IGDA Melbourne

Here’s something lovely that landed in my inbox this morning:

Free of charge | Open to the public | Limited availability | Register NOW at http://gamesforchange.floktu.com/register (http://gamesforchange NULL.floktu NULL.com/register) for:

Games for Change Australia New Zealand Festival’s

SUPER AWESOME PLAY JAM 2012
featuring Heather Kelley (Kokoromi) & Keita Takahashi (Tiny Speck)

Where:  RMIT University’s Design Hub, Crn Victoria & Swanston Streets
When:   16 November 2012, 3:45-5:00pm
What:   Live on stage, game design heroes, artists and innovators Heather Kelley & Keita Takahashi will each be presenting, playtesting as well as discussing a fresh game concept that “involves the audience and transforms the way it socializes, playfully,” as briefed by the Games for Change ANZ organizers.

Don’t miss your chance to participate in this unique, participatory and, above all, complimentary experiment, which concludes the inaugural G4C ANZ Festival, cf. http://www.gamesforchange.org.au/presentation/super-awesome-play-jam-2012/ (http://www NULL.gamesforchange NULL.org NULL.au/presentation/super-awesome-play-jam-2012/).

NOTE: Booking is essential. If you happen to attend, we recommend you check-in at the Festival registration desk at least 15min prior to the Jam.

Speaking of complimentary: we still have a few tickets available for guided tours of the 2012 Festival’s Games Arcade, an exhibition that runs alongside the Festival and that is curated by Chad Toprak of RMIT’s Exertion Games Lab. Over twenty Games for Change from national and international gamemakers are being exhibited and can be tried out, too. Please visit http://www.gamesforchange.org.au/games-arcade/ (http://www NULL.gamesforchange NULL.org NULL.au/games-arcade/) for an overview of the games on display (more to be added shortly), and register for your free tour ticket at http://gamesforchange.floktu.com/register (http://gamesforchange NULL.floktu NULL.com/register).

G4C ANZ is hosted by RMIT University’s Games & Experimental Entertainment Laboratory, the GEElab,www.geelab.rmit.edu.au (http://www NULL.geelab NULL.rmit NULL.edu NULL.au/). Find more information about G4C ANZ and the Festival on our website,www.gamesforchange.org.au (http://www NULL.gamesforchange NULL.org NULL.au/).

RMIT University’s Games & Experimental Entertainment Laboratory–the GEElab–is proud to host and curate the inaugural two-day Games for Change Australia New Zealand Festival (http://www NULL.gamesforchange NULL.org NULL.au/) (G4C ANZ), at RMIT University’s Design Hub in Melbourne, Australia, on 15–16 November 2012.

This year’s event showcases talks by and content from over 30 practitioners who are using games and play as a medium for change and positive social outcomes across diverse sectors, including education and training, learning and development, health and fitness, as well as community development and civic participation. We are excited to be able to present to you international keynote speakers Heather Kelley, USA, “one of the most influential women in technology,” according to Fast Company, and Keita Takahashi, Japan, a celebrated game designer whose works such as Katamari Damacy radiate the positive power of play.

As a special incentive, IGDAM folk have been offered a discounted price on tickets of $495, saving you up to $300. If you are keen to take up this offer, email giselle@igdamelbourne.org for your discount code.

We also have one complimentary pass available – if you would like to be considered for this email info@igdamelbourne.org explaining how your attendance would assist both yourself and the IGDAM community as a whole by Sunday 4 November.

RMIT University’s Games & Experimental Entertainment Laboratory (GEElab) is offering two 3-year full-time PhD stipends, to highly motivated Australians or New Zealanders. At the GEElab, an international research team is investigating how game design thinking can affect and alter architecture & urbanism, mobility, popular media & storytelling, engagement as well as other sciences, cf.www.geelab.rmit.edu.au (http://www NULL.geelab NULL.rmit NULL.edu NULL.au/). The GEElab operates sites at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia, as well as in Stuttgart, Germany, there as GEElab Europe, and is based in RMIT’s School of Media and Communication.

Both PhD stipends contain an uplift for EU loading and run at AUS$30,000 tax-exempt p.a. each, over the course of three years. With these stipends come one-off relocation allowances as well as funding for an optional German language course if the successful applicants are not proficient in German. In addition, the GEElab will sponsor project cost as well as conference travel given circumstances. It is intended that the successful candidates will commence as soon as possible in Melbourne, and relocate to Germany in May or June of 2012.

3-Year PhD Stipend: Game Design for Future Cities
This stipend supports a doctoral student and is linked to the question how game design methods as well as playfulness can, methodologically and practically, serve as design principles and design results for the city and for citizens of the future, tackling fields such as urban well-being and liveability, citizen engagement as well as sustainability. The successful applicant will be required to spend most of her/his stipend’s time on extended field research in the Stuttgart–Karlsruhe high tech industry region in the southwest of Germany, as well as in other RMIT GEElab sites, if necessary.

3-Year PhD Stipend: Game Design for Popular Entertainment
This stipend supports a doctoral student who will explore, in an applied fashion, under which conditions established forms of popular culture (e.g. sports, music, fashion), or media (e.g. TV, movies, textbooks, museums) can become interactive, enhanced, and potentially co-created entertainment experiences that have been inspired by games, and what social and cultural implications, novel uses and contexts these scenarios render. The successful applicant will be required to spend most of her/his stipend’s time on extended field research in the Stuttgart–Karlsruhe high tech industry region in the southwest of Germany, as well as in other RMIT GEElab sites, if necessary.

Please find detailed information about these stipends – including selection criteria and application procedure – at www.geelab.rmit.edu.au/display/GeeWebEN/Positions (http://www NULL.geelab NULL.rmit NULL.edu NULL.au/display/GeeWebEN/Positions).

Applications for both stipends close Saturday, 31 March 2012. Interviews for both stipends will take place in April of 2012 (after Easter) in Melbourne. Please direct all enquires regarding these opportunities by Email to GEElab director Dr Steffen P Walz: steffen.walz@rmit.edu.au (steffen NULL.walz null@null rmit NULL.edu NULL.au).

When: Tuesday 8 November 6.30-10.30pm
Where:

Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller is researching the future of interactive technology that can support a life full of values and satisfaction. The Exertion Games Lab, based at RMIT, invents the future of gaming in order to understand how to design better interactive experiences, in particular games that require intense physical effort from players.

The research is particularly focused on the merging of “play” and the human “body”, drawing from research streams such as embodied interaction, interaction design, human-computer interaction and games research.

Floyd will tell us a bit more about Exertion Games and bring along some exertive games to try out.

We will also have space for more traditional (or otherwise) video games to be demo’d and displayed, so if you want to show off your latest creation please register here (https://docs NULL.google NULL.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dEl0M2I4d3NPZ0k0bjRSSUhNUkNzNnc6MA#gid=0) and we will be in touch.  For serious.  We will.  Promise!

To help with logistics, there is a facebook event (https://www NULL.facebook NULL.com/event NULL.php?eid=273369602693520) where you can let us know if we’re expecting you.

The week after, November 14-16 is GCAP (http://gcap NULL.com NULL.au/), contact Giselle at igdamelbourne dot org if you want a 10% discount code on your ticket.  This is the Melbourne games event of the year, and not to be missed!

The Exertion Games Lab (exertiongameslab.org (http://exertiongameslab NULL.org/)) in Melbourne, Australia,
is seeking exceptional PhD candidates to research the future of
exertion games and play.

The Exertion Games Lab is a new lab that researches the future of
gaming in order to understand how to design better interactive
experiences, in particular games that require intense physical effort
from players. We call it the intersection between gaming and sports.
Our research is focused on the merging of play and the active human
body, drawing from research streams such as interaction design, human-
computer interaction and computer games research.

The culture in the Exertion Games Lab is one of interdisciplinary
work. At the Exertion Games Lab, we do not just philosophize and write
about the future, we actively invent it. We emphasize the development
of working prototypes in order to fully understand what play is, why
we play, and how we will play in the future. We do this because we
believe playing and gaming is a fundamental part of what makes us
humans who we are, and an understanding of this brings us closer to
our vision of a better world filled with interactive technologies that
support human values.

We are looking for exceptional candidates who value an
interdisciplinary perspective, are highly motivated, willing to learn
a variety of new skills, can think outside the box, are creative as
well as technical, and also have highly developed analytical and
communicative skills.
We are offering a great open-plan lab environment in the Design Hub,
Australia’s newest interdisciplinary design center at RMIT (Royal
Melbourne Institute of Technology), where we work together to invent
the future of exertion games, with great support for physical game
prototyping and international collaborations. You will be supervised
by me, Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller; I have created the lab based on my
experiences from working across 3 continents at research labs such as
MIT’s Media Lab, Media Lab Europe, Xerox Parc, Fuji Xerox, Microsoft
Research Asia, the University of Melbourne, CSIRO and Stanford
University.

Unlike most other countries, RMIT’s PhDs in the Exertion Games Lab
take only 3 years, they require a 4-year degree or a Masters
(exceptions if you have work experience etc.), and there are many
different scholarships available that can cover both tuition and
living expenses: http://rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=igf2sdssaler1 (http://rmit NULL.edu NULL.au/browse;ID=igf2sdssaler1)
(International students will be mostly looking at RUIRS, and
Australian/New Zealand citizens at APA. There is also jason.edu.au (http://jason NULL.edu NULL.au/) for
more scholarships, and your home country might also offer scholarships
to conduct PhD research overseas, for example we have had great
experiences with DAAD and Fulbright.)

Also, applications for a PhD work a bit different than in most other
countries: You can apply anytime, but in order to be considered for
most scholarships, you will need to have your application in before
the 28 Oct 2011 (note time-difference!) for a start date of early/mid
2012. But before you submit your application, you will need to have
convinced us in the Exertion Games Lab to support your application.
So in order to support your application, please send us in reply to
this email your CV, a cover letter with what you would like to
research with your PhD, and why, and a link to your portfolio,
including any research papers you might have written. In your
portfolio, we will be looking at your potential for creativity,
excellence and drive in relation to Exertion Games. If we like what we
see, we will then underwrite your application that you will send to
the central RMIT University PhD application system.

We should also mention that you will be doing your PhD right in the
heart of the world’s most livable city, Melbourne:
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1583116/melbourne-judged-world-s-most-livable-city (http://www NULL.sbs NULL.com NULL.au/news/article/1583116/melbourne-judged-world-s-most-livable-city)

Here is what Wired said about us recently:
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/09/exertion-games-lab-where-physical-meets-digital/ (http://www NULL.wired NULL.com/geekdad/2011/09/exertion-games-lab-where-physical-meets-digital/)

Looking forward to reading your applications!
Thanks,
Floyd

I tried for pretty pictures, but they got all squashed, so here’s the invite in black and white:

RMIT University Research & Innovation presents:

THE FUTURE OF GAMES & ENTERTAINMENT:
GEELAB LAUNCH & SYMPOSIUM

The GEElab is a new initiative from RMIT University destined to contribute design research
and innovation to the academic community and to the development of the games, entertainment
and media industry both in Melbourne and internationally.

Tuesday 15 March 2011, 5pm – 8pm

Venue:
RMIT University, City Campus
Storey Hall, Level 7 conference rooms
336 – 348 Swanston Street
Melbourne

To be launched by:
* Professor Daine Alcorn, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation and
Vice President, RMIT University
* Professor Stephanie Hemelryk-Donald, Dean, School of Media and Communication,
RMIT University

Speakers:
* Dr Steffen P Walz, Director, GEELab, How the Geelab May Help to Invent the Future
* Gabe Zichermann, Gamification Expert and Author, Chair of the Gamification Summit,
San Francisco, Mastering Gamification: The Future is Fun
* Professor Zhao Chen Ding, Director of New Media Research Centre, Beijing Institute
for Fashion Technology & Founder of the Milan/Beijing Digital Entertainment Jam,
Jamming Digital Entertainment
* Panel discussion—To Boldly Play, featuring Antony Reed (Game Developers’ Association
of Australia), Brad Giblin (Film Victoria), Dr Christy Dena (Cross/Transmedia Designer),
Giselle Rosman (IGDA Melbourne) and surprise guests.

RSVP:
By Thursday 10 March to
mediacommunication@rmit.edu.au (mediacommunication null@null rmit NULL.edu NULL.au)
Limited seating available

Further information:
info@geelab.rmit.edu.au (info null@null geelab NULL.rmit NULL.edu NULL.au)

In partnership with:
* Game Developers’ Association of Australia
* Film Victoria
* IGDA Melbourne (That’s us!)

The plans for the party are underway – and numbers are filling fast.

We’ve got the location – Big Ant Studios right in the middle of town – thanks! *waves* – and this also means we’ve got the list at the door, and if you’ve not on it with invite in hand then you miss out. And that would make us sad. So please make sure you register

We’ve got the food – HUUUUUGE shoutout to AUTODESK for sponsoring the tucker and who also have some super-amazing deals for ‘lil ‘ole IGDA Melbourne folk – so get in touch with Paul Hellyer if you’re looking to upgrade by Jan 18

We’ve got hmmm, a few drinks I guess – so if you feel like sponsoring the bar of what is sure to be a memorable party, please , contact giselle@igdamelbourne.org – I’d love to hear from you and make it that a top arvo is had by all.

Have no fear, it’ll all happen – but any and all support is welcome.

If you work for any of the tagged companies which we do our best to support we’d love your involvement – and it seems from the rsvp’s we’ll see some of most of you there.

Bring on the rooftop!!