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Call for Papers: Creative Gamers - Exploring Participatory Culture in Gaming

Game modifications ('mods'), game fan sites, gamer community web pages, player created productions such as machinima (short movies created with game engines) have grown in popularity and significance. This development can be interpreted to reflect the larger transformations in the user–producer relations and the landscape of media production in general.

We invite proposals for presentations at the "Creative Gamers Seminar" organized by University of Tampere Hypermedia Laboratory's Game Research Lab. The possible list of topics includes but is not limited to:

  • History of player created content and modding
  • Analyses of creative game player activities
  • Typologies and ways of interpreting mods and other creative practices of game cultures
  • The role of tools and editors in player participation
  • The social roles, structure and activities of game player communities
  • Learning and practices of support in game cultures
  • The motivations of modders and other "player-producers"
  • Ownership and fair use of information among game cultures
  • Industry practices: ways of supporting and controlling player creativity

We strongly encourage submissions from graduate students. Early considerations from projects currently in progress are most welcome.

The two-day event consists of themed sessions that aim to introduce current research projects and discuss the potentials and limitations of gamer creativity. The seminar will be chaired by Research Director Frans Mäyrä (Hypermedia Laboratory, University of Tampere). Paper commentators include Professor Henry Jenkins (Comparative Media Studies, MIT), and Professor Mikko Lehtonen (Media Culture, University of Tampere). In the first day there will be public lecture by professor Jenkins on "War Between Effects and Meaning", at the Games and Storytelling lecture series, which will be open for everyone.

Important dates

  • Abstract due: November 19, 2004
  • Notice of acceptance: November 26, 2004
  • Seminar material deadline: December 17, 2004
  • Seminar: January 11-12, 2005

Hypermedia Laboratory
Kanslerinrinne 1, FIN-33014 University of Tampere, http://www.uta.fi/hyper/