Meaningful Play 2014 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 2014 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

November 3, 2015 - Save the date for Meaningful Play 2016 to take place October 20-22, 2016!

October 20, 2014 - Meaningful Play 2014 was a big success! We had nearly 300 attendees from 17 countries and 24 U.S. States! Check out #mplay on twitter to check out twitter posts throughout the event and check out flickr to see photos from the event. The conference proceedings are available online.

October 18, 2014 - At the conference closing, the Game Competition Awards were announced, including:

Category	Winner
Most Innovative Game	Guided Meditation by Cubicle Ninjas
Most Meaningful Game	An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by James Earl Cox III
Best Student Created Non-Digital Game	We've Got Issues by Michael Budram, William Jeffery, Greg Kozma
Best Student Created Digital Game	It Takes Two by Albert Shih, Kiran George, Yimang Lin, Xiao Li, Yuxi Zhang, Yue Zhu
Best Overall Non-Digital Game	Cops and Rubbers by Lien Tran
Best Overall Digital Game	Fat Chicken by Relevant Games and Joshua Mills
People's Choice Award	We've Got Issues by Michael Budram, William Jeffery, Greg Kozma

The top five papers were also recognized, including:

• An Empirical Comparison of a Video Game, Digital Video, and a Printed Text for Recall, Comprehension and Solving a STEM Word Problem. by Brock Dubbels
• Digital Game Based Learning for Undergraduate Calculus Education: Immersion, calculation, and conceptual understanding by Yu-Hao Lee, Norah Dunbar, Keri Kornelson, Scott Wilson, Ryan Ralston, Milos Savic, Sepideh Stewart, Emily Lennox, William Thompson and Javier Elizondo
• The Differences Between Problem-Based and Drill & Practice Games on Motivations to Learn by Menno Deen and Ben A.M. Schouten
• Co-creating games with children - A case study by Karen Mouws and Lizzy Bleumers
• Conceptualizing Player-side Emergence in Interactive Games: Between Hardcoded Software and the Human Mind in Papers, Please and Gone Home by Christopher Yap, Youki Kadobayashi and Suguru Yamaguchi
  

October 16, 2014 - Meaningful Play 2014 Kicks-Off Today!

October 8, 2014 - Meaningful Play 2014 is just one week away! Get ready for the radical transformation!

September 16, 2014 - There will be an exciting special event held Friday night of the conference, called the Pure Michigan Game Exhibition and Celebration. All conference attendees are invited to attend.

September 3, 2014 - The tentative schedule is now available for the full conference.

September 2, 2014 - Early conference registration extended to Monday, September 15. Register Now!

June 24, 2014 - The Quality Inn University was added as a second conference hotel in addition to the East Lansing Marriott at University Place. The Quality Inn is more affordable, though a bit farther away.

June 18, 2014 - Submission deadlines extended from July 1 to July 14th! See the call for submissions for more information.

May 22, 2014 - Jan Sircus and Erin Hoffman announced as final confirmed keynote speakers. See program for details.

April 29, 2014 - "What Does Meaningful Play Mean to You?" video posted on YouTube. Make sure to LIKE and SHARE it!

April 21, 2014 - Jesse Schell, Mia Consalvo, Colleen Macklin, and Dierdra Kai announced as first four confirmed keynote speakers. See program for details.

April 10, 2014 - Registration is now open for Meaningful Play 2014. Register now!

December 5, 2013 - The call for submissions is now available.

November 12, 2013 - We are excited to announce the upcoming Meaningful Play 2014 conference to take place October 16-18, 2014 on the campus of Michigan State University.

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.

Previous Meaningful Plays

View details on previous Meaningful Play conferences.

Meaningful Play 2008 Meaningful Play 2010 Meaningful Play 2012