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< Back iGGi at Develop:North As most of you will be aware, the Develop conference has launched a new location this year in the shape of " Develop:North ". Develop:North took place at The Spine in Liverpool on 14 November 2024. Five of our iGGi PG Researchers attended, and here's a summary of the event from one of them - Ross Fifield: "Develop: North was great. The venue was excellent and Tandem did a superb job organising it as always. Registration was easy and there were no issues as far as I can tell. There was a good mix of talks. It was significantly smaller than Brighton, but not unexpectedly so, given that this was their first go. While a couple of the talks were really quite thought provoking, I personally found the networking opportunities particularly helpful. I'm speculating that the organisers will run Develop:North at a slightly larger scale than this year, but regardless of that, I would recommend this conference to all iGGi PGRs and anyone in the UK who is working in games and adjacent fields." iGGi PGRs at Develop:North in Liverpool, 14 November 2024 Previous 15 Nov 2024 Next

< Back iGGi/AIM/C4DM Spring Writing Retreat 2025 Last week’s 2025 Spring Writing Retreat was a great success! And the warm & sunny weather certainly landed like the cherry on top! The event brought together 16 PG Researchers from iGGi and AIM CDTs, and the C4DM. The three days were spent at High Leigh Conference Centre in Hertfordshire. According to feedback survey, all respondents found the retreat useful, and an overwhelming majority (75%) deemed the duration and number of participants to be just right. (The remaining 25% are equally split both ways, so we conclude that what was on offer hit the sweet spot.) Here is what participants replied to the question " What was the primary benefit of being away with your and other CDT members?" Made some new friends, got to work on my research in a very focused manner. Vitamin D & focused writing time A change of scenery and structure I could focus entirely on my project Focus, socialise, change environment, and being inspired by other people's research and knowledge Balanced and structured days with focused writing sessions Very concentrated environment A constructive environment Focus. No need to worry about food I felt a really supportive and productive environment spending sometimes with my colleagues and new ones away from the usual workplace. Many participants enquired if there will be another writing retreat soon, so we better get planning! Previous 7 May 2025 Next

< Back iGGi @ GDC 2025 iGGi Trip to the GDC in San Francisco Five iGGi PG Researchers and iGGi Director Peter Cowling flew to California this March to attend the Game Developers Conference (GDC) : an annual event that connects the global game developing community, offers inspiring talks, great networking opportunities, and the latest in relevant tech, and has drawn over 30K visitors this year. iGGi Talks this time included Oliver Withington (iGGi PGR) on " Techniques for Visualising the Output Diversity of Generative Systems " and Nick Ballou (iGGi Alum, now University of Oxford) on " What's New in Games Research " Most of the iGGis joined the GDC for the first time; but some could compare their experience with past visits. And what better way could there be of sharing their different perspectives than linking you to their respective blogs: Luiza Stepanyan "Since the conference ended, all I have been seeing are posts and articles about the dire state of the industry and how this year's event was so much smaller, so much more deflated than previous years, that this industry has so many problems, so many issues, so many things wrong with it. - How dare I be excited? How dare I find joy in something that so many others seem to find so troubling?" >>> Click this link to read Luiza's whole blogpost. Oliver Withington "And here I was, at what is arguably the centre of the industry itself, its biggest yearly event, and honestly I was not quite sure what to make of it all." >>> Click this link to read Oliver's whole blogpost. Peter Cowling "The 2025 Game Developers Conference was big and exciting. Generative AI, Large Language Models and markerless motion capture were at the centre of the Expo stage - as Alan Turing's ghost looked down and wondered, maybe, whether his test had been such a good idea." >>> Click this link to read Peter's whole blogpost. Florence Smith Nicholls "Was it worth it? No. And yes." >>> Click this link to read Florence's whole blogpost. Marko Tot tba James Gardener tba iGGi no doubt will be back at GDC next year. Watch this space! Previous 2 Apr 2025 Next

< Back IGGI students and staff at the 2019 IGGI Conference The annual IGGI conference assembles is your games research download from 50+ PhD students at York, Goldsmiths, QMUL, and Essex Universities. Previous 12 Oct 2020 Next

< Back iGGi Game Jam 2022 We thought that with summer fast approaching and the end of term in close sight, the time would be right to reflect back on some of iGGi’s more iGGi-ish events which took place earlier this year. One such event was the iGGi Game Jam . iGGi PGRs gather once a year to create a game from scratch in a limited space of time (usually over 48 hours). This is an opportunity for those less familiar with game design/development to experience the process first hand, for those who are already experienced and/or have worked in industry before to explore new tools and/or skills, but most of all, we look at it as a shared fun time dedicated to (re-)connecting within and across cohorts, socialising and exchanging ideas. Traditionally, the Game Jam is coincided with international online events such as the Global Game Jam or Ludum Dare. This year, however, all of the jamming iGGi groups opted out of submitting to the Global Game Jam (for which iGGi was a registered site) – partly out of protest over the Global Game Jam’s initial choice of sponsor, partly because many felt that a relaxed group atmosphere was preferable to the high-octane pressure that participation in a global competition brings with it. This is not to say that we didn’t succumb to competitive spirit: prizes in 5 different categories were given out iGGi-internally at the final presentations upon conclusion of the jam. The categories were Non-fungible Gameplay - Best mechanic and game experience Houston, We Have A Problem - Most successful fail in a making a game Best Buddy - Best multiplayer game I Just Can't Get Enough - Best storytelling, immersive or replayable experience Tech Neutral - Most original & climate friendly use of technology You can find the majority of the resulting mini-games/proofs of concept uploaded on Itch here: https://itch.io/jam/iggi22/entries Previous 30 Jan 2022 Next

< Back iGGi Research Retreat "Unconference" Group Outcomes Generative AI, Abstraction and Epistemology The "Problem" Coming up with the skeleton of a 50-60 minute presentation for technologists in the former CIS region about the topic. What we did There was a lot of brainstorming about the three topics and how they link together. A Keynote presentation was produced, and then four sheets of flip-chart paper. We iterated on the content several times, attempting to join it all together in a coherent whole. The "Outcome" We found that this is a rich field that may yield actually yield a paper. The lack of understanding about epistemology in the wider field is quite evident, and this informs poor choices about the value and content of generative AI. Since AI is seeking to "be" human and "do" human things, ideally better and/or faster than humans, but without a sound understanding of what it means to be human this is unlikely to succeed. AI is NOT human, it is a simulacrum of a part of human nature, that which can be subject to reduction. It is effective at the correct point of abstraction but it is without context outside of that point. Previous Next Previous Next

Building Player Profiles in Mobile Monetisation: A Machine Learning Approach Theme Game Data Project proposed & supervised by David Zendle To discuss whether this project could become your PhD proposal please email: david.zendle@york.ac.uk < Back Building Player Profiles in Mobile Monetisation: A Machine Learning Approach Project proposal abstract: This project aims to use machine learning techniques to segment and profile mobile gamers in terms of their in-game spending. Estimates suggest that more than 2.6bn people play mobile games globally; that more than 80 billion mobile games are downloaded annually; and that mobile gaming accounts for almost $100bn in transactions every year. Despite the profitability of mobile gaming, little is known about how different kinds of players spend money in mobile games. Informal theories regarding specific differences in gaming are widely espoused: one influential model, for example, posits the existence of a small but profitable layer of heavily-involved 'whales', and much larger groups of smaller-spending 'dolphins' and 'minnows'. However, it is unclear whether this structure really does explain the monetisation of most games; and whether monetisation may vary between games; and between cultural contexts. In this project, we will take a data-driven approach, and apply a variety of machine learning techniques to large datasets of real player transactions. By both applying and developing algorithmic techniques for the analysis of such data, we will help build an understanding of how in-game spending may be profiled. This project would suit a machine learning specialist; a quantitative social scientist, or a data scientist wishing to do impactful work. It will be supervised by David Zendle, one of the world's leading experts on video game monetisation, and may involve one or more industrial partners who will share player data for the project. Supervisor: David Zendle Based at:

Principled and Scalable Exploration Techniques for Reinforcement Learning Theme Game AI Project proposed & supervised by Paulo Rauber To discuss whether this project could become your PhD proposal please email: p.rauber@qmul.ac.uk < Back Principled and Scalable Exploration Techniques for Reinforcement Learning Project proposal abstract: Reinforcement learning has received significant attention due to its success in training agents that play popular games such as Go , Starcraft II , Dota 2 , and others. Inefficient exploration, one of the earliest problems recognized in the field, still limits the success of reinforcement learning approaches that do not require domain knowledge. Although techniques like posterior sampling convincingly solve hard exploration problems in simple domains ( https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/11891201 ), scalable exploration techniques remain elusive. In this project, you will develop principled and scalable exploration techniques based on reducing model uncertainty ( https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.04436 ). Besides benefiting from games as excellent testbeds, this project has the potential to radically improve automated playtesting. Supervisor: Paulo Rauber Based at:

< Back Best Game Related Research Award Goes to iGGi Today, iGGi won the Best Game Related Research Award at the Game Republic 20th Anniversary Awards!! The ceremony was part of GaMaYo #21 (by Game Makers Yorkshire and the North ) which took place today, Thursday, 23 November 2023 at Tileyard North in Wakefield, and the award was sponsored by Red Kite Games . For further details please follow this link to the related news item on Game Republic's website. Big thank yous go to the organisers, hosts and sponsor! Last but not least: a WELL DONE to the iGGi Researchers!!! Previous 23 Nov 2023 Next

< Back Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence at Develop:Brighton 12-14 July Want to improve the relationship between your game AI and your players? Or polish your VR character’s social interaction skills? Or discuss the latest academic research in the metaverse? Or just chance a flirt with Amy Smith ’s @artbhot? We are super excited to announce that @iggiphd will be attending @developconf in full force with 3 talks and over 20 researchers. This is our first big event since the pandemic and we are stoked! Who else is coming? We would love to meet you all at our stand! Click here for more information. Previous 2 Jul 2022 Next

Novel video narrative from recorded content Theme Creative Computing Project proposed & supervised by Nick Pears To discuss whether this project could become your PhD proposal please email: nick.pears@york.ac.uk < Back Novel video narrative from recorded content Project proposal abstract: In order to stimulate interest and engagement in games, it is important to give players a wide variety of video content that can provide scenario variations each time they engage with the game. However, creating a large volume of diverse video content manually is expensive and time consuming. This project aims to generate novel video narratives from recorded content with minimal human intervention. This requires automatic visual scene understanding that generates auto tagging of scene content and scene actions, either on a frame-by-frame or short clip basis. As well as understanding frame content, action segmentation strategies will be developed and evaluated. This will enable construction of short novel video narratives - for example, from a manually-defined storyline. Deep learning tools and techniques will be employed throughout this project. Supervisor: Nick Pears Based at:

< Back Children and Young People's Involvement in Designing Applied Games: Scoping Review Link Author(s) MJ Saiger, S Deterding, L Gega Abstract More info TBA Link