WEBINARS
Farley Cherry (Associate Professor & Founder, Rigs of Color at Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
Games are media, and media does not live in a vacuum; it is conversing with all other ideas created from ancient religious texts to other games of its genre. Some don’t believe all games are political, but games being political can mean they shape tomorrow’s politics more than politics are shaping them. Whose story gets told and whose point of view we give our audience matters in fixing a broken world. In this talk, we can explore easy and not-so-easy ways to combat supremacist narratives in our contributions to the media landscape that shapes our thinking.
Andrew Hogan (Chief Marketing Officer, Intorqa)
Up to 65% of players say they’ve experienced cheating while playing a game. But what really happens the moment a player encounters a cheat? How does it make them feel? Do they always notice? Will they stop playing? Do they all react the same way? In what we believe is the first project of its kind, Intorqa partnered with Brainamics, a neurotech startup, to conduct tests to analyze players’ brain activity and emotions in a multiplayer FPS game with cheats.
Sharone Horowit-Hendler (Linguistic Anthropology PhD)
When creating voice assistants, the presentation of the assistant is important to create with intention, otherwise, these assistants can perpetuate harmful stereotypes. When gender is taken into account, these assistants can help bring diverse voices and break stereotypes. For example, nonbinary assistants bring awareness of nonbinary identities. In this webinar, Sharone will discuss what a nonbinary AI might look like and how developers can approach responsibly introducing such a character.
Natalia Vasilyeva (Marketing & Strategy, Anzu)
In this webinar, Anzu explores how many games today are reaching broad, global communities and the implications that has for how we think about our target audiences, social issues, and the varying roles of developers, publishers, and advertisers. Some questions addressed include: How diverse is the gamer profile? Do they want brands to take a stance on social issues? How can industry players make gaming more inclusive? How can they shape internal and external initiatives to better serve gamers coming from different backgrounds and walks of life?
Anh-Vu Nguyen (CGO, Anybrain), Camille Guillemot (Games Sales Specialist, Bodyguard)
From fraudulent to harmful behaviors, studios and publishers are faced with the daunting task of dealing with this recurring and ramping issue. The system of temporary and permanent bans is the most used to deal with these situations, but is this really our best option? Or is there a more positive way that may even bring better results?
Niina Ojala (Lead Product Manager in Player Safety and Compliance, Rovio Entertainment)
The importance of safe and responsible gaming is evermore important to prevent harm to players and enforce inspiring gaming spaces for the well-being of the players. This presentation provides three dimensions of ambition to change, a checklist type of tool, and describes a strategic framework developed at Rovio, that outlines strategic options, gives detailed lists of capabilities, staffing and technology needed overall, as well as instructs how to get started and use the framework.
Dr. Kishonna Gray (University of Kentucky), Mike Pappas (CEO/Co-Founder, Modulate.ai)
There are a huge variety of player communities in the world, each with its own preferences, culture, and norms. Platforms looking to provide safe spaces face a difficult challenge—how can they consistently identify and mitigate harm while also permitting empowering behaviors like the reclaiming of slurs, offering support to vulnerable players, and good-spirited trash talk between friends?
Julie Dawson (Director of Regulatory & Policy, Yoti)
Dawson provides an overview of how Yoti’s age assurance approach was developed, their transparency and education programmes as well as ethical and stakeholder review. Key takeaways include accuracy across gender, skintone, ages of AI age estimation; comparative levels of dropoff versus other age assurance approaches; consideration of bias and accessibility; and regulatory and standards landscape for age assurance tech solutions.
Tülay Tetiker McNally (Sr Development Director, EA)
The Inclusive Design Framework is a practice that many development teams across Electronic Arts use. It is intended to help guide developers to create inclusive player experiences that enable greater cultural and diverse representation in our games. We will discuss how teams work with ERG’s and share examples from games such as FIFA and The Sims, in order to inspire you to join the movement.
Weszt Hart (Head of Player Dynamics, Riot Games)
This session provides an introduction to the craft of Player Dynamics. The key takeaways include a high-level understanding of the nascent field of Player Dynamics, insight into how Riot Games is onboarding people into the craft, and just enough definitions, philosophies, and concepts to get you started!