The second edition of the “Symposium on Research in the Indie Video Game Industry” (I3V 2025) will take place on December 12th, in Terrassa (Spain), as a side event of “INDIE GAMES TRS”, a free-access gathering for the entire Spanish indie video game scene. This symposium is open to contributions from any stakeholder involved in study and research within this field, aiming to establish a dialogue between academia and industry to foster improvement and new models of collaboration.
Keynotes
Luca Carrubba
From Indiepocalypse to Indieverse: a leap in format towards sustainable creation
The concept of Indiepocalypse is once again resonating in the video game industry, highlighting a structural crisis that goes beyond simple market saturation. Against this backdrop, the presentation explores the need for a ‘format leap’, analogous to the transformations that other media have undergone at turning points, as a way to reimagine the future of the sector. Through the presentation of a series of conceptual “prototypes”, a debate is proposed on new ways of creating, distributing and consuming video games. The aim is not to offer definitive answers, but to raise key questions and propose a framework for a more diverse, resilient and sustainable indie ecosystem: an indieverse.
Luca Carrubba is a researcher, lecturer and specialist in digital culture. He works at the intersection of art, technology, design and video games. He holds a PhD in Art from the University of Barcelona and is co-director of ArsGames. He participates in the international debate on Games Studies with lectures and articles on video games as spaces for experimentation and social transformation. He collaborates with museums, cultural centres and universities, combining theoretical research with the creation of games and other digital artefacts aimed at rethinking how we live together.
Program
| 9:00 – 9:15 | Opening |
| 9:15 – 9:45 | Keynote |
| 9:45 – 10:20 | Session 1 Historical perspectives |
| 10:20 – 11:15 | Session 2 Best practices and customisation |
| 11:15 –11: 45 | PAUSA |
| 11:45 – 12:45 | Session 3 Video games and education |
| 12:45 – 13:45 | Session 4 Video game aesthetics and narratives |
| 13:45 | Closure |
List of presentations
Session I – Historical perspectives [Chair: Maria Pagés]
- Spanish retro-indie point-and-click graphic adventures. Design and creators’ discourse analysis. [Speaker: Daniel Rissech]
- ¿Indie para quién? Evolución y expectativas ideológicas en la producción de videojuegos independiente [Speaker: Tomás Grau]
Session II – Best practices and customisation [Chair: Bruno Caldas]
- Adapting Games To Player Taxonomy [Speaker: Sergi Colomer]
- El ecosistema del videojuego contemporáneo: colaboración, cultura, y estrategias de sostenibilidad en la era de la sobreoferta [Speaker: Alfonso de la Fuente Ruiz]
- Música y sonido en Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: análisis funcional del diseño sonoro y su papel en la experiencia inmersiva [Speaker: Ruth S. Contreras-Espinosa i Adrien Faure-Carvallo]
Session III – Video games and education [Chair: Bea Martínez]
- Perspectivas del videojuego indie y la gamificación educativa: hacia un modelo de “gamificación indie” para el aprendizaje significativo [Speaker: Àlvaro Arias-Espinoza]
- Video Games in Upper Primary Education: A Competency-Based Learning Proposal Built Around Five Core Skills [Speaker: Cristina Olivas]
- Independent Development of an Adaptive Educational Video Game for Learning Programming [Speaker: Oscar Garcia Subirana, Antoni Perez-Poch i Marta Fernández Ruiz]
Session IV – Video game aesthetics and narratives [Chair: Tomás Grau]
- Habitar sin conquistar: Hacia un pensamiento ecológico en el diseño de videojuegos [Speaker: Serafín Álvarez]
- Do heroines travel too or only heroes? The expiration of the “Hero’s Journey” in the field of video games [Speaker: Maria Pagès]