Citing Games with Ludographies in CHI PLAY Papers
Citing games, whether commercial or academic, has become common in the CHI PLAY community as they represent important scholarly resources for our work. Games are cited to support statements, exemplify abstract ideas, and acknowledge practice; they may also be a form of primary data, on which the research is built. While authors have taken a number of approaches to this, including adding URLs to game websites in brackets, using footnotes, or adding games to their list of references, these have not quite fit; in content, volume, and style. Phoebe O. Toups Dugas started the practice of a “Ludography” in some of her papers several years ago, drawing from the practice of the Game Studies journal. We would like to encourage authors to adopt the idea of a Ludography, a special list of game references that comes after the normal list of references in your paper. Submissions are not required to have a Ludography; however, if games are going to be referenced in your paper we would encourage you to help standardize through a Ludography. Regardless of whether or not a ludography is used, it is important to note details of which version of a game was used (often its platform and release date).
For the format of referencing games, we will follow the recommendations put forward in the “Citing Games” section of “Author Guidelines” for CHI PLAY 2020 (https://chiplay.acm.org/2020/guidelines/), which has been reproduced below and augmented with additional guidelines.
Below we detail the recommended format for citing games and provide a link for Latex support for easily creating Ludographies.
Please note: this is not a requirement for CHI PLAY 2023 for submission or the final version of your papers; only a recommendation. Future CHI PLAY committees may consider adding this as a requirement. For this year, authors may also decide to submit their paper with another format and upon acceptance decide to submit their final version using these guidelines.
Ludograhies and Citing Games
Authors are encouraged to create a game reference list labeled as “Ludography,” wherever appropriate. The Ludography should appear after the typical “References” list at the end of a paper and follow the same general rules as a typical reference list. In-text citations should follow the same format as the typical paper citations but use the “G#” format. For example:
… a similar effect to draw the player’s attention can be seen when Mario flashes after getting a star power-up in Super Mario Bros [G1].
Word users can follow the guidelines; LaTeX users should use the BibTeX information below. An example of the game reference format follows:
Nintendo R&D1 and Intelligent Systems. 1994. Super Metroid. Game [SNES]. (18 April 1994). Nintendo, Kyoto, Japan. Last played August 2011.
General Pattern (note that for each entry, you should cite a specific version (e.g., platform) for a game): <developer>. <release year>. <game title in italics>. Game [<platform>]. (<game release date in <day> <month> <year> formats>). <publisher name>, <publisher address> (optional) Last played <last played date>.
LaTeX / BibTeX users should use the @misc entry type; the data fields should be filled as follows (the running example is at the end):
Author: Use the developer or developers of the version being cited. To avoid having the system treat the developer(s) as a first and last name, use curly braces around each developer.
Year: The release year for the version being cited.
Title: The game title, which has to be manually italicized (using \emph).
How published: The word “Game” followed by the platform in square brackets.
Day: The release day, if known, for the version being cited.
Month: The release month, if known, for the version being cited.
Note: The publisher’s name and location, followed optionally by “Last played” and the date last played.
Publisher and Address: The template will not read these (hence the need to enter them as a note).
Example:
@misc{SM,
Address = {Kyoto, Japan},
Author = {{Nintendo R\&D1} and {Intelligent Systems}},
Day = {18},
Howpublished = {Game [SNES]},
Month = {April},
Note = {Nintendo, Kyoto, Japan. Last played August 2011.},
Publisher = {Nintendo},
Title = {\emph{Super Metroid}},
Year = {1994}
}
Latex Support for Creating Ludographies
To support the practice of creating Ludographies, Josh Aaron Miller and Kutub Gandhi have thoughtfully created a GitHub repository and instructions for creating a Ludography following these guidelines. See Josh’s repository for instructions on how to use it:
This approach relies on a Latex package called multibib, which allows creating multiple bibliographies in the same document. As of writing, TAPS (The ACM Publishing System) has not added multibib to their list of “Accepted Latex Packages,” but they have assured us that it is an accepted package and practice.
If you have any questions about citing games with ludographies in your CHI PLAY papers, Please feel free to email the paper chairs (papers@chiplay.acm.org).
Scott Bateman, Guo Freeman, and Regan Mandryk
Important Dates:
Attendance
| TBA | Early Bird Registration |
Full Papers (Journal Articles)
| February 21, 2023 | Submission deadline |
| April 21, 2023 | First-round notification |
| June 2, 2023 | Revisions due |
| July 7, 2023 | Final notifications given |
Work in Progress
| June 22, 2023 | Submission deadline |
| August 3, 2023 | Notification |
Perspectives on Play
| June 22, 2023 | Submission deadline |
| August 3, 2023 | Notification |
Student Game Design Competition
| June 22, 2023 | Submission deadline |
| August 3, 2023 | Notification |
Interactivity Track
| June 22, 2023 | Submission deadline |
| August 3, 2023 | Notification |
Connections Track
| June 22, 2023 | Submission deadline |
| August 3, 2023 | Notification |
Doctoral Consortium
| June 22, 2023 | Submission deadline |
| August 3, 2023 | Notification |
| August 31, 2023 | Revised DC Video submission deadline |