27 February 2025 — 28 February 2025

International conference «Game Design & Game Studies: Video Game Ontology»

A scientific conference on video game ontology was held from 27th to 28th of February, 2025. The conference will host presentations on video games, their development and influence on mediaspace and their role in the modern world. The conference was organized by the HSE Art and Design School and the HSE Postgraduate School of Art and Design.

What is a video game? What makes it different from other media? What elements can a game be comprised of? How are these elements organized among themselves?—these are the definitive questions of video game ontology. This area of game studies seeks to describe the nature of video games and their structural features. This framing was once necessary to delineate the distinct discipline of ludology, which served as the predecessor for game studies. Today, when video games are increasingly intertwined with other media in the form of gamification, game-art, and game-related content on different platforms, the issues of game ontology become exponentially complicated and require new, original theoretical approaches.

At the same time, video game ontology has implications for development and design: a game designer must have a systemic vision that explains the relationship between different layers of the game (this function is oftentimes delegated to game-design frameworks). Game designer also gets to combine the perspectives of different specialists in the team. The scriptwriter, 3D-artist, programmer, players of different audiences all have their own ontologies of the game being developed, and the game designer in this case has to act as a «negotiator», a diplomat between different answers to an ontological question: «what kind of game is this?».

Mark Pashchenko, curator Alexey Salin. Representation of plant-like civilizations in space 4X\ - strategies

Alsu Ilalova, curator Anatoly Kazakov. Mechanics based on the emotions of game characters and NPCs

According to Espen Aarseth's and Sebastian Möring's ludohermeneutics, players are constantly generating and updating their own ontological models of the specific games they play: in the form of expectations of genre, mechanics, and narrative. As these authors put it, «as the game is played, it becomes itself».

How should we approach video game ontologies today, after Ian Bogost has demonstrated how video games are fundamentally a «mess», a heterogeneous and multicomposed media that cannot be exhaustively defined? What are the practical effects of choosing particular game ontologies? How can we work with ontological models which are implicitly created by game communities themselves? And could sociological methods be of use here, such as actor-network theory?

We invite you to discuss these and related questions at our conference.

Program

27 February

Key Speakers. Part 1

10:00 — 12:00

Section 1

12:30 — 14:00

Section 2

15:00 — 16:30

Key Speakers. Part 2

17:00 — 20:00

10:00 — 12:00

Key Speakers. Part 1

10:00 — 11:00 || Alexey Salin (HSE, Moscow), From Procedural Rhetoric to Ludohermeneutics and Beyond: Toward a New Understanding of Video Games - Russian

11:00 — 12:00 || Konstantin Ocheretyany (Saint-Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg), Dysgamification: What happens to computer games when they stop being played? - Russian

Moderator: Liudmila Alyabieva (HSE, Moscow)

12:30 — 14:00

Section 1

12:30 — 12:50 || Maria Kochakova (Institute of Business and Design (B&D), Moscow), Comparative Analysis of Time Classifications in Video Games

12:50 — 13:10 || Elizaveta Semirkhanova (Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology RAS, Moscow), From virtual RPG settings to physical strikes with steel objects – or how gamer frames influence the sports of new social movements

13:10 — 13:30 || Kseniia Vekker (Ranepa, Moscow), Social relation in computer games (on the example of Dota2: the difference between an amateur team and a professional team)

13:30 — 14:00 || Artem Zubov (M.V. Lomonosov MSU), Fantastic, Inference, and the «Ludic Attitude»

Moderator: Anatoly Kazakov (HSE, Moscow)

15:00 — 16:30

Section 2

15:00 — 15:20 || Maro Malenko (HSE, Moscow), Overcoming the Industry: Extra-modern Perspectives in Game Design and Game Studies

15:20 — 15:40 || Alisa Selikhova (HSE, Moscow), Experience-centered approach to video game system design: discourses in game studies

15:40 — 16:00 || Anzor Pasechnik (HSE, Moscow), Auditory turn in game design: relevance of sound art and sound studies to ludic sound

16:00 — 16:30 || Dmitrii Terekhov (HSE, Moscow), On the simbolicity of gameplay elements, or How much does a star battlecruiser eat

Moderator:Ekaterina Kuldina (HSE, Moscow)

17:00 — 20:00

Key Speakers. Part 2

17:00 — 18:00 || Alexander Vetushinskiy (Institute of Business and Design (B&D), Moscow), The another beginning: soviet game research project - Russian

18:00 — 19:00 || Ryan Banfi (New York University, USA), New Perspectives: Contemporary Video Game Cameras - online, English

19:00 — 20:00 || Celia Hodent (CLIN, France), Advancing Game UX & Ethics - online, English

Moderator: Amir Abu Makhadi (HSE, Moscow)

28 February

Section 3

10:00 — 11:30

Section 4

12:00 — 13:30

Section 5

14:30 — 16:00

Round Table (Discussion)

17:00 — 19:00

10:00 — 11:30

Section 3

10:00 — 10:20 || Egor Novgorodov (HSE, Moscow), Modding as a practice of constructing a virtual world and fan community: case-study of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim mods

10:20 — 10:40 || Dmitrii Riabov (HSE, St. Petersburg), Geopolitical Subjectivation through Assemblage: Ontology of a Tabletop and Video Wargame

10:40 — 11:00 || Nikita Guguchkin (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St. Petersburg), Game as metaphor of the world: Eugen Fink's ontology of play in the context of game studies and object-oriented ontology

11:00 — 11:30 || Maxim Preobrazhenskiy (Moscow Witte University, Moscow), Material Onthology of Videogames

Moderator: Maro Malenko (HSE, Moscow)

12:00 — 13:30

Section 4

12:00 — 12:20 || Anatoly Kazakov (HSE, Moscow), Framework SBE (System, Behaviour, Experience)

12:20 — 12:40 || Alexey Masalov (Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow),Absent Structure 2.0: Dynamic Form and Flat Ontologies of Boomer Shooters (illWill, Forgive Me Father, etc.)

12:40 — 13:00 || Aleksey Larichev (Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow), The ontology of the visual novel: heterogeneity as the basis of the genre’s game-design

13:00 — 13:30 || Eleonora Novikova (National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk), The Game Nature of Art VS. The Artistic Nature of the Game

Moderator: Ksenia Zhernova (independent researcher, Moscow)

14:30 — 16:00

Section 5

14:30 — 14:50 || Arkadii Morgun (The Kuban State University, Krasnodar), The Trust Spectrum in a Multiplayer Sandbox - online, Russian

14:50 — 15:10 || Daniil Baturin (University of Tyumen, Tyumen), The Game Nature of Art VS. The Artistic Nature of the Game

15:10 — 15:30 || Ilya Stakheev (HSE, Moscow), The Concept of the Political in Game Worlds: Schmitt vs. Mouffe - online, Russian

15:30 — 16:00 || Vladilav Kirichenko (HSE, St. Petersburg), The Theory of Possible Worlds as a Tool for Analyzing Game Ontologies - online, Russian

Moderator: Ekaterina Kuldina (HSE, Moscow)

17:00 — 19:00

Round Table (Discussion)

Pathways through the Mess: On Current Status of Video Game Ontology and its Developments - online, Russian

Alexander Vetushinskiy (Institute of Business and Design (B&D), Moscow)
Konstantin Ocheretyany (Saint-Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg)
Vladilav Kirichenko (HSE, St. Petersburg)
Maro Malenko (HSE, Moscow)
Amir Abu Makhadi (HSE, Moscow)

Moderator: Alexey Salin (HSE, Moscow)

Speakers

Celia Hodent

PhD in psychology. Celia is recognized as a leader in the application of user experience and cognitive science in the game industry. Through her 16-year experience in game studios (Ubisoft, LucasArts, & director of UX at Epic Games), she has contributed in advancing the topics of UX strategy, inclusion, and ethics in games. Author of the critically acclaimed book The Gamer’s Brain, Celia is the founder of the Game UX Summit & Ethical Games, and works today as an independent consultant.

Alexey Salin

Lecturer in Game Design at the School of Design of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, researcher, translator of scientific literature from German and English, author of scientific articles on game studies. PhD in Philosophy

Konstantin Ocheretyanyi

Philosopher, Associate Professor at the Philosophy of Science and Technology department of Saint Petersburg State University. PhD in Philosophy

Alexander Vetushinsky

Philosopher, researcher at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University, Head of Game Design department of Institute of Business and Design.

Rayan Banfi

PhD in cinema studies from The Martin Scorsese Cinema Studies at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. He was a Hispanic Scholarship Fund Scholar. Ryan is author of scientific articles and currently teaches English and Media Studies classes at Emerson College and MassArt. He is on the editorial board of Games and Culture.

Amir Abu Makhadi

Game designer, programmer and video game researcher. Lecturer in Game Design at the School of Design of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE). Studying at the Postgraduate School of Art and Design.

Maro Malenko

Games researcher, Lecturer in System Game Design at the School of Design of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE). Studying at the Postgraduate School of Art and Design

Ekaterina Kuldina

Lecturer of Game Design at the School of Design of the National Research University Higher School of Economics. Game researcher, game designer

Anatoly Kazakov

Head of Game Design department at the School of Design of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, developer of educational games for the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, Potanin Foundation, educational projects «Moscow. Enclaves 2030», «Future Intellectual Leaders of Russia 2014», «Amur» forum

Ksenia Zhernova

Independent researcher, game designer at Cyber-Terem, graduate of the Master's programme in Communication Design at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE)

Гейм-дизайн Аспирантская школа по искусству и дизайну

International conference «Game Design & Game Studies: Video Game Ontology»

Program

27 February

Key Speakers. Part 1

Section 1

Section 2

Key Speakers. Part 2

28 February

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Round Table (Discussion)

Speakers

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