At the 2025 DiGRA conference, which took place at University of Malta from June 30 to July 4, several members of the PGPS team presented their research. Jan Houška co-organized the workshop titled “Exploring Global Game Work Migration” where he presented his dissertation research and GAME-ER research data. The workshop opened a discussion about the status and role of international workers in different national game industries. The workshop included panelist speakers from countries such as Australia, Canada, France or Poland. Across different nations, it revealed diverse local understandings, societal perceptions, and policies of game work migration.

Jan Houška also presented a paper titled “Platform alternatives or platform power: Custom and commercial game engines in the work of foreigners in Czech game production”. The paper dealt with the use of both in-house and commercial game engines (i.e., Unity, Unreal) in the everyday jobs of international workers and workers’ evaluations of those tools. The paper showed conflicting relationships with both in-house and commercial engines, as former often move internationals from the industry standards, and latter cause underskilling among workers in Czech game companies that historically use custom game engines.

Besides Jan, two other members and affiliates of the group presented their research. Jaroslav Švelch presented a paper called “Purpose-Built for Happiness”: Panic’s Playdate as a Cozy Platform, which discusses the design and the software library of the indie console Playdate. Additionally, Leonid Moyzhes presented the paper Are We Monsters? Comparison of Representation of Monstrosity between Vampire the Masquerade Fourth and Fifth Editions, based on a part of his dissertation about religion in role-playing games.