On Monday morning of July 8, an agreement was signed between Iran Computer and Video Games Foundation and Iran Broadcasting University. Based on said agreement, the second Digital Games Research Conference - first of which was held last year on a national scale – will be held internationally on November 29 and 30, conducted by the two organizations. The poster for the conference was also revealed in the day of signing the agreement. To acquire more information about the international Digital Games Research Conference, you may visit the official website of the event.
As reported by IRCG, the press conference was held on the campus of Iran Broadcasting University with the presence of Hassan Karimi Qodusi, CEO of Iran Computer and Video Game Foundation; Seyyed Mohammad’ali Seyyed-Hoseini, vice president of the foundation for the research division; Shahab Esfandiari, the head of Iran Broadcasting University; Davood Nemati Anaraki, the vice president of education and research at Iran Broadcasting University; Ali Rajab’Zadeh Tahmasebi, head of the research administration of Iran Broadcasting University and a few other governmental figures in the two organizations.
At the start of this meeting, CEO of Iran Computer and Video Games Foundation described the Digital Games Research Conference as having the utmost importance. Karimi Qodusi said: “Universities are really valuable to the foundation, because the main work of the developers and researchers of this field starts in universities. That’s why we try to hold the Digital Games Research Conference each year at a highly regarded university of Iran.”
He described the goals of this conference as strengthening the theoretical basics and creating a stronger connection between the industry and the academic atmosphere. He added: “Serious Games is a top notch field that may help achieve this goal. Because of that, in this year’s conference we will commend serious games with special awards.”
The CEO of Iran Computer and Video Games Foundation closed his speech by giving promise of the possibility of future partnerships with Iran Broadcasting University and even introducing a video game making major into the mentioned university.
After the words of Karimi Qodusi, Shahab Esfandiari, the head of Iran Broadcasting University gave his own opinion about the agreement. Esfandiari expressed his satisfaction for the agreement between the university and the foundation to hold international second Digital Games Research Conference and added that such efforts can empower the interdisciplinary studies, the absence of which is felt throughout the scientific community of the country, He continued by claiming that a main goal of this university is to take some serious steps in teaching majors like special effects and video game animation.
Esfandiari asserted: “The video game industry is in need of serious attention and investment. We have to appoint younger generations to do academic teachings, even change some basic policies of the Ministry of science and bring the current knowledge of video game development to our universities and try to provide more room for the growth of the industry in Iran.”
Seyyed Mohammad’ali Seyyed-Hoseini, vice president of the foundation for the research division and secretary for the Digital Games Research Conference was the other speaker in the press conference. He mentioned the long history of Iran Broadcasting University and emphasizing the media qualities of video games, and evaluated the holding of such event as a very positive plan of action.
The Foundation’s video president of the research division talked of 4 main goals for the second Digital Games Research Conference: “Expansion of the field of research in this interdisciplinary domain, deepening the researches and guiding them through serious evaluation and scoring, building networks between researchers who are active throughout the country and initiatives to make the results of these researches more practical and building connections between the industry and the academic scholars.”
Seyyed Hoseini continued: “The second Digital Games Research Conference will be held on November 28 and 29 and any authors who want to submit articles have until October 12 to turn in their original copies. This year we’re going to host some very high valued speakers from around the world at our conference.”
At the end of the press conference, Ali Rajab’Zadeh Tahmasebi, head of the research administration of Iran Broadcasting University did also a short talk, mentioning the efforts of the university to do a special partnership with the conference in lend experts for review and judging of the works, to up the grade of the event and to provide anything that help guarantee the academic value of it.