TAG Calendar of Events
An Esoteric TTRPG History With Leonardo Abate, Michael Iantorno, and Marc Lajeunesse
Join Leonardo Abate, Michael Iantorno, and Marc Lajeunesse for a discussion about tabletop roleplaying games. We’ll look at exciting moments in the development of TTRPGs across time and place. Starting with a general overview of how TTRPGs developed in America, we’ll venture across the sea to look at the beautiful TTRPG coastline of Italy where in the 80s and 90s small but imaginative subcultures of TTRPG gaming developed independently, with games that were never translated to English. We’ll also discuss the development of the Open Gaming License and how it spawned subcultures of homebrew practices.
The Disco Elysium Roundtable
Join Dr. Carl Therrien, Dr. Mia Consalvo, Nathanaël Roussy, and Elizabeth Eraña for a roundtable discussion on Disco Elysium. Dark play, detective stories, and the inner reaches and turmoils of the human mind are all on the table for this discussion!
CGSA at TAG, 2025 Edition
After a successful impromptu partnership in 2024, the Canadian Game Studies Association Conference is returning to TAG and Milieux from June 7th to 10th, 2025.
For capacity reasons, attendance for this event is limited to conference participants and current TAG members. The conference schedule and details about TAG member registration is forthcoming.
The TAG Critical Watch Series #6 - Jumanji
Join us for a screening and discussion of 1995's Jumanji, featuring Robin Williams, roll to move mechanics, and CGI jungle animals.
The TAG Critical Watch Series is an opportunity to reflect on how video games are adapted and represented across film. The film screening will be followed by a short discussion, which is then followed by a podcast recording with select members of the audience and/or our guests. March's film is the original Jumanji (1995).
Seating is limited. If you would like to reserve a place on the podcast for this month's film ahead of time, or if you would like to suggest films for future screenings, please contact the TAG coordinator at tag.coordinator@concordia.ca.
Guest Talk: Extreme Design with Evgeni Puzankov
Join us on March 14th for a talk on extreme design and game narrative with Evgeni Puzankov.
Evgeni Puzankov is a PhD student in the Department of Computational Art at York University. He is a game maker and narrative designer with over 15 years of experience, mostly specializing in weird, absurd, and political games. Evgeni has been teaching narrative design indepently for five years, and is a curator and producer of the indie micro-fund called ‘Briefs,’ presented by the Austrian art collective Gold Extra.
The TAG Critical Watch Series #5 - Assassin's Creed (2016)
Join us for a screening and discussion of 2016's Assassin's Creed. No amount of hay can hide this film from our critical eyes!
The TAG Critical Watch Series is an opportunity to reflect on how video games are adapted and represented across film. The film screening will be followed by a short discussion, which is then followed by a podcast recording with select members of the audience and/or our guests. February's film (which is being screened in March to account for the break!) is Assassin's Creed (2016).
Seating is limited. If you would like to reserve a place on the podcast for this month's film ahead of time, or if you would like to suggest films for future screenings, please contact the TAG coordinator at tag.coordinator@concordia.ca.
Book Launch - Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming on Twitch
To celebrate the launch of Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming on Twitch, TAG hosts a conversation about streaming to no one on Thursday February 20th at 3pm.
An in-depth investigation of the Twitch streamers who make up the largest population on the platform: those streaming to small audiences or even no one.
The vast majority of people who stream themselves playing videogames online do so with few or no viewers. In Streaming by the Rest of Us, Mia Consalvo, Marc Lajeunesse, and Andrei Zanescu investigate who they are, why they do so, and why this form of leisure activity is important to understand. Unlike the esports athletes and streaming superstars who receive the lion's share of journalistic and academic attention, microstreamers are not in it for the money and barely have an audience. In this, the first book dedicated to the latter group, the authors gather interviews from dozens of microstreamers from 2017 to 2019 to discuss their lives, struggles, hopes, and goals.
For readers interested in livestreaming, and Twitch in particular, the book rethinks the medium's history through accounts of the everyday uses of webcams, with particular attention to notions of liveness and authenticity. These two concepts have become calling cards for the videogame livestreaming platform and underlie streamer motivations, the construction of their practices (whether casual, serious, or anywhere in between), and the complex “metas” that take shape over time. The book also looks at the authors' own practices of livestreaming, focusing on what can be gained through experiencing the lived reality of the practice. Finally, the authors explain how Twitch's platform (studied from 2017–2023) informs how streamers structure their every day and how corporate ideologies bleed into real-world spaces like TwitchCon.
Talk: Visiting Researcher Robert Glashüttner Presents Pinball
Pinball is an archaic arcade game for some, a technical marvel for others, and a favorite pastime for more and more dedicated players. Little is commonly known about pinball except that it’s made up of big sturdy amusement machines where you shoot steel marbles with flippers up a tilted playfield. Both game culture communities as well as scholars tend to underestimate the finesse of playing and the design decisions behind developing physical pinball devices. Most importantly, it is a game of hybridization in different aspects: Pinball is physical and digital, retro and contemporary, mechanical and electronic, skill-based and chance-induced. Therefore it should be worth more attention. This talk gives an overview on why pinball research could be more than a side note within game studies.
The Games Institute ADE Speaker Series Talk: The Case for Paratopian Design with Rilla Khaled Watch Party
What if we could make complex social and cultural questions playable? And what if we could do so through interactions with familiar digital interfaces set in alternative presents and near futures? The work I will discuss sits at the intersection between the design traditions of speculative and critical design on the one hand, and the philosophies and best practices of game design, playful media and interaction design on the other.
All are welcome, and there will be snacks :).
No registration required for the watch party.
October 31st – 3:00 – 4:00pm
TAG Lab – EV 11.435
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd, West
The Games Institute ADE Speaker Series Panel: Building Equitable and Sustainable Game Development Education
Join us at TAG for a remote watch party for this ADE Speaker Series Panel on Building Equitable and Sustainable Game Development Education.
With recent waves of layoffs, high-profile workplace harassment cases, and a notoriously short career length for gender minorities and people of colour, the transition of new workers into the game industry involves navigating a spate of barriers to equity and success that have been understudied in academic research. This panel talks about “The First Three Years”, an ongoing longitudinal study of graduates of game programs in Canada and the United States, following the journey of 207 students as they move into the game industry.
This event is part of the “ADE for Game Communities: Enculturing Anti-Racism, Decolonization, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (ADE) in Games Research and Creation” series from the ADE Committee of the Games Institute, University of Waterloo, and is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Speakers:
Kenzie Gordon is a PhD Candidate in Digital Humanities and Media & Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta. Her work examines gender and violence in video games and equity issues in the game industry.
Dr. Sean Gouglas is a Professor in Digital Humanities and Co-Director of the Certificate in Computer Game Development at the University of Alberta. He conducts research on university curriculum related to video game design and study, as well as the relationship between postsecondary institutions and the video game industry. He has consulted with government on tax and investment policy as it relates to video game production and has published reports for SSHRC and HEVGA on the state of the video game industry and higher education game programs.
Dr. Alison Harvey is Associate Professor in the Communications program at Glendon College, York University. Her research and teaching focuses on issues of inclusivity and accessibility in digital culture, with an emphasis on gender and labour in digital games. She is the author of Gender, Age, and Digital Games in the Domestic Context (2015, Routledge) and Feminist Media Studies (2019, Polity). Her work has also appeared in a range of interdisciplinary journals, including New Media & Society, Games & Culture, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Information, Communication & Society, Social Media & Society, and Studies in Social Justice.
Vishal Sooknananl is a PhD student at Western University in Industrial Organizational Psychology. Vishal studies issues of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace with a focus on the lived experiences of marginalized and minoritized groups and subtle discrimination. This work has been focused on various workplace settings including the games industry as part of the First Three Years project. His work can be found on Scholarship@Western and https://igda.org/dss/.
Dr. Johanna Weststar is an Associate Professor in the DAN Department of Management and Organizational Studies at Western University and cross-appointed to I/O Psychology and the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. Johanna specializes in labour and employment relations with a focus on the video game industry where she is interested in issues of workplace citizenship, representation and unionization, working conditions and the labour process, project management and occupational identity. You can find her work at Scholarship@Western, igda.org/dss and GameQoL.
Dr. Jennifer Whitson (she/her) is an Associate Professor in Sociology & Legal Studies and at the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business. She studies the “squishy” side of software development and has been conducting ethnographic fieldwork with game developers since 2012. You can find her work at: IndieInterfaces.com, first3yearsproject.com, and jenniferwhitson.com.
All are welcome, and there will be snacks :).
No registration required for the watch party.
Monday, October 23rd, 2023, 11:00am – 12:30pm.
TAG Lab – EV 11.435
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd, West
A Conversation with Game Designer Jordan Magnuson
Join us next Tuesday, October 10 at 6 PM EST in-person at TAG or online (Zoom link to be shared closer to the date of the event).
We will be hearing from independent game designer and new media scholar Jordan Magnuson about his book “Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice” which is available in open-access in so many formats.
From the publisher: Scholars, critics, and creators describe certain videogames as being “poetic,” yet what that means or why it matters is rarely discussed. In Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice, independent game designer Jordan Magnuson explores the convergences between game making and lyric poetry and makes the surprising proposition that videogames can operate as a kind of poetry apart from any reliance on linguistic signs or symbols.
Jordan Magnuson will present his work to us for the first 45 minutes, followed by a Q&A session.
The Games Institute ADE Speaker Series Talk: Black Virtuality with A.M. Darke Watch Party
Across digital media, Black people are portrayed in ways that are derogatory and harmful – if we are depicted at all. The representation of afro-textured hair is noticeably limited, with options ranging from comically large afros, unstyled ‘dread’ locs, and misshapen cornrows. Through projects like ‘Ye or Nay?’ and the Open Source Afro Hair Library, artist A.M. Darke explores the consumption of Black bodies and the construction of a Black virtuality. In this talk, Darke shares a critical and liberatory approach for engaging marginalized communities in games and digital media.
All are welcome, and there will be snacks :).
No registration required for the watch party.
Monday, September 25th, 2023. 1:00pm – 2:00pm.
TAG Lab – EV 11.435
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd, West