DiGRA 2024 was held in Guadalajara, Mexico, from 1st to 5th of July, 2024. The conference had 253 participants from 39 countries. 205 papers were presented at the conference during four busy days. On the very first day of the conference, 16 workshops were organized, as well as the Doctoral Consortium featuring 14 early career scholars presenting their work. The conference that followed a theme ‘Playgrounds’, was organized by seven tracks: Game History and Cultural Context; Game Design; Production, and Distribution; Game Analyses, Criticism, and Interpretation; Philosophy and Theory of Play & Games; Serious Games and Education; and Child Play.
We are extremely grateful for Victor M. Larios and his entire Local Organising Committee from the University of Guadalajara including Rocio Maciel, J. Raul Beltran, José A. Orizaga, Cesar O. Mora, J. Alberto Castellanos, Francisco Salcedo, Francisco J. Caro, Octavio R. Ramirez, Mahatma Robles de Niz, and also Irving Ortíz, who represented University of Digital Arts, Mexico. Very special thanks to Blanca Estela López Pérez, Ruth S. Contreras, and other members of DiGRA Mexico for putting their dedication into supporting the conference from the chapter’s side.
We thank Ruth Contreras Espinosa, Sebastian Möring and Tanja Sihvonen for their serious contribution to the conference as its Program Chairs and all the track chairs – María-José Establés, Pilar Lacasa, Emiliano Labrador Ruiz de la Hermosa, Florence Chee, Jing Sun, Phillip Penix-Tadsen, Angel Torres Toukoumidis, Melissa Kagen, René Glas, Katriina Heljakka, Feng Zhu, Bettina Bódi, Cindy Poremba, and Annakaisa Kultima – for finding rigorous and diverse research papers to share at the conference.
A small change to the DiGRA practices this year was that we implemented a new submission template to allow better readability and to address some recent expectations of citation and publishing formats. The papers, included in the Conference Proceedings, will be available on the DiGRA Digital Library in the following months.
In one important area, the conference taught us that regardless of the position of a Diversity Officer, Ombuds team, and Diversity Working Group – and the hard work done from all these positions – adjustments are in place regarding diversity, inclusivity, and safety. Therefore, we are considering several additional measures to safeguard a comfortable conference for all. These are mentioned in the attached document, with minor alterations and clarifications, that was shared with DiGRA participants on July 6th via EasyChair. We thank DiGRA Ombuds team for working with us on the case.