Meaningful Play 2012 Conference Overview
Whether designed to entertain or to achieve more "serious" purposes, games have the potential to impact players' beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, emotions, cognitive abilities, physical and mental health, and behavior.
Meaningful Play 2012 is a conference about theory, research, and game design innovations, principles and practices. Meaningful Play brings scholars and industry professionals together to understand and improve upon games to entertain, inform, educate, and persuade in meaningful ways.
The conference will include thought-provoking keynotes from leaders in academia and industry, peer-reviewed paper presentations, panel sessions (including academic and industry discussions), innovative workshops, roundtable discussions, and exhibitions of games and prototypes.
Conference News
April 17, 2012 - The conference hotels are now available for booking.
January 20, 2012 - Registration is open for Meaningful Play 2012.
September 12, 2011 - We are excited to announce the upcoming Meaningful Play 2012 conference to take place October 18-20, 2012 on the campus of Michigan State University.
Previous Meaningful Plays
View details on Meaningful Play 2008 and Meaningful Play 2010.
Keynote Line-Up
We will be announcing the keynote line-up during Spring 2012.
Conference Audience and Themes
The conference is primarily for:
- industry and academic game researchers
- industry and academic game designers and developers
- game educators
- students
- government and NGOs interested in games
The two primary themes of the conference are:
- exploring meaningful applications of games
- issues in designing meaningful play
The first theme includes an examination of games (of all types) from primarily an academic research perspective.
The second theme focuses on much more practical knowledge from the front-line of actual design, development, and use of games for meaningful purposes.
Important Dates
| July 16, 2012 | Paper, Panel, Roundtable, Workshop, Speaker, and Game submissions due | |
| August 20, 2012 | Notification of acceptance on Papers, Posters, Panels, Roundtables, Workshops, Speakers, and Games | |
| September 14, 2012 | Revised papers due for inclusion in conference proceedings. Early conference registration ends. |
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| October 18, 2012 | Conference begins | |
| October 20, 2012 | Conference concludes | |
| December 1, 2012 | Top paper authors must submit revised manuscript for possible publication in the Journal of Games and Culture | |
| TBA | Journal distribution date |