New Game Plus: What's that

New Game Plus is a recurring conference and project by Hiloko Kato and Andrea-Luca Bossard that highlights the critical examination of videogames as cultural media, not only understood as aesthetic artworks but as embedded in their sociohistorical contexts. This year’s iteration focuses on the practices of “writing, researching and documenting videogames”. 

Firstly, videogames are written texts, based on computer languages, audiovisual codes and aesthetic symbols. In this context of writing practices they are also entangled in larger social narratives and political discourse.

Secondly, research is required to create video game worlds and stories. At the same time research needs to be done on the larger societal context surrounding the productive and creative processes, by examining the material realities and cultural discourse surrounding them.

Thirdly, videogames are highly contemporary media that often document the specific cultural moment in which they are produced. Additionally, videogames are being documented as cultural projects by researchers, developers and journalists alike.

New Game Plus 2 therefore aims to place itself at the heart of the current cultural shifts, ruptures and discourse that manifest around this often academically neglected medium. The conference tries to provide perspectives and experiences from the inside, potentially as starting points to grapple with the present crises and conflicts.

New Game Plus is a recurring conference and project by Hiloko Kato and Andrea-Luca Bossard that highlights the critical examination of videogames as cultural media, not only understood as aesthetic artworks but as embedded in their sociohistorical contexts. This year’s iteration focuses on the practices of “writing, researching and documenting videogames”. 

Firstly, videogames are written texts, based on computer languages, audiovisual codes and aesthetic symbols. In this context of writing practices they are also entangled in larger social narratives and political discourse.

Secondly, research is required to create video game worlds and stories. At the same time research needs to be done on the larger societal context surrounding the productive and creative processes, by examining the material realities and cultural discourse surrounding them.

Thirdly, videogames are highly contemporary media that often document the specific cultural moment in which they are produced. Additionally, videogames are being documented as cultural projects by researchers, developers and journalists alike.

New Game Plus 2 therefore aims to place itself at the heart of the current cultural shifts, ruptures and discourse that manifest around this often academically neglected medium. The conference tries to provide perspectives and experiences from the inside, potentially as starting points to grapple with the present crises and conflicts.

New Game Plus is a conference series organised by the DSI Community Gaming (Andrea-Luca Bossard and Hiloko Kato) in close collaboration with the chair of Prof. Christine Lötscher (ISEK/UZH) and the Zurich University of the Arts, that approaches games from a sociocultural perspective, linking them to a range of pressing contemporary questions. Following the first iteration on Critical Thinking with Video Games in Times of Crisis, the second edition is dedicated to the topic of Writing, Researching and Documenting Video Games. New Game Plus 2 is generously funded by SNF (Scientific Exchange program) and the Digital Society Initiative of the University of Zurich.

Following the pandemic gaming boom of the early 2020s, one headline after another dominated the public discourse: tech giants and business conglomerates are engulfing ever broader parts of the gaming market, daily reports of waves of layoffs are heard and felt, as well as studio closures and legal disputes are witnessed ever more often. At the same time, union efforts and, especially in the indie game sector, alternative forms of work organization and solidarities, as well as emerging critical research can be observed.

Thereby arises our question on how such developments can be linked to the analysis of videogames, since they do not exist in a vacuum. They are not just texts that need interpretation, but they also arise from material and socio-cultural structures and conditions: They are developed, marketed, and sold by individual developers, small indie game studios, medium-sized AA companies, and global AAA corporations. In the light of developments in recent years, it has also become clear that games need to be analysed as part of hegemonic structures and discourse.

New Game Plus 2 is dedicated to the topic of writing, documenting, and analysing games in their cultural and material contexts. The conference focuses on artistic, documentary, and ethnographic practices with which researchers and developers attempt to capture video games in their cultural and material dimensions. Furthermore, we are interested in the relationship of qualitative scientific research (e.g. ethnographic studies) and the cultural phenomenon of video games, and how it can be further deepened. This thematic focus is driven by the urgency to enrich the critical examination of the highest-grossing cultural medium from a humanities and social sciences perspective.