by Maarten Denoo, Eva Grosemans, Bieke Zaman First published on Mintlab's blog
From October 19th to 22nd, Bieke Zaman, Eva Grosemans, Niels Bibert, Pieterjan Declerck and Maarten Denoo left for Aarhus (Denmark) to attend the 9th European Communication Conference (hereafter: ECREA). ECREA is a biennial conference that unites communication scholars from Europe and beyond. This conference’s theme was called Rethink Impact, drawing attention to “the questions how research insight is translated into tangible outcomes for society, how it can be quantified and validated, and how teaching, community building and outreach as core academic practices are assessed”.
Eva gave a presentation during the very first session of the conference (“Online gaming, gendered play and youth”), at 9AM on October 20th. In this presentation, results of a survey amongst parents of Flemish teenagers were discussed. More specifically, Eva talked about parental knowledge and attitudes towards video games and simulated gambling, and the correlations between the two concepts. Next, she attended a session on “The cutting edge of content issues”, later that afternoon. During this session, Nadia Feci (CiTiP, KU Leuven) gave a presentation on the regulation of video game streamers, which was co-authored by Eva. Both presentations were part of the Gam(e)(a)ble research project, which aims at mapping out the blurring lines between video games and gambling.
Grosemans, E., Bradt, L., Denoo, M., Dupont, B., Smits, T., Malliet, S., Soenens, B., Zaman, B., De Cock, R. (2022). Parental perspectives on the blurring lines between adolescent video gaming and simulated gambling: survey results. Presented at the ECREA 2022, Aarhus, Denmark, 19 Oct 2022-22 Oct 2022.
Feci, N., Grosemans, E., De Cock, R. (2022). Game streamers conquering the audiovisual media playing field: A study of impact on adolescent viewers and regulation. Presented at the ECREA 2022, Aarhus, 18 Oct 2022-22 Oct 2022.
Our external member Niels presented two studies relating to his PhD project on sports betting mediatization. In the first presentation, held in the Mediatization Division’s evening session on October 20th, he talked about the online media repertoire of Flemish sports bettors. In the second presentation, Bieke and Niels presented a profile sketch of the European, Dutch-speaking esports bettor to the final session of the Digital Games Research Division, on October 22nd.
Bibert, N., Vanderelst, S., Zaman, B. (2022). Mapping sports bettors’ online media repertoire: An in-depth interview study. Presented at the 9th ECREA Conference, Aarhus, Denmark.
Bibert, N., Stegen, M., Denoo, M., Zaman, B. (2022). Who, why, wager? Profiling the European esports bettor. Presented at the 9th ECREA Conference, Aarhus, Denmark.
On October 17th, as part of the virtual pre-conference Emerging topics in digital games research, Maarten delved deeper into how (counter)players may circumvent the Belgian ban on loot boxes, as well as how players who circumvent the ban compare to players who do not. The results call into the question the effectiveness of a national ban in a global game ecology as well as the unintended, derivative ways in which game technology may be appropriated by players. On October 21nd, as part of the Digital Games Research Division, Pieterjan Declerck (University of Ghent) and Maarten presented the results of the FIFA 22 Walkthrough they had worked on along with Valerie Verdoodt (University of Ghent), Eva Lievens (University of Ghent) and Bieke Zaman. During their presentation, they discussed a multi-layered ecosystem consisting of third-party marketplaces and advertising opportunities, moving beyond the current regulatory focus on distinguishing whether FUT Packs in FIFA 22 constitute gambling or not.
Denoo, M., De Cock, R., Zaman, B. (2022). Counterplay: circumventing the Belgian ban on loot boxes. Presented at the 9th ECREA virtual pre-conference Emerging topics in digital games research, Virtual Conference.
Denoo, M., Declerck, P., Verdoodt, V., Lievens, E., Zaman, B. (2022). The legal walkthrough: A children’s rights perspective on FUT Packs in FIFA 22. Presented at the 9th ECREA Conference, Aarhus, Denmark.
