A quick update about the playingfutures.today conference.
We are getting ready to send all the submissions for review, and we expect to have a preliminary program around April 6th, plus or minus the usual academic delays with these things.
As usual, questions or comments, please send them my way!
A couple of updates about our conference playingfutures.today
Deadline extended to February 23rd! Submit your work! playingfutures.today/call-for-pap...
If you have tried to contact us through the website and have not heard anything, try now! I have just fixed the email so it works!
As you may know, we are running a conference on games, play, and climate futures in May at the ITU Copenhagen: playingfutures.today
Some news: the deadline for abstracts has been extended to February 20th. Now you have no excuses left not to submit!
Here’s a friendly reminder about the conference we are running at the ITU in May: playingfutures.today
Deadline for abstracts is February 16th, and the conference will take place May 20th to 22nd in Copenhagen. Look at our call for papers for more details: playingfutures.today/call-for-pap...
Animal Crossing: New Horizons' 3.0 version update is now out. I want to use it as an opportunity to briefly reflect on my 2022 article on New Horizons' character trade.
cris.tuni.fi/ws/portalfil...
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However, this videogame’s representation of the suicidal process prescribes an individual critique, suggesting that the issues of hikikomori and menhera are not societal, but individual. This tension then invites players to question their own involvement in the videogame’s events.
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NSO criticises social constraints surrounding failure to integrate into society and dismissal of women’s mental illness through its representation of suicide livestreams.
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We argue that NSO’s ludic representations of suicide livestreams are critical of societal discourses surrounding the hikikomori (shut-in) phenomenon and the stigma of mental health through the menhera (mental health-er) label.
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While these (mis)representations apply to the specific suicide, they are embedded in larger societal contexts. As suicide livestreams are a highly public form of suicide, they address their audience on non-individual terms that frame the livestream as a critique of social structures.
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We argue that representations of suicide livestreams serve as a communicative appeal to correct (mis)representations of the suicidal individual through footage that will immortalise them by doing a highly visible, multilayered performance of suicide.
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In the article, we conduct a close playing of virtual suicide livestreams in the Japanese adventure videogame NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD (NSO).
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The article @jjol33n.bsky.social and I have been working on, "Ludic Representations of Suicide Livestreams in the Japanese Videogame NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD," is now out on the journal Thanatos.
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The Center for Digital Play at the IT University of Copenhagen is organizing a new conference: Playing Futures. The conference will take place from May 20th to 22nd at the IT University of Copenhagen. You can read more about it here: playingfutures.today
The Spring Seminar 2026 CfP is out now! This time, the theme is “Events and Communities”. Please have a look at the full CfP on the Spring Seminar website: springseminar.org/2026-call-fo...
⏰Abstract submission deadline is 14 January 2026.
📍The seminar is organised on 5-6 May 2026 in Tampere.
As the use of videogames as framing devices presents a meta-referential commentary on videogames in the real world, these represented social affordances suggest that virtual online spaces provide unique opportunities and alibis for direct suicide communication.
and that game design features meant to bring players together, like guilds and factions, can enable player authenticity and openness by attracting like-minded players, for better or for worse.
that acts embedded in the process of engaging with MMOs, like logging out and the consequent disappearance of a character, can serve as a communicative tool denoting finality;
In particular, I found that written communication through an MMO’s chat box can provide an alibi by turning seemingly serious statements into jokes;
Through close readings of three moments in "Agony of a Dying MMO," I found that MMOs alter, enable, and restrict specific types of communication through a combination of their game design features, their user interfaces, and their existence as (and contiguity with) online spaces.
As suicide communication is often indirect, I focused on how the social logic and rules of MMOs enable direct suicide communication.
To analyse how MMOs are represented as spaces with internal rules of communication, I focused my analysis on three instances of direct suicide communication—communicative acts directly referring to past, present, or future suicidal intent.
To argue that point, I conducted a close reading of "Agony of a Dying MMO," a singleplayer demo game that depicts the final hours of service of a fictional MMO through a series of semi-explorable vignettes showing the activities of fictional players.
My first paper, "Fictional Videogames as Framing Devices: Suicide Communication in MMOs," is out now on Eludamos.
In the paper, I argue that the use of fictional MMOs as framing devices serves as a reflexive narrative tool that suggests MMOs as spaces with their own internal rules of communication.
