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Event description:

At a time when the industry is in flux, where do games go from here? What is the role of games in a cultural moment defined by a state of permacrisis – climate change, war, and genocide? 

In this public discussion, connected to the DiGRA 2025 conference but open to both conference participants and the general public, a panel of academics and designers will bring their perspectives to bear upon these questions, followed by a Q and A session. The event will also be live-streamed. 

Featuring:

• Rasheed Abueideh: Rasheed is an award-winning Palestinian creative director and game designer. His new game, "Dreams on a Pillow", successfully raised $240,000 to spotlight 'two decades of untold Palestinian history'. The news has been featured in all major gaming news outlets. In 2014 he created Liyla and the Shadows of War, about a man trying to find safety for his daughter and himself as missiles fall around them.
• Prof. Aphra Kerr: Dr Aphra Kerr is a Professor of ¸£ÀûÔÚÏßÃâ·Ñ and Communication Studies at University College Dublin and she is a Co-PI at the ADAPT Research Centre for Digital Content Technology (2021-2026). Aphra has over twenty five years’ experience researching digital games as a cultural industry, a form of work and a part of everyday culture. She is the author of two monographs on digital games, most recently: Global Games: Production, Circulation and Policy, Routledge, 2017. In 2021 she was elected into the Academy of Europe and in 2016 she received a Distinguished Scholar award from the international Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). Having studied games for so long you would think she would know better than to get involved in developing a game, but currently she is involved in a Creative Europe funded project that is doing just that. 
• Dr Cameron Kunzelman (online): Cameron Kunzelman is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Theatre at Mercer University (USA), where he directs the Communication Theory Research Lab.His first book, The World is Born From Zero, is on the relationship between speculation and video games. His second book, out in 2025, is on the Assassin's Creed franchise.
• Dr Omar N’Shea: Omar N'Shea's research focusses on the Assyrian Empire in the first millennium BCE, particularly on social and political history. He is currently working on a monograph on eunuchs and castration as a bureaucratic strategy in the first empire in history. Another ongoing project is the biography of the 'lost' archaeological site of Bur Mgħeż, Malta. He is also preparing to translate Gilgamesh from Akkadian into Maltese. Omar holds a PhD in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Malta, where he is the Director of the International School for Foundation Studies. His essays on translating Gilgamesh into Maltese, on the site of Bur Mgħeż and on queer modernity in Malta, which have been published online and in AntoloÄ¡ija 1 by Aphroconfuso this year.
• Dr Hannah Nicklin (online): is an award-winning writer, narrative designer and narrative lead with over a decade’s experience of making games. She’s currently working as a contract Narrative Designer & Writer on an unannounced project with Night School (a Netflix Studio), following the successful launch of the Black Mirror adaptation Thronglets on which she was the Lead Writer & Narrative Designer. Before that she worked with Cardboard Computer, and as Creative Director & CEO of Die Gute Fabrik, with whom she launched Saltsea Chronicles to critical acclaim in 2023, and with whom she wrote, narrative designed and co-produced Mutazione (2019), the most nominated game in the 2020 IGF awards. She trained as a playwright, and has also worked an artist, academic (Phd), performer, activist and lecturer. She’s the author of Writing for Games: Theory & Practice. 
• Yuqian Sun aka CheeseTalk: Yuqian (Uchan) Sun, also known as CheeseTalk, is an AI research artist based in London. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Royal College of Art. Focusing on the power of language, Yuqian aims to create 'alive' narrative experiences that extend beyond video games and into our daily lives through conversational AI agents. She explores linguistic interactions through chatbots, games and interactive installations. Yuqian's interdisciplinary arts and research have been featured in galleries and tech conferences, including SIGGRAPH, CVPR, NeurIPS, Gamescom, DiGRA, AMaze and New York Times Square. She won the Reddot Design Award and Lumen Prize in 2024. She is also a 2025 GDC speaker.