Check out our videos of Multiplatform 3: Remake, Reuse, Recycle...

In June, Manchester Game Centre hosted its third annual symposium, Multiplatform. This year, the symposium asked players, gamers, makers, and critics to think about the sustainability of games, play, and the gaming industries.

Today, some of the most forward-thinking sectors of gaming culture are looking to the past, whether by building new games out of old ones, using hacked hardware to critically reframe familiar genres, pioneering new forms of historical fiction, or exploring innovative approaches to recovering, preserving and presenting gaming’s own history. These practices are of more than historical interest; in the context of the climate emergency, they spur us to imagine how revisiting the past might help us to fashion greener futures.   

As well as hosting a public game jam that encouraged participants to hack and remake new games out of the old, Multiplatform also featured academic and practitioner speakers on diverse topics inspired by the theme. These included: Darshana Jayemanne (Abertay University, Scotland) and Cameron Kunzelman (Mercer University, USA) , Silvia P Ruzanka (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA), Mick Chesterman (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK), Paolo Ruffino (Liverpool University, UK), Holly Nielsen (Royal Holloway, University of London), and Megaverse (with Zoyander Street).

Topics included: Remaking, Reusing and Replaying Final Fantasy VIII, Climate Change and Games, Plant-thinking and Video Games, Educational and Community uses and reuses of games, British Board Games, Game History and Preservation, and the Relationship of Artists with New Technologies.

You can see all the talks over on our YouTube Channel… Enjoy!

Manchester Game Centre's annual Multiplatform Symposium. A series of lectures and panel discussions featuring leading academics and practitioners in game studies and related fields.