This may be the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source: Keogh, Brendan (2020) Researching Game-making Skills, cultures, and politics. This file was downloaded from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/207132/ c Consult author(s) regarding copyright matters This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the docu- ment is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recog- nise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to [email protected] Notice: Please note that this document may not be the Version of Record (i.e. published version) of the work. Author manuscript versions (as Sub- mitted for peer review or as Accepted for publication after peer review) can be identified by an absence of publisher branding and/or typeset appear- ance. If there is any doubt, please refer to the published source. Researching Game-making Skills, cultures, and politics Workshop program Digital Media Research Centre Queensland University of Technology 7 - 12 December, 2020 QUT acknowledges the Turrbal and Yugara as the First Nations owners of the lands where QUT now stands. We pay respect to their Elders, lores, customs and creation spirits. We recognise that these lands have always been places of teaching, research and learning. QUT has prepared a virtual Welcome To Country, which I strongly encourage you to watch here. ​ This workshop is funded by, and is the capstone event for, the Australian Research Council DECRA project, “Formal, Informal, Embedded: Australian Game Developers and Skill Transfer” (DE180100973). Researching Game-making: Skills, cultures, and politics - December 7-12, 2020 - QUT, Australia 1 Welcome, from the Digital Media Research Centre and its Transforming Media Industries research program, to Researching Game-making: Skills, Cultures, and Politics. This event embodies the animating interests of the DMRC in many ways, not least of which its innovative experimentation with digital technology to create a meaningful experience among a shared community of games researchers, designers, and players. Games research is a central node of the Transforming Media Industries research program, which focuses on how the ​ ​ industrial practices and cultural dynamics of media industries are adapting to profound transformations in the production, distribution, consumption, and regulation of media content in local and global contexts. We embrace the spirit of investigation central to researching the practices, politics, and dynamics of game-making, the operation of power involved, and the potential for innovation that affect game-makers and the communities of play they support. - Professor Amanda Lotz, Program Leader, “Transforming Media Industries”. Researching Game-making: Skills, cultures, and politics - December 7-12, 2020 - QUT, Australia 2 Quick reference links NOTE: As speakers will be presenting works-in-progress, please do not share these links ​ ​ beyond the workshop participants. Workshop zone: https://researching-gamemaking.glitch.me ​ ​ Discord channel: ● Invite link (use first time) (This invite should work 100 times. Email Brendan if it stops ​ working) ● Access link (use after you’ve already joined once): ​ Youtube playlist of all public talks: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8EvBPKtPNjNPW4CbM9Bvlvo0uBiw5jot Zoom chat room: [CLOSED] ​ Scheduled optional Zoom chat times (in AEST (not AEDT)): Tuesday 8th, 8pm AEST (most convenient for UK and Turkey) Wednesday 9th, 8am AEST (most convenient for Australia, US, Canada) Thursday 10th, 2pm AEST (most convenient for Australia, Tokyo, Turkey) Friday 11th, 2am AEST (most convenient for US, Canada, UK) Researching Game-making: Skills, cultures, and politics - December 7-12, 2020 - QUT, Australia 3 Concept note This workshop seeks to bring together key researchers in the emerging subfield of game production studies to facilitate new conversations and collaborations that consider the processes, conditions, and identities through which videogames are produced. The last decade has seen the global videogame industry undergo seismic changes in terms of how videogames are produced and distributed. The rise of independent game development (Ruffino 2018); extensive platformisation (Nieborg and Poell 2018; Nicoll and Keogh 2019); newly accessible and transformative development tools (Harvey 2014); heightened focus on labour conditions and discrimination in development studios (Cote and Harris 2020; Bulut 2020); and other drastic changes have greatly restructured videogame development in specific local contexts. Today, videogames are just as likely to be developed in small and informal settings with shoestring budgets as they are in established large campus-sized studios run by multinational corporations (Kerr 2017; Keogh 2019). The changing nature of videogame production reflects broader shifts towards individualisation and informalisation in the creative or cultural industries (Banks 2007; McRobbie 2016), and raises challenging questions in terms of how we investigate and conceptualise key concepts in game production studies such as labour, platformisation, craft, inclusion, precarisation, creativity, community, and education. Game production researchers have begun to fruitfully explore these conditions through a range of approaches including political economy, ethnography, labour studies, platform governance, history, and cultural industries. A constant refrain across this burgeoning body of research is a recognition of the need for new concepts and theories on the skills, cultures, and politics of making videogames in specific local and trans-local contexts (Izushi and Aoyama 2006; Joseph ​ 2013; Jørgensen et al 2017; Kerr 2017; Parker and Jenson 2017). To this end, this workshop asks participants to consider the following prompts: ● What are the conditions, ambitions, cultures, educational skills, and/or infrastructures that mediate the processes of making videogames creatively, economically, culturally, and/or socially? ● How are the various formal and informal scales of videogame production interrelated in specific local contexts? ● How can the cultural, social, and economic values of videogame production be more adequately accounted for and theorised? Researching Game-making: Skills, cultures, and politics - December 7-12, 2020 - QUT, Australia 4 Workshop structure This is an asynchronous workshop. Over the course of the week, participants are requested to spend approximately 1-2 hours a day on average engaging with the content. The content is spread across four main components: 1. Watching pre-recorded presentations 2. Participating in written discussion on a Discord server 3. Chatting in informal Zoom catch-ups 4. Hanging out in the virtual workshop zone Pre-recorded panels Speaker presentations will be pre-recorded and have been organised into thematic panels of 3 presentations each. They will be available to watch on Youtube, via the links in the Schedule below, or they can be watched in the workshop zone. Videos can be watched at any time, in any order. However, a recommended viewing schedule has been provided to try to ensure all panels get equal engagement and discussion. Follow along with the recommended schedule if your commitments allow, or watch the videos at whatever time, in whatever order, works best for you. Discord server The Discord server is the main site where discussions and collaboration will unfold over the course of the week. Each presentation panel will have its own channel, and participants are encouraged to use this channel to ask questions, write comments, and develop discussions relevant to the panel’s papers in this channel. Because these are text channels, this means a participant who watches a video later in the week can catch up on and contribute to a discussion that has potentially been unfolding since the start of the week. Presenters are encouraged to keep an eye on their own panel’s channel throughout the week. There is also a general discussion channel, where a prompt will be posted every day in the hope of developing further conversations. There is also an introductions channel, and an off-topic channel. Researching Game-making: Skills, cultures, and politics - December 7-12, 2020 - QUT, Australia 5 Ideally, the Discord server will continue in some form after the end of the workshop to be a space for discussions around gamemaking research to continue to unfold. Informal Zoom Catch-ups Three/Four times throughout the week, a Zoom room will be available for informal real-time discussions between participants. This will be a strictly informal and optional catch-up to provide an opportunity for (virtual) face-to-face chats. Scheduled times (in AEST (not AEDT)): ​ ​ Tuesday 8th, 8pm AEST (most convenient for UK and Turkey) Wednesday 9th, 8am AEST (most convenient for Australia, US, Canada) Thursday 10th, 2pm AEST (most convenient for Australia, Tokyo, Turkey) Friday 11th, 2am AEST (most convenient for US, Canada, UK) Workshop zone The workshop zone [LINK] is a real-time virtual space designed by Australian gamemakers ​ ​ Cecile Richard and Jae Stuart, using a software