Welcome to Clash of Realities Conference!

The 4th international computer game conference “Clash of Realities” takes place from May 23rd to May 25th at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences. It is organized by the Department of Media Studies and Media Education and the Cologne Game Lab in cooperation with Electronic Arts (Cologne). Established computer game researchers from Germany, other European countries, and the USA will present papers.
The breadth of discussion includes questions and concepts of communication research, neurology, media psychology, educational and social sciences, fine arts, film and image studies, as well as teaching/learning research, media pedagogy, game development and game design. In comparison to previous years discussions, which were strongly influenced by challenging public debates, the 4th conference will aim at further measuring this well established field of research, improving the research methods and tools, analysing cross medial processes, thinking about the changes of the social and age based composition of gamers, facing up to the so called gamification and taking into consideration novel forms and formats of playing. The scientists, academics and artists that get together in Cologne will deal with the specific challenges of the computer games medium looking for an answer to the productive tension of fascination and criticism of this publicly discussed medium. High-ranking international guests have again agreed to take part as keynote speakers. And as such, we are pleased to welcome Tracy Fullerton (University of Southern California, USA), Constance Steinkuehler (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) and Doris Rusch (DePaul University Chicago,USA).

At the same time as the “Clash of Realities 2012”, the Department of Media Studies and Media Education will host the closing conference of “SpitKom”, a research project sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, which deals with playfully conveying IT competence to disadvantaged young people. The keynotes of the conference will be given by Patrick Felicia (Waterford Institute of Technology, GB) and Kurt Squire (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA).