Games and Play SIG at CSCW: Approaching Games Research from a CSCW Perspective

The social and collaborative side of games and play has given rise to many questions about the social dynamics of digital games and their impacts on groups, teams, communities, and societies, which are highly valuable and relevant to the CSCW community. In the history of CSCW, diverse groups of researchers, students, academics, practitioners, and developers have contributed to introducing and promoting games and play research, either through studying gameplay itself or leveraging games and play as a valuable context to study other core CSCW concepts/questions. Despite the shared research interests in games and play, we understand that these groups of researchers may often lack a dedicated opportunity to get together at CSCW to connect, network, and learn from each others various research efforts and perspectives. We also recognize that there are currently many members of the larger CSCW community whose research and practice intersects with games and play. The main goal of this SIG is to help both games and play researchers at CSCW and CSCW researchers who are interested in knowing more about games and play research connect with each other and further build a sense of community. Together, we aim to strengthen ties between games and play research and other areas of research within CSCW and explore how games research and CSCW can benefit from each other.