VideoBrains January: Lucky Dip

Welcome to 2015!

Having no theme in December led to such interesting pitches from speakers that we decided to keep it going into January.

We’re also continuing our experiment of charging for tickets. At the time of writing, we still don’t know how many people will come to December’s ticketed event. In any case, December is an odd month because of Christmas – people may be less willing to spend money than normal, or may be away. We think January might give a better idea of whether charging means fewer empty seats.

Anyway, whatever. Come and enjoy.

You still get a free drink and, as always, if you can’t afford a ticket, just email jake@videobrains.co.uk and ask for one.

We’ll use any money we make from the tickets to help pay for our speakers’ travel costs.

We're partnered with Five out of Ten and Nine Worlds VG. If you have any questions or you want to pitch a 15-minute talk for a future event, please email jake@videobrains.co.uk.

Twitter hashtag = #VideoBrains

Here’s our January speaker lineup:

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Christos Reid - Zug Zug

Christos spent a significant amount of his festive time off work playing games about... work. Join him as he analyses games like Visceral Cleanup Detail, Euro Truck Simulator 2 and his own GRINDSTAR to find out why we work when we're not working.

Laura K Dale - Games For My Gaming Averse Partner

Games for my gaming averse partner (Discussing games you can use to sell your non gaming partner on the value of the medium and introduce them to mechanics).

Tim Skew - All The World's a [METAPHOR NOT FOUND ERROR]: On Bugs, Text and Performance in Games

Tim's going to bring together theatre and videogames by looking at bugs. Are bugs part of the text of the game? Should we aim to get rid of all bugs to preserve the original design?

Jenni Goodchild - Broken Binaries: Morality In Video Games

The morality in video-games is simplistic at best, nonsensical at worst. I'll be looking at the flaws in binary morality systems, the hidden assumptions behind them and alternative ways of tackling morality that aren't just 'kick the puppy/hug the puppy'.

Ben Taylor - Unravelling The Traumas and Tears Behind Majora's Mask

As a demonic mask brings the moon to Hyrule’s twisted twin Termina, we pick up the pieces of doomsday to examine the personal tragedies within the world of Majora’s Mask that makes its apocalypse such a catastrophe.

Hannah Bunce - Developers As Consumers: Can We Ever Be Objective Consumers?

Hannah will discussing whether we, as developers can ever be objective consumers of video games or if we're the cause of the blasé approach to Day One patches.

Danny Wadeson - Locus Of Controller

in personality psychology, locus of control refers to the extent to which individuals believe they can control events affecting them. Understanding of the concept was developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954, and has since become an aspect of personality studies.

Are we really in control? What of? What is ‘player agency’?

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We still hope that we won't need an anti-harrassment policy, but we’re using this one from Nineworlds, with their permission.

Boring stuff:

We can't refund your ticket if you don't attend on the night. Obvious if the event is cancelled we'll refund you.

Please be here for the first talk at 7 - This is so important I could say it twice.

Please be here for the first talk at 7 - I said it twice. Please try to be here. There's always quite a full programme and talks have to be shortened if there's no one here at 7. You can show up any time from 6pm and we'll have someone on hand to sell you drinks.

VideoBrains talks are recorded and published to our website, social media channels and other publications and promotional materials. By purchasing a ticket for this event, you consent to being filmed and/or photographed and for VideoBrains to publish any associated media. If you would like to attend VideoBrains but want to withdraw recording consent, please contact the event organiser.