These are the slides from a presentation at the More Than Just A Game 2024 conference in London, UK. [MS Powerpoint 17.9M].

These are the slides from the keynote at ICIDS 2023 in Kobe, Japan, co-presented with Mia Consalvo at Concordia University. [MS Powerpoint 18.4M].

These are the slides from a presentation on "experiential games" at the Champlain College Games Program, in Burlington, VT. [MS Powerpoint 141M].

These are the slides from a presentation at the New Zealand Game Developers Conference (NZGDC) 2023. [MS Powerpoint 15.2M] You can also watch a recorded version of the presentation here.

These are the slides from the Gotland Game Conference 2023 Education Day keynote presentation. NOTE: These slides are not currently available to the public as they are still a work in progress. If you'd like a private copy, please contact Professor Phelps. SECOND NOTE: A revised and extended version of this talk was presented at the 2023 Games 4 Chance Festival in New York, New York in July 2023.

These are the slides from the Northen Star Symposium presentation in 2023 with Mia Consalvo. Bodø, Norway. [Powerpoint PPTX 18.5M]

These are the slides from the Tampere Spring Games Seminar presentation in 2023 with Steven Dashiell. [Powerpoint PPTX 15.3M]

These are the slides from HICSS56 presentation in 2023 with M. Consalvo, N. Bowman, and K. Boudreau. [Powerpoint PPTX 10.5M]

These are the slides from an online presentation at the Scottish Games Week 2022 Education Symposium. [Powerpoint PPTX 9.2M]

These are the slides from the ECREA (European Communication Research and Education Assocation) 2022 conference in Aarhus, Denmark. [Powerpoint PPTX 5.3M]

These are the slides from the Meaningful Play 2022 conference, where I presented work from Doris Rusch on Magic, Myth, and Meaning in Game Design. [Powerpoint PPTX 20.5M]

These are the slides from the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) 2022 conference, where I presented work from Doris Rusch on existential game design (a reprise and extention of our original DiGRA 2020 paper). [Powerpoint PPTX 10.7M]

These are the slides from a presentation at Games + Learning + Society 2022 Conference at the University of California at Irvine. June 2022. [Powerpoint PPTX 9.5M]

These are the slides from a presentation at the CILECT.org North American Virtual Production Symposium. This was an online event with more than 150 registrants from film and media programs across the USA and Canada (and a few from Europe as well). April 2022. [Powerpoint PPTX 18.9M]

These are the slides from a presentation at the More Than Just A Game conference and meeting in April 2022. London 2022. [Powerpoint PPTX 13.6M]

These are the slides from a presentation at the Future and Reality of Games (FROG) Conference Vienna 2021. November 2021. [Powerpoint PPTX 16.0M] A video of the presentation is also available. [YouTube]

These are the slides from a presentation at the monthly Association for Research in Interactive Digital Narratives (ARDIN) meeting in Ocober 2021. [Powerpoint PPTX 16.6M]

These are the slides from a presentation to the University of Canterbury exploring the ins and outs of the MAGIC effort. Several members of council were in attendance as well as academics and researchers from arts, engineering, research, and more. [Powerpoint PPTX 19.1M]

These are the slides from NZGDC2021, the New Zealand Game Developer's Conference held in Wellington in August 2021, on existential game design. [Powerpoint PPTX 18.7M]

These are the slides from a Well Played panel on Spiritfarer by Thunder Lotus Games, delivered at the Games 4 Change 2021 festival. Panelists were Phelps, M. Consalvo, J. Wagner and D. Moger. [Powerpoint PPTX 27.9M]

These are the slides from the keynote presentation at the Future and Reality of Games (FROG) 2020 converence in Vienna (delivered virtually) in collaboration with Doris Rusch at Uppsala University in Sweden. [Powerpoint PPTX 12.6MB] November 2020. The talk is also available on YouTube. [Video Stream, 31min]

These are the slides from a talk I gave with Heide Lukosh at the Canterbury Tech 2020 Summit in New Zealand. [Powerpoint PPTX 470.6 MB] November 2020. The recorded presentation is available online via Canterbury Tech at YouTube. [YouTube video link, runtime 36:17]

These is a slides from a presentation by M. Consalvo and A. Phelps for their paper "Teaching Students How to Make Games for Research Creation/Meaningful Impact (is Hard)" at the Foundations of Digital Games 2020 (FDG2020) conference in Malta/online. September 2020. [Powerpoint PPTX ] The talk is available online, beginning at the 37:38:00 mark [FDG YouTube]

These is a video presentation from a roundtable discussion at the Games 4 Change 2020 Festival, which was held virtually due to COVID-19. The panel topic was "Games and Moral Panic: a 2500 Year History" and focused on issues surrounding games and their public perception as intersected by issues like violence, health, labor, etc. Panelists were A. Phelps (University of Canterbury and American University), Mia Consalvo (Concordia University), Lindsay Grace (University of Miami) and Roger Altizer (University of Utah). July 2020. [YouTube, 59:24]

These is a video presentation from a roundtable discussion at the Games 4 Change 2020 Festival, which was held virtually due to COVID-19. The panel topic was "New Horizons: Challenges and Lessons from Coronavirus" and focused on issues facing game design, game development, and game studies programs in 2020 and beyond. Panelists were A. Phelps (University of Canterbury and American University), Kelli Dunlop (American University) and Tracy Fullerton (USC), with Maxwell Foxman (University of Oregon) as moderator. July 2020. [YouTube, 59:06]

These are the slides from a talk at the Christchurch Game Developers Meet-Up at the EPIC building downtown. [Powerpoint PPTX 13.5 MB] Also available with videos embedded, but a large file [Powerpoint PPTX 383 MB] March 2020.

These are the slides from a talk at the Human Interface Technology Lab New Zealand (HITLabNZ) at the University of Canterbury in February 2020. These slides are a first-draft presentation of a lot of different emerging work and design theory exploration with collaborator and co-author Doris Rusch at the Uppsala University in Sweden. As such, note that the individual language, terms, and such may continue to morph and change as we get reviews and feedback and revisions. [Powerpoint PPTX 9.5 MB] January 2020.

These are the slides from the presentation of "Laboring Artists: Art Streaming on the Videogame Platform Twitch." Presented at the Hawaiian International Conference on Systems Science, Wailea, HI. [Powerpoint PPTX 9.4 MB] January 2020.

These are the slides from a presentation to the Shanghai Media Group Executive Omnimedia Training visitors to the American University Game Lab. The visiting delegation was led by Paul Wang from the Triway International Group, and coordinated byt Coordinated by AU professor Scott Talan and Eunju Namkung [Powerpoint PPTX 20.3 MB] October 2019.

These are the slides from a presentation to the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Division of Science and Engineering at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. [Powerpoint PPTX 2.2MB] October 2019.

These are the slides from a presentation at a panel on New Directions in Live Streaming Research at the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) 2019 Conference in Kyoto, Japan. [Powerpoint PPTX 2.9MB] August 2019.

These are the slides from a presentation at the Workshop on Ruins in Digital Games at the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) 2019 Conference in Kyoto, Japan. [Powerpoint PPTX 123.5MB] August 2019.

These are the slides from a presentation at the Adobe Education Leaders 2019 North American Summit in San Francisco, California. [Powerpoint PPTX 25.3MB] July 2019.

These are the slides from a panel presentation at the Games 4 Change Festival in New York City. [Powerpoint PPTX 2.8MB] June 2019.

These are the slides from a presentation at the Gotland Game Conference Education Summit in Visby, Sweden. [Powerpoint PPTX 8.9MB] June 2019.

These are the slides from a presentation at the Games + Communication ICA 2019 Ante Conference at the AU Game Lab. [Powerpoint PPTX 3.1MB] May 2019.

These are the slides from a presentation at the Media in Transition 10 conference at the Comparative Media Studies program and MIT Media Lab. [Powerpoint PPTX 3.1MB] May 2019.

These are the slides from a presentation to the American University School of Communication and AU Game Lab. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 9.8MB] April 2019.

These are the slides from the keynote presentation at ETECH2019 in Riga, Latvia. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 6.1MB] April 2019.

These are the slides from a presentation at the 15th Annual Tampere University Games Research Lab Seminar. This presentation is a precursor to a paper that is a close reading and analysis of Night in the Woods. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 7.0MB] April 2019.

These are the slides from a presentation at the More Than Just A Games V conference held at the Queen Mary's University of London Centre for Commercial Law. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 11.1MB] April 2019.

These are the slides from my portion of a panel on "The Game of Grading: A Discussion of Grading and Assessment in Higher Ed Games Programs" held as part of the Education Summit at GDC2019. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 6.2MB] March 2019.

These are the slides from my portion of a panel on "How To Talk About Video Games, Today" (i.e. professional advocacy) at the Game Developer's Conference 2019. You can find more information on the panel, panelsists, and supplementary materieals here. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 6.1MB] March 2019.

These are the slides from a faculty seminar talk at the American University GameLab, sponsored by the School of Communications in Spring of 2019. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 280MB (contains video)] March 2019.

These are the slides from a presentation at the Texas A&M Department of Visualization. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 371MB (contains video)] January 2019.

These are the slides from a paper presentation at the Hawaiian International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS). [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 3.1MB] January 2019.

These are the slides from a workshop presentation at the University of Utah at the EAE Lecture Series. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 12.1MB] November 2018.

These are the slides from a workshop presentation at the University of Utah as a part of NCA 108 Game Studies Division. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 2.6MB] November 2018.

These are the slides from a workshop presentation at RMIT in Melbourne as a part of CHIPLAY 2018 (Workshop on research futures for game design & development education). [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 6.5MB] October 2018.

These are the slides from a talk at the University of California at Irvine as a part of the lecture series at the Bern School of Informatics. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 13.1MB] October 2018.

These are the slides from a talk at Adobe MAX 2018 on game development work and using XD as a UI/UX prototyping tool and ways that could be extended with a research partnership with Adobe (an ongoing effort and collaboration). [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 11.4MB] October 2018.

These are the slides from the annual Spinner Lectureship and grand rounds presentation, at the University of Rochester. Entitled "An Overview of Games & Youth Culture" this talk was presented to practicing medical staff, residents, and students at the Strong Memorial Hospital and UR Medical Center as the year-end talk. The Spinner Lectureship is an annual talk focusing on pediatrics and health in relation to the arts, in recognition of the late Dr. Elissa Spinner. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 12.3MB] May 2018.

These are the slides from the keynote address at the International Conference on Game Jams and Hackathons, San Francisco. The address focused on the power of the maker community and hacker culture in the face of over-politicized, corporate, and regimented approaches to media development. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 7.4MB] March 2018.

This was the presentation given at the MAGIC Center / MAGIC Spell Studios 5th year anniversary celebration. It was in part a retrospective of all the accomplishments of the first 5 years, and in part setting the stage to the campus for opening the new facility in the coming year. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 9.3MB] February 2018.

These are the slides to a panel presentation at the 2017 Game Developer's Conference entitled "Beyond the BA: Navigating Status as a Department, Center or Program While Working with Industry Partners". Pehlps was joined on the panel by Dr. Roger Altizer, Dr. Jim Whitehead, and Dr. Mia Consalvo. It was the highest rated session in the GDC Education Summit that year. The entire session is available as video in the GDC Vault. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 11.0MB] March 2017.

These are the slides from a presentation on MAGIC at Liberty Hill which is the RIT president's residence. The talk series features campus leaders every month describing their efforts and RIT initiatives to members of the board of trustees, community leaders, local politicians, and faculty and staff from other units across the university. This talk featured substantial discussion on the role of STEM/STEAM education, futuring in the face of automation, and engaging students in entrepreneurial efforts. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 9.1MB] December 2017.

This is a presentation given at the Adobe Education Leaders Education Day at the Adobe MAX 2017 conference, entitled "An Experiential Approach to Digital Media Education". It covered some thoughts on what Phelps was building at MAGIC and why, how it fit with national trends in education, and challenges to the role of education and the arts in today's landscape. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 20.8MB] October 2017.

These are the slides from an in-service talk at the MAGIC Center for Butler/Till, a global creative agency. The workshop focused on the creative process, leadership, management, and various ways to incentivize and encourage creative risk and innovation in a corporate culture. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 10.9MB] Fall 2016.

These are the slides from the Hack, Slash & Backstab Post Mortem Talk. More information, artwork, videos and information on HSB is available in the gallery. The presentation is also available on video via YouTube. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 35.7MB] Fall 2016.

These are the slides from the Splattershmup Post Mortem Talk. More information, artwork, videos and information on Splattershmup is available in the gallery. [MS Powerpoint PPTX - 24.5MB] Fall 2016.

In addition to formal peer-reviewed venues of various types and flavors, Professor Phelps also writes significant works of his own on Medium. A few of his more recent and impactful pieces are listed here:

GAMES OF THE SOUL: AN ANECDOTAL INTRODUCTION BY WAY OF MISSILE COMMAND This is some personal writing and reflection related to the 'Games of the Soul' effort that I've been working on with Dr. Doris Rusch as part of the Transformative Play Initiative at Uppsala University.

GAMES IN THE ERA OF SOCIAL (PHYSICAL) DISTANCING AND GLOBAL PANDEMIC This is a longer form essay that I drew on for a shorter piece in The Conversaion about the role of games during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they provide social benefits and a sense of agency.

HOW I FAILED SABBATICAL AND REGAINED SOME LITTLE BITS OF ME: THOUGHTS, REFLECTIONS, & NOTES FROM #sabbatical1819 A story in 10 slices - A long form essay describing the sabbatical I had in AY2018-2019, leaving the MAGIC Center and RIT, reconnecting with artistic practice and work as a teacher-scholar, travel, and more.

AN EXTENDED ARTIST'S STATEMENT FOR FRAGILE EQUILIBRIUM - A description of the role and purpose of the Fragile Equilibrium game, which is featured in the gallery.

A FEW BRIEF THOUGHTS ON ESPORTS AND UNIVERSITIES - This piece describes what I'm seeing as trends in the way universities are approaching eSports (with a few good notable exceptions)...

THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUR ART AND THE REALISM OF OUR CLAY - This piece is a response piece to a talk from Games 4 Change 2018 (or the 15th conference) touching on themes of art, policites, games as agents of change, and more...

A STORY OF SPELL STUDIOS - This piece is an overview of the background motivations, thoughts, and strategies to the formation and operations of MAGIC Spell Studios at RIT. Why embed a commercial entity in an academic campus? This is why...

OF ART AND CIRCUMSTANCE - This piece is a personal reflection on why Professor Phelps chose to move his tenure from computing to art & design in 2018, and discusses a little bit about how games straddle this intersection within higher education...

OF FAKE GUNS AND REAL HOPE - This is a public essay/rebuttal in response to (a) the terrible tragedy at Douglas High School coupled with (b) the comments by President Trump in the wake of that event targeting video games and violence...

WE CAN AND MUST DO BETTER - This is a public essay on the subject of game violence and narrative complexity. This was cited in-audence in further discussion at the Foundation of Digital Games conference in 2017 in Boston, MA.

GAME DEVELOPMENT STUDIES - SWEET SIXTEEN - This is a piece inspired by Ian Bogost's piece on Game Studies, Year 15, but taking a look instead at game design and development programs, broadly defined: how they have emerged, grown, scaled, and morphed, and where they might be headed...

A FEW THOUGHTS ON GAMERGATE - This essay is a response to GamerGate, in all its idiocy, hate, and vitriol, from the viewpoint of an academic in higher education at a technical university. It argues the need for more liberal arts focus within technical majors, and the value of general education in the utopia we sometimes imagine the internet to be...

This is a whitepaper on proposed metrics for tenure and promotion as they relate to games and media faculty. There is significant consternation around this topic in higher education in almost every program, and this has been widely cited and used not just at RIT, but in other programs as well. [PDF - 460K] 2009 / 2012.

These are the official guidelines for promotion and tenure for the RIT School of Interactive Games & Media. These were authored by the senior faculty of the department, and Phelps led this process and created the initial drafts along with much of the final language. These were eventually approved and singed by the university president, and accepted as policy by the provost. Since then they have served as a model for several other universities and programs of a similar nature, and also form the basis for a broader set of guidelines within the RIT B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences which contains departments focused on several disparate fields as they relate to computing generally. [PDF - 1.2M] 2013.

This is an example of a future vision document for the RIT School of Interactive Games & Media. It is also available as an executive summary. During his tenure as Chair/Director of the Department/School, Phelps prepared these every few years for senior leadership to keep them abreast and informed of issues facing the school, the field, and the landscape. This one, entitled "IGM 2010-2025: A Future Vision fo the Department of Interactive Games & Media" was authored in 2010, and projects forward over the next several years. Given it's timeline, it is interesting now to see what has and has not occured since. Of particular emphasis is the discussion of culture and growth as they pertain to program identity. [PDF - 228K] 2010.

This is the proposal for the School of Interactive Games & Media, minus any associated financial and human resources data. This was authored collaboratively by Phelps and the group of multi-disciplinary faculty that he led in founding the department in 2009, which later became a school in 2011. It was presented (by Phelps) at the departmental retreat of the Information Technology department in spring of 2008, followed by presentations to the Dean, the Provost, and other associated personnel. [PDF - 533K] 2008.

This paper is an outline of how IGM research in games and media is of value and benefit to the larger college of computing. It was written expressly for the dean, and prepared by Phelps on behalf of the school. The question of how the new department would integrate with the existing college and culture of computing was of significant import, and this document helped lay that groundwork, as well as the future of minors, electives, and collaborative and multi-disciplinary research around digital media. There are seeds here in what would one day grow into the MAGIC Center. It is presented here as a slightly different form of administrative writing and communication than the policy and proposal work above. [PDF - 247K] 2008.

This paper is a whitepaper on best practices for game and media lab design. It was written in collaboration with Microsoft and published extensively by Microsoft Research when XNA was an active product/program. While obviously dated, it is an example of the kind of writing and discourse that more technical facilities construction and design requires - communication between the underlying work with architects, designers, and facilities personnel in collaboration with educators, administrators, lab technicians, and ultimately students and faculty. Co-Authors C. Egert and G. Weber. [PDF - 633K] 2008.