Studije video igara – SVI (Video Games Studies) is the first academic conference in our country dealing with the field of video games. Organized by the Academy of Arts and the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Novi Sad, over two days (December 10th and 11th), all interested professional audience will be introduced to experts and students who submitted their works in the spring of this year. During the last few years, an increasing number of researchers in Serbia are writing about games in areas such as media theory, sociology, psychology, narratology, cultural studies, film theory, philological sciences, management and work organization, anthropology etc.
Depending on the theoretical platform and the parent discipline, when we talk about video games, we do not mean only their formal and technical characteristics, but also the contexts of their appearance within society and culture. Thus, studies can include public and private play spaces, game industry, media convergence, their aesthetic and psychological effect on the player, socialization, identity policies, ways in which they are used for educational, therapeutic, artistic, business-organizational, advertising or propaganda purposes and others.
This year also marks a jubilee, because exactly two decades have passed since the first conference on game studies was held in Copenhagen, in 2001. After two decades of this interdisciplinary field, which is recognized as a scientific socio-humanistic discipline in most of Europe (especially in Scandinavian countries, where MA or Phd degrees can be obtained), it is time to take a step in that direction in Serbia as well.
Already during its first edition, SVI conference will also feature guests from abroad, the two keynote speakers: Frans Mäyrä from the Finnish University of Tampere, as well as Jesper Juul from the Danish Academy of Architecture, Design and Conservation in Copenhagen.
The conference will be held on Friday, December 10, from 10 am to 6 pm, as well as on Saturday, December 11, from 10 am to 1.30 pm, in the Amphitheater of the Rectorate of the University of Novi Sad (Dr. Zoran Djindjic 1).
The conference is divided into several thematic sessions, such as The Player, Serious Games and Business, Culture and Narratology or Media and Narratology. Among the many interesting topics and works that will be presented during the conference are also Live Concerts within Games: Transmedia Space of New Opportunities, Storyplaying: Narrative Competence in Gaming, Open Questions of Video Game Localization in Serbian, Construction of Authenticity – Indie Platformer Positioning, Ecology in video games, The effects of the application of digital games in education, Video games from the angle of positive psychology, Application of psychology in video games in controlling players, or Psychological characteristics of League of Legends players who prefer different positions and roles in the game.
We believe that these titles, only a small part of the nearly 50 papers that will be presented, will interest you enough to follow the conference! You can also download the book of abstracts (in English!).
SGA supports the realization of the SVI conference as one of the partners, and in addition the delegates will be addressed by Relja Bobić, our Program Director, through the plenary presentation Introduction to the ecosystem of the Serbian video game industry and bring the current situation in the domestic video game industry.
We sincerely congratulate to our colleagues from Novi Sad – Manojlo Maravić, Žolt Lazar, Dušan Ristić and Dragan Đorđević – on this valuable initiative that further contributes to the development and quality of the domestic video game ecosystem, and opens space for much-needed research and critical view of the field!