Workshop on Understanding and Combating the Problematic Side of Play

Workshop on Understanding and Combating the Problematic Side of Play

Workshop on Understanding and Combating the Problematic Side of Play

Julian Frommel, Guo Freeman, Janelle E. MacKenzie, Daniel Johnson, Regan L. Mandryk

Abstract

"Digital gaming and playful environments are often viewed as enter-tainment computing technologies that aim to create fun, engaging, and positive experiences for children and adults alike. Yet, there is an increasing interest in research that protects players from the problematic side of gaming and playful environments, such as toxic-ity and harassment, dark patterns and deceptive design, problematic gaming and addiction, discrimination, incubation of extremism, and ethical considerations. However, behaviors that some consider neg- ative or harmful may not be intended or even perceived as such by others. Therefore, this workshop aims to encourage researchers, industry practitioners, and game designers to bring in a wide va-riety of perspectives on how to articulate problematic play, what factors lead to the subjective nature of the problematic side of play, and approaches to combat harm across gaming and playful con- texts while reinforcing potentially beneficial aspects of what can be ambiguously defined as problematic by others."

Reference

Frommel, J., Freeman, G., MacKenzie, J. E., Johnson, D., & Mandryk, R. L. (2023). Workshop on understanding and combating the problematic side of play. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3573382.3616025

Keywords

Problematic Play, Ethics in Games, Online Toxicity