developed specifically for VR.


*Project:INDIE*Dr Celia Pearce (Associate Professor of Game Design at
Northeastern University, USA)

Over the past decade, indie games have grown at such a rapid rate that by
2014 roughly half of game developers identified as indie. This explosion is
the outcome of a bottom-up, complex, emergent process representing the
convergence of a variety of visible and invisible factors, including:
emerging technologies, new publication and funding models, game academia,
festivals and exhibitions, accessible creation tools, peer-learning and
creative communities (e.g. game jams, co-working spaces), as well changes
in government and popular perception of games. Project:INDIE is an
initiative and consortium formed to develop an overview of the indie
ecosystem, mapping the complex interrelationships and influences between
its constituent parts. We will do this by aggregating existing research on
indie games, identifying gaps and setting research agendas, and conducting
comparative analysis on datasets from key players to understand the
synergies between various contributing factors to the growth and commercial
success of indie and artgames.


*Independent game industry in Melbourne, Australia*Dr Brendan Keogh
(Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology,
Australia)

Like other countries beyond North America and Japan, Australia has an
emerging, grassroots videogame industry consisting primarily of small teams
of independent studios creating original IP in precarious conditions. In
Australia, this independent game industry has centred on Melbourne,
Victoria, where state funding and the support of institutions such as the
State Library of Victoria and the Australian Centre of the Moving Image
have encouraged the growth of a robust and diverse ecology of videogame
makers. Crucially, within this ecology are two interlocking but distinct
independent scenes with different practices and approaches. This talk will
present preliminary findings from interview research conducted with 40
videogame makers and cultural institutions in Melbourne to highlight the
specific tensions, experiences, skills, and identities across these two
Melbourne indie game scenes to draw attention to the need to account for a
variety of scales of formal and informal creative labour practices within
local videogame development fields.



*BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION*
Paweł Grabarczyk is a post-doc researcher at IT University of Copenhagen
and adjunct professor at University of Lodz. His research focuses mostly on
the boundaries between philosophy and game studies: specifically philosophy
of language (ontology of games and conceptual analysis) and philosophy of
mind (forms of representation in games and virtual reality). He is also
interested in the study of modern and historical trends in games (indie
games, shareware games) and demoscene. He is the president of Centre for
Philosophical Research and an editor-in-chief of Replay: The Polish Journal
of Game Studies.

Brendan Keogh is an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career
Research Fellow currently conducting research into Australian videogame
makers and skills transfer. He is the author of A Play of Bodies: How We
Perceive Videogames and Killing is Harmless: A Critical Reading of Spec Ops
The Line.

Nadav Lipkin is an Assistant Professor of Media, Communication and
Technology at La Roche College in Pittsburgh. His dissertation, “Agents at
work: Decision making capacity and creative labor in network society,”
explores agency for creative professionals through a cross-industry
analysis and a case study of the independent game development community in
New York City. His research focuses on independent media production both in
and beyond the games industry. Currently, he is examining the responses of
YouTube content producers to changes in the platform’s content policies.

Casey O'Donnell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and
Information at Michigan State University. His research examines the
creative collaborative work of videogame design and development. This
research examines the cultural and collaborative dynamics that occur in
both professional "AAA" organizations and formal and informal "independent"
game development communities. His first book, "Developer's Dilemma" is
published by MIT Press. Casey is an active game developer, releasing "Osy,"
in 2011, "Against the Gradient," in 2012, "GLITcH" in 2013 and "Kerem
B’Yavneh," in 2016. His work has been funded by the National Science
Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Celia Pearce is an award-winning game designer, researcher, writer and
curator. She currently holds a position as Associate Professor of Game
Design at Northeastern University.  She is the author or co-author of
numerous of books and papers, including Communities of Play (MIT Press),
Ethnography and Virtual Worlds (Princeton) and IndieCade at 10: A Decade of
Innovation (CMU ETC Press-In Progress), which chronicles the history of
IndieCade, the festival she co-founded. Her recent game credits include
Fracture, co-designed for the Blinks Platform, and eBee, which won the 2016
award for Innovation in Tabletop Game Design at Boston Festival of Indie
Games.

Paolo Ruffino is Lecturer in Media Studies at University of Lincoln, UK,
and artist with the collective IOCOSE. Ruffino is the author of Future
Gaming: Creative Interventions in Video Game Culture (Goldsmiths and MIT
Press), and editor and co-author of numerous publications on games
cultures, gamification, and game art. He has been researching in the areas
of digital culture, media and cultural studies, media art, and semiotics.
Ruffino is President of DiGRA Italia and board member of British DiGRA.

Olli Sotamaa is an Associate Professor of game cultures studies at the
University of Tampere. His publications cover co-production, user-generated
content, game industry analysis & game studies methods. Sotamaa is the
co-director of University of Tampere Game Research Lab and a team leader at
the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies (2018-2025). His current
research interests include game production studies, creative labour and
game policy.



*BIBLIOGRAPHY*
Apperley, T. and Golding, D. (2015) “Australia” in In Video Games Around
the World (M.J.P. Wolf, dir.), Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press, pp. 57–70.
Arsenault, D., and Guay, L.-M. (2015). “Canada”. In Video Games Around the
World (M.J.P. Wolf, dir.), Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press, p. 105-118.
Garda, M.B. & Grabarczyk, P. (2016). Is Every Indie Game Independent?
Towards the Concept of Independent Game. Game Studies, vol. 16, Issue 1.
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of March show”. GDConf.com. February 28. Available at http://www.gdconf.com
/news/gdc_state_of_the_industry_rese/
GOV.uk (2014). “Video games tax relief passes final hurdle”. GOV.uk, 27th
March. Available at
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/video-games-tax-relief-passes-final-hurdle
Gregg, M. (2011) Work’s Intimacy. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity Press
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Juul, J. (2014). “High-tech Low-tech Authenticity: The Creation of
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Interactive Entertainment Association. Available at
http://ukie.org.uk/blueprint

-- 
Dr. Paolo Ruffino
http://paoloruffino.com
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