BGA Conference 2025
Strong National Museum of Play, Rochester NY
October 4-5, 2025
Annual Conference
This year’s conference will be held at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY, on October 4-5, 2025.
Board Gamers Academics would like to sincerely thank our partners at the Strong Museum for their enthusiastic support of scholars, researchers, practitioners, and gamers in learning more about gaming and its power to go beyond the tabletop.
The conference features academic research on poignant topics within the board game and TTRPG communities, with insights from faculty, researchers, emerging scholars, and practitioners.
Join us for two days of discussion, networking, research, and fun at the Strong Museum, devoted to the history and exploration of play.
Attendance Options:
- General Admission – $200
- Student/Adjunct Faculty/K-12 Teacher Rate – $100
* Inquire about group rate discounts.
Hotel
We have negotiated a reduced group rate with the Hampton Inn and Suites in Downtown Rochester, just a 5 minute walk from the museum.
Hampton Inn & Suites Rochester Downtown
We’re in the heart of Downtown Rochester, close to many shops and restaurants. The Strong National Museum of Play is a short walk away and the Blue Cross Arena is a five-minute drive. The Geva Theatre Center is a 10-minute walk and Genesee Brewery is two miles from us. Enjoy our indoor pool and relax with a drink at our bar. Free overnight parking, breakfast, WiFi, and local transportation.
Conference Rate: $169 (Cut-off: September 12)
Distance to Conference: 5 minute walk
About Board Game Academics
We are Board Game Academics, a group of tabletop gamers and academic professionals of various stripes. Our mission is to combine research and gaming in novel ways that benefit academics and gaming. This multi-disciplinary project takes the form of an academic journal and conference to better critically examine the role of gaming across society, education, and beyond. We are mainly focused on the historical, cultural, and systemic exploration of games as they relate to themes of race, gender, nationality, (de)coloniality, ability, sexuality, and class. In bringing these areas closer together, we hope to encourage meaningful discourse between academics, researchers, and gamers. To this end, we welcome participation in our first conference as researchers present their works linking these worlds together.
The editorial board would especially like to welcome students and those not currently engaged in this research. The world of tabletop gaming is ever-expanding, and the issues discussed in the research being presented affects all sorts of gamers, not just those in academic settings. Scholarship in this field is also relatively new and constantly developing, with ideas from our community of gamers and guiding discussions and research discourse. We encourage gamers and interested parties of all types to come along as we explore how people relate to and experience games together.
Attendance Options
We understand the importance of accessibility, and therefore, the registration fee will be waived for hardship cases. Contact BGA for details.
Presentations will be live-streamed on Discord for registered attendees who cannot attend in person to view, network, and participate. Please register here for access to the Board Game Academic Discord Channel. Registration for the event will be required to access all presentation materials.
Venue
Strong National Museum of Play
1 Manhattan Square Dr, Rochester, NY 14607
Time zone: America/New York (UTC -04:00)
AGENDA
Day 1: Academic Scholarship and Industry Insights
Day 1 will feature a keynote speaker, research presentations, and industry discussions, allowing scholars to engage with critical research in game studies, pedagogy, psychology, media studies, and beyond.
Day 2: Museum and Industry Collaboration, Additional Presentations, and Gameplay
Day 2 will focus on introducing scholars and industry professionals to The Strong Museum’s resources,
facilitating networking between academia and the tabletop industry, and providing immersive experiences through tours, roundtable discussions, and gaming sessions.
PRESENTATION TOPICS
Keynote Presenter: Eric Zimmerman
Professor, NYU Game Center
Co-Founder, The Institute of Play
Co-Founder, Gamelab
- Gamification as Educational Tool (Christopher Rondeau, University of Tulsa)
- Around the Round Table: Fellowship and Cultural Longing in Arthurian Tabletop Games (Camille Deschapelles, Georgetown University)
- A framework for analysing board games and what they say about the world. (Ian Greener, University of Glasgow)
- Roleplaying Games, General Education, and Understanding Culture (Stephanie Hedge, Associate Professor of English and Writing Program Director, University of Illinois Springfield)
- The Sustainability Lens Game: Using Storytelling as a Creative Development Tool for Connection and Change (Tamara Stenn, Assistant Professor, Suffolk University, Sawyer Business School)
- Leveraging Gameplay for Cognitive Skill Development and Active Learning: The
Educational Potential of Nine Tiles Extreme and Similar Lightweight Board Games (Jenny Yanzhi Wang, Designer Columbia University, New York University) - “Laws Are Threats..”: The Cubby’s, Marxist Ideology, and the Politics of Humor in Dimension 20’s Fantasy High (Mx. Tarae McQueen, San Francisco State University)
- Cards Against Humanity and the Ethics of Algorithmic Curation in Analog Games (Dan Tibbles, University of Washington)
- The Cognition of Game Playing: Learning Cognitive Psychology by Playing Board Games (Dr. Stephen Blessing (Janet R. Matthews, PhD., Endowed Chair in Psychology), University of Tampa)
- Mapping Common Core Math Standards onto Tabletop Game Mechanics to Enhance Age Appropriate Gameplay (Catherine Croft and Jonathan Croft, Ph.D., Catlilli Games)
- Lacan Plays Catan: Unconscious Desire in Tabletop Gaming (Paul Hoard, PhD, LMHC, Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology, The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology)
- Dungeons, Dragons, Difficult Deliberations:
Campaign Settings and Contemporary Considerations (Pascal Verheul, MA, Nottingham Trent University) - Endgame: Playing at Dying (Dr Laura Davies, University of Cambridge, UK, and Dr. Emma Reay, University of Southampton)
- The affordances for queerness in virtual D&D (Mariah Kemp, University of Cincinnati)
- Additional presentations by Caleb Levy, New York University;
Vanessa Michelle Cozza, Director of Communication Studies Online Program, Colorado State University
Join Us on October 4 and 5
Register to attend the conference on October 4 and 5 from the link below. Early bird tickets are available at a discounted rate using the code EarlyBirdDiscount until May 31, 2025. Students and adjuncts are eligible for a discounted rate. Please contact us for additional details.