There is currently no consensus within game studies as to how games—the main objects of analysis in the field—ought to be cited in academic publications. While some journals and publishers do offer guidelines on this matter, these guidelines are not followed consistently (Olsson, 2013). No specific guidance for game citation exists in the main referencing systems of APA, Chicago etc. This lack of standardization has led to huge variation in how games are cited in text and in reference lists, if they are cited at all.

At DiGRA last year, I addressed the notions of game authorship and game referencing with my colleagues and friends Riccardo Fassone and Jonas Linderoth in a paper titled: ‘How to Reference a Digital Game’ (http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/DiGRA_2019_paper_50.pdf).

This year, for DiGRA2020, I am organizing a game citation workshop together with Paul Martin and Jonathan Frome (on the 2^nd of June, starting from 9.30). The objective of this workshop is to consult with game scholars, publishers, and editors on what would constitute an appropriate method for citing games in academic writing on games (both digital and non-digital). The workshop itself will be an opportunity for game scholars to discuss both the principles that should inform the development of a citation standard and some of the technical details involved in creating the standard.

Its intended outcomes are:

• Criticism of existing reference practices.
• An agreed upon set of guiding principles for developing a citation standard.
• A citation standard based on these guiding principles that can be implemented within any of the main existing citation methods.
• An agreed upon process for establishing this standard in the main journals and publishers of game scholarship and in the next edition of guidelines published by APA, MLA, Harvard, and the other main citation systems.

 How to participate in game citation workshop at Digra 2020

The workshop will be open to everyone at the conference. Since this will be an open discussion, we are not asking for submissions. However, it would be very useful for us to know how many people wish to attend. Please indicate your interest in attending the workshop by emailing one of the organizers (emails listed below) or filling out this short questionnaire (<5 minutes) about game citation: link to questionnaire. This questionnaire will be used to identify the challenges to be discussed during the workshop and is a very important step for us to ensure that the workshop includes diverse opinions on this topic.

Even if you cannot attend the workshop, please fill out the questionnaire to help us solicit a wide range of opinions on game citation in advance of the workshop!

References

Gualeni, S., Fassone, R., & Linderoth, J. 2019.“How to Reference a Digital Game”. Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA international Conference. Kyoto, Japan, August 6-10, 2019.

Olsson, C. (2013). Spelreferenser i akademiska publikationer. En kartläggning av referenspraktiker inom spelvetenskap. Bachelor thesis (2013:4), Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås.

Attribution for illustration picture: futureatlas.com / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)