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CHI 2018 SIG CHI 2018, April 21–26, 2018, Montréal, QC, Canada
Organizers Introduction are interested in finding out how they can benefit from
This SIG is organized by Len- Games and play technologies have been a driving force existing HCI strategies, tools, and techniques, or how
nart Nacke, Pejman Mirza-Ba- for research since emotionally engaging experiences our approaches and policies need to be modified,
baei, Katta Spiel, Zachary O. became a prominent area of user research at CHI adapted, or re-thought to meet the requirements to en-
Toups and Katherine Isbister, [1,2,3,4]. Despite the immediate importance of design gage with these underrepresented communities. It is
who have all been very active to deliver engaging experiences in games, HCI prac- necessary to discuss expectations, resource costs,
in CHI games community in the tices and methods are not mature throughout the in- training needs, value-to-cost ratios, as well as policies
past. Nacke and Isbister have dustry and associated academic and non-profit domains and strategies to reach and engage beyond usual CHI
served as Games and Play sub- [5,6,8]. This inexperience impacts small developers. By audiences. The outcome of this SIG meeting will be a
committee chairs. All of them small developers, we mean independent ("indie") de- collection of best practice recommendations, guidelines,
have multiple CHI publications velopers, non- profit organizations, and other develop- tools, and individual success stories on how these col-
and organized workshops, ment units that have an interest in game development laborations may work.
courses and SIGs for CHI in the or gamification and are underrepresented in the CHI
past. community. The games community includes researchers and practi-
tioners focusing on player-centered design and evalua-
Reaching our Audience Small developers often lack resources, knowledge, and tion of games and entertainment applications. Topics
A goal of this SIG is to discuss experience to include HCI research in their processes, that are consistently of interest in this SIG are:
and identify directions to en- yet would benefit greatly from it. Further, such groups
gage with game development are unable to communicate the results of research work • player-oriented game development including analy-
communities to promote HCI to stakeholders involved in game development (e.g., sis, design, games user research and evaluation of
research on games. We want to programmers, designers, producers, marketers) [5,6, desktop, mobile, mixed reality, tabletop, serious, ex-
increase the representation 9]. This miscommunication often leads to a lack of col- ertion, and affective games;
small developers at CHI. We laboration between academic researchers and game de- • development of interactive TV formats, DVDs, and re-
will ask all CHI 2018 game-re- velopers, which would otherwise be mutually produc- lated media;
lated workshop organizers and tive. Moreover, this means research outcomes are often • interactive applications for media consumption and
session chairs to communicate not effectively disseminated to the communities who usage on the web, in the car, and with mobile plat-
this SIG to their participants could use and benefit from them the most. forms; and
and plan to be active within the • other entertainment-focused applications.
ACM SIGCHI’s CHIPLAY com- Within the scope of this year's conference, and in line
munity and online. We will also with the "Engage With CHI" spirit of CHI 2018, we pro- Although this list of topics is not comprehensive, it
use our local industry connec- pose to build a SIG meeting targeting the "long tail" in demonstrates an impressive portfolio of research on in-
tions to promote CHI2018 (and game development (i.e., small developers). Our goal is teractive entertainment technologies that can (and
game related events such as to bring the CHI games and play community together should) have higher impact on efforts within the game
this SIG) to developers in [4] to discuss how to better understand, investigate, development communities.
Montréal. promote, and provide the value of HCI research in
games for these small companies and initiatives. We
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CHI 2018 SIG CHI 2018, April 21–26, 2018, Montréal, QC, Canada
Through this broad range of HCI expertise, this SIG of- Scope games research at CHI to determine the breadth
Goals and Action Items
fers small developers and researchers a platform to in- of the community. Can and should it include other ar-
§ Bring the community to- form each other and plan collaborations. eas? How can we identify those areas and tie them to
gether to share their work. SIGCHI’s other communities?
§ Identify directions for re- Issues to cover during the SIG
search and standards for col- The aim of this SIG is to provide a forum for the mem- Expand beyond CHI. While there is a strong games aca-
laboration with game devel- bers of this important sub-field of CHI to plan ways to demic community, we would like to strengthen the field
opers. serve the community best at upcoming CHI confer- in general with better scientific outlets for publishing
§ To discuss ways the CHI con- ences. This year, the SIG is focuses on small develop- games research.
ference can welcome indies ers, so our primary issues are to:
and non-profits to partici- Educate new researchers about the publishing stand-
pate. Understand the challenges small developers face. By ards, common methodologies, and, of course, the re-
identifying common pitfalls, developers’ constraints, viewing process that is ever changing, but always fo-
§ Identify the key challenges
and other challenges in taking up HCI research in their cused on keeping its quality.
that prevent small develop-
development practices.
ers from taking advantage of
Integrate other research communities. SIGCHI is not
the CHI community.
Identify lightweight HCI practices that can be easily in- the only organization with a games community. There
§ Publish whitepapers that corporated by small developers. We expect that a core are other interesting venues that would improve their
identify open problems in en- outcome will work toward actionable practice for small quality and ours by collaborating with us. Outlets like
gaging with indie developers. developers. ICA (International Communication Association) game
§ Make games and entertain- studies and Digital Games Research Association (DI-
ment content from CHI more Welcome small developers to the community. While GRA) have always been important for games research
prominent to game develop- conference attendance can be expensive and challeng- and will remain publishing venues that we could con-
ment communities. ing for small developers, we will identify ways to de- sider working with. We need to discuss possible inte-
§ Discuss and document the velop mutually beneficial relationships. grations or scholarship support for researchers working
community efforts beyond within the Game Developers Conference (GDC) or other
standard publications by ex- As in years past, the SIG will also continue to address professional venues. A strong part of the success of the
tending existing work in the following, bearing in mind our focus on small devel- games research at CHI has been tie-ins to the games
games research and devel- opers and time constraints at the SIG: industry and relevance of the work for them.
opment.
Identify current trends in games and interaction re- Collaborate with industry. In the past, we have suc-
Acknowledgements
search to determine the makeup of the CHI community, cessfully integrated industry speakers in both CHI and
The authors would like to thank note changes, and ensure research remains timely. CHI PLAY gaming talks and panels. What is a good
NSERC and SSHRC, FWF, NSF, strategy to continue to involve these practitioners and
and the Austrian Science Fund developers? Also, is there a way to drive research
for funding this work. within CHI that directly benefits small developers?
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CHI 2018 SIG CHI 2018, April 21–26, 2018, Montréal, QC, Canada
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