There are only five days left to submit your abstract to the Replaying Japan Conference 2019. This year, the conference travels back to Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, which will be a great opportunity for me to reconnect with two of my former dissertation case studies from winter 2016. I cannot wait to see how Tsujishoten and A-cho have turned out after the last three years. Will I find the same cabinet layout and selection of games? I hope to report on the matter at some point this summer.
Here is the recently unveiled conference theme.
Since 2012, the Replaying Japan conference series hosted researchers from various fields conducting research on “Japanese Game”. However, for the upcoming edition of the conference, we would like to address a foundamental question.
What are “Japanese games”?
For example, when we talk about our first play experience of “Super
Mario Bros.” or “Pokémon” with researchers all over the world, what we mention is a mysterious “shared experience” rather than the “Japaneseness” of these games.
In other words, these games have surpassed domestic circumstances and
cultural differences to deliver common surprises and
excitement to players all over the world. This universal nature
can be said to be the specificity of games as media.
In this conference held in Kyoto this summer, let us again re-think the past and present of “Japanese Game” and examine “Japanese games” and the future of research on the subject.
