We are delighted that the first ever Early Career and Precarious Positions Showcase was a huge success at DiGRA Malta 2025. The session highlighted emerging research from up-and-coming scholars to offer audiences a sneak-peek into the future of Game Studies. The session would not have been possible without the forward-thinking and organizational skills of invited keynote Cameron Kunzelman, program committee member Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone, and Gabriela Kurtz.
Each of the scholars presented their research interests for 15 minutes, followed by a Q&A from the DiGRA audience. Each of the scholars, along with their research interests and contact information, are provided below to continue the spirit of supporting emerging scholarship outside of the conference. If you have lingering questions or want to collaborate, the scholars have consented to sharing their contact information here, so please do reach out!
Andrei Zanescu
(Concordia University, Canada)
About their research: Although videogame awards have been airing since the early 90s, and their audiences have grown in viewership surpassing a hundred million viewers yearly, they still occupy a cultural and institutional position of relative disenfranchisement. This project traces the span of American videogame awards through the production and reception of the AIAS’ Cybermania (1994-1995), Spike TV’s Spike Video Game Awards (VGAs from 2003-2012 and VGX in 2013) and finally The Game Awards (2014-2025) — with the DICE awards as as a insider counterpoint to publicly broadcast shows. This research traces a genealogy of game awards concentrated in the imperial core of corporate AAA game production, with wide-ranging implications both in terms of legacy media companies and institutions that exert pressure on games legitimation (from film, to television, to contemporary tech), as well as the pressure exerted from the national American context outward as a form of soft cultural domination. This project aims to provide a baseline against which other game awards and their constituent bodies may be compared and where the subject of game legitimation can be understood as a multimedia conflict for what games merit recognition.
Contact Info:
andreizanescu.com
andrei.zanescu@concordia.ca
Leon Xiao
(City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
About their research: Leon researches how video game policy are implemented in practice. For example, are companies disclosing the probabilities of getting rare rewards from gambling-like loot boxes as required? If so, how are they doing it? Are they hiding the probabilities? Leon presented on the importance of:
- sharing preprints/working papers;
- asking colleagues for critical feedback on drafts;
- posting research summaries on social media;
- sending research results directly to journalists and policymakers;
- self-publishing pre-releases through ScienceX;
- directly contacting game companies;
- writing The Conversation and such articles for wider audiences;
- responding to policy consultations;
- and asking for other colleagues to be invited to policymaking processes.
Leon is currently recruiting funded PhD students and research assistants to work together on video game policy at the City University of Hong Kong. He also wants to replicate empirical policy assessment methods to other regions to ensure local evidence-informed regulation. Please do get in touch about collaborations.
Contact:
leonxiao.com
leon@beclaws.org
Koike Mayu
(Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan)
About their research: The basis of my talk regarded romantic anthropomorphism in the digital age, in which I shared some examples of people falling in love with non-human entities, exploring the social aspects of how people deal with the era of relationships with virtual agents (VAs). My paper, Koike et al., (2021), utilizes the social psychology of close relationships to examine the ways in which people may form, maintain, and terminate relationships with VAs. Additionally, a human-like voice and the use of touch are perceived as important factors in anthropomorphized relationships, and a desire to develop social skills and alleviate negative emotions independently increases the desire to play romantic video games (Koike et al., 2020). Ultimately, three sets of laboratory studies reveal that people feeling their connection and relationship with a virtual agent was genuine (Relationship Authenticity) (Koike et al., 2023). I concluded the talk with a discussion on future directions, including ongoing work of how we should handle romantic relationships with AI.
Contact info:
koike.m.ah@m.titech.ac.jp
Camila Freitas
(Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil)
About their research: My current postdoctoral research investigates gambling experiences and digital sports betting practices in Brazil, with particular attention to their appeal among young people in the northeastern region. I explore how gambling operates not only as an economic activity, but also as a culturally embedded form of expression. In Brazil, games of chance are deeply intertwined with a “belief in luck”, often symbolizing both social critique and survival strategies. From the traditional Jogo do Bicho to contemporary betting apps, gambling emerges as a way of navigating precarity, constructing meaning, and imagining alternative futures. This “gambling ethos” challenges dominant understandings of play and opens up broader reflections on how games intersect with labor, aspiration, and structural inequality under platform capitalism.
Camila Freitas is an early-career scholar in Media and Communication and a postdoctoral fellow at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB, Brazil), where she works within the Media, Entertainment, and Society Research Lab (LENS). She holds a PhD in Communication from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS, Brazil), where her thesis explored imagination and embodiment in VR gameplay through Tetris Effect: Connected. Her interdisciplinary background includes affiliations with the Imaginalis Research Group (UFRGS), the Centre des Recherches Internationales sur l’Imaginaire (CRI2i, France), and the Digital Artifacts Lab (UFRGS). She also collaborates with Brazil’s indie game industry, offering communication consulting, driving innovation, and developing strategic marketing initiatives.
Contact:
camila.freitas@academico.ufpb.br
Unfortunately, two of the scholars were unable to present due to issues outside of their control. Their bios are presented below.
Kübra Aksay
(University of Freiburg, Germany)
About their research: Kübra Aksay is currently completing her PhD with a project that focuses on in-game representations of books in video games, tracing the ways games simulate literary practices and reflect contemporary reading and writing cultures. She has recently begun developing a new research project that examines the cultural, formal, and material implications of video game remakes, reboots, and adaptations. This work explores how games are reimagined across time and medium—focusing on digital-to-digital remakes, narrative and mechanical reboots, and digital-to-analog shifts, such as board game adaptations of digital titles. Given the scarcity of sustained research on remake practices and seriality in games, despite their prominence and clear differences from, for example, film, this project aims to fill that gap by analyzing how games are remade, rebooted, or materially adapted—highlighting game-specific forms such as demakes, analog adaptations, and reinterpretations across platforms and devices.
Contact:
kuebra.aksay@anglistik.uni-freiburg.de
Chaitanya Solanki
(Mahindra University, India)
An Assistant Professor navigating India’s hyper-competitive higher ed system, Chaitanya reflects on the systemic pressures shaping academic labor in the Global South. His work explores how games foster empathy in increasingly disconnected societies and how scholars in precarious contexts can reclaim purpose through transformative design.