CALL FOR PAPERS – Gamification & ludic transformation of reality

During the last decades, games have penetrated the everyday by becoming an established vein of entertainment and consumer culture, and an increasingly common and integral part of people’s daily lives. The ways in which people play and employ games have become and continue to be more varied. There are more different kinds of games available for a multitude of different platforms, mediated through different technologies that cater for differing gaming needs for widening audiences and which use a wide variety of business models.

Following these developments, our reality and lives are increasingly game-like, not only because video games have become a pervasive part of our lives, but perhaps most prominently because activities, systems and services that are not traditionally perceived as game-like are increasingly gamified. Gamification refers to designing products, services and organizational practices to afford similar experiences to games, and consequently, to attempt to create value and affect people’s behaviour. In recent years, the popularity of gamification has skyrocketed and is manifested in growing numbers of gamified applications, as well as a rapidly increasing amount of research. Healthcare, educational and organizational contexts have been especially prominent fields for gamification interventions and solutions. Gameful restructuring of activities has been perceived as a potentially effective way of increasing motivation and participation in such contexts. Research in the given contexts has seemed to support the idea that gamification can indeed be beneficial for increasing engagement and commitment in, for example, healthy habits and exercise, learning, and work.

Beyond intentional gamification, gamification also refers to the general ludic transformation of our reality, culture and everyday lives. For example, recently we have witnessed the popular emergence of augmented reality games and virtual reality technologies that enable a more seamless integration of games into our physical reality. The media ecosystem has also experienced a degree of ludic transformation, with user generated content becoming an important competitor for large media corporations. This transformation has led to the development of several emerging phenomena such as streaming and esports, that have penetrated the cultural membrane allowing games to seep into domains hitherto dominated by traditional media. Furthermore, current developments in smart home and smart office solutions, and the integration of sensor technology and connectivity to tangible everyday objects, and the development of the Internet of Things, are creating new avenues for creating playful and gamified experiences. Today, many toys also incorporate technology, extending the ways they can be used and interacted with. Connected, smart playthings and the Internet of Toys (IoToys) have widened both our understandings of play and what comprises contemporary, digital playgrounds, exemplifying the toyification of technology. At the same time, when shared on social media platforms, play with non-technological toys is becoming increasingly gamified.

IMPORTANT DATES

January 31: Submissions deadline
March 15: Notifications of acceptance sent to authors
April 20: Registration deadline for paper authors
April 30: Deadline for camera ready
May 21-23, 2018: Conference

THEMES

Gamification is a multi-faceted development that affects multiple domains of human life. Therefore, we welcome submission related to this ludic transformation of our reality under several domains and related to (but not limited to) e.g. the following keywords:

Gamification and

Users: e.g. Engagement, experience, user typesEducation: e.g. Serious games, game-based learning, games & mathMedia: e.g. eSports, streamingCommerce: e.g. Business models, free-to-play, gambling, gamification as marketingWork: e.g. Organizational gamification, gameful work, gamification in leadershipTechnology: e.g. Virtual Reality, augmented reality, Internet of ThingsToys & play: e.g. Toy play, toy design/creation, toys in education, Internet of ToysHealth: e.g. Quantified self, games for health, health benefitsCulture: e.g. Ludification, history of games and gamificationTheories/concepts/methods: Contributions to science around gamification

PROCEEDINGS, PUBLICATIONS & PRESENTATIONS

At the conference: presenters of academic papers have a 15-minute slot (+ 5 mins for questions).

The aspiring authors of selected best papers will be invited to submit their extended work as a journal article for consideration on a fast track in journal special issues in Electronic Commerce Research and Applications (ECRA), IF 1.954.

All the papers accepted to the conference will be sent for consideration in CEUR Workshop Proceedings, and after acceptance, the proceedings will be published as a GamiFIN Conference volume. CEUR-WS.org is an open-access, recognized ISSN publication series, ISSN 1613-0073. (In the Finnish classification of publication forums, CEUR-WS-proceedings are classified as Jufo 1).

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Papers should contain 5-6 pages, including the list of references. All submissions will be peer-reviewed double blinded, therefore submissions should not contain any information that could give an indication of the authorship. The contribution has to be original, novel, well written and scientifically ensure the validity of the presented results.

In the online submission system you will be asked to list the most relevant themes of your paper as keywords. Papers should be submitted in PDF format, but no special formatting templates apply in this stage. In general, papers should be formatted to follow the basic guidelines: Times New Roman, 12pt, line spacing 1 and margins top & bottom: 2, left & right: 2.5. References, tables and figures are acceptable in the papers. Camera-ready papers will be collected with appropriate template, which will provided to the authors after acceptance.

Please submit your paper through:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=gamifin2018

The submission system is now open and the deadline for submissions is January 31st, 2018.

VENUE

GamiFIN is organised by the University Consortium of Pori. University Consortium of Pori is a centre of 2 000 students, 170 experts and four universities operating networked in a multi-science environment. UCPori carries out research and education in art, economics, culture, industrial management, technology, and social sciences, and provides a unique multidisciplinary environment for the research.

CONTACT
Email: info@gamifinconference.com

SUPPORTED AND HOSTED BY
Gamification Group, University Consortium of Pori (UCPori), Tampere University of Technology (TUT) and University of Turku (UTU)

Conference chairs: Juho Hamari, Jonna Koivisto