CHI-PLAY

CHI PLAY is an international and interdisciplinary conference series for researchers and professionals across all areas of play, games, and human-computer interaction (HCI). We call this area "player-computer interaction."

The goal of CHI PLAY is to highlight and foster discussion of current high-quality research in games and HCI as foundation for the future of digital play. This year is the fifth year of the symposium, which is already proving to be a premier forum for presentation of research results and experience reports on leading-edge issues of novel games and playful interaction, player experience evaluations, tangible play, serious games, gamification, exertion games, games user research, player psychology, social game and play systems, play & game developer applications and theory. The mission of the symposium is to share insights into game and play interaction design and analysis that fulfil the needs of developers, researchers, and designers and identify new directions for future research and development in HCI and games. CHI PLAY gives researchers and practitioners a unique opportunity to share their perspectives with others interested in the various aspects of HCI in games and play. The symposium provides a meeting place for practitioners and academics where participants present and discuss peer-reviewed academic papers and the latest breaking results and approaches.

The conference includes a dynamic mix of academic, student and industry engagement, with full papers and work in progress presentations, the student games competition, workshops and courses, a doctoral consortium, and a strong interactivity program. This year we have two highly respected keynote speakers, Professor Chris Ferguson, professor of psychology at Stetson University and expert on the behavioral impacts of video games, and Dr. Sarah Jane Pell, award winning artist, commercial diver, and explorer and researcher of new worlds. Given the sustained growth and interest in eSports, we have also included an industry eSports panel this year. Based on its success last year we have again included the Spotlight Papers track, which highlights significant work from both industry and research from innovative implementations to thought-provoking case studies.

CHI PLAY 2018 is being held in the beautiful city of Melbourne, Australia. It coincides with Melbourne International Games Week that features playful experiences and games events throughout the city. Furthermore, selected paper presenters also have the chance to present their research at PAX, the largest Game Arcade Expo outside the USA that attracts thousands and thousands of game enthusiasts to Melbourne. Furthermore, thanks to the support of the City of Melbourne and SIGCHI, the interactive games and play experiences of the conference are also exhibited to the general public, extending the reach of the impact of CHI PLAY 2018. iii The call for papers attracted submissions from across the continents. We selected a program committee of experts in game research and human-computer interaction to lead the scientific review process. Accepted papers are published in the ACM Digital Library.