Games Workshop Research Day : Saturday 11th October 2025
The Manchester Game Centre is hosting its second annual Games Workshop Research Day on 11 October 2025!
Please join us for a day of talks and games.
For its second outing the event will run all day from 9:30am until 8:30pm and has 3 parts.
Join us at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester for a day of talks and gaming. This event is free and is open to everyone.
The Manchester Game Centre is hosting its second annual Games Workshop Research Day on 11 October 2025!
Please join us for a day of talks and games.
For its second outing the event will run all day from 9:30am until 8:30pm and has 3 parts.
Join us at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester for a day of talks and gaming. This event is free and is open to everyone. Places are limited. Please book your ticket by clicking the link below:
Schedule
9:30-9:45 Registration
9:45-11.15 Session 1: Miniatures
Sam Tobin: ‘Miniature Matters: Failcast, Plastic Crack, and ‘Every Metal’’
Tom Railton: ‘Neurodivergent Making: Kitbashed temporalities and weirdly leanings’
Adam Edwards: ‘Ancient Dignity: Abstraction, irreverence and the legacy of the launch rules of Age of Sigmar’
Ian Williams: ‘Chapterhouse Revisited: Intellectual Property, 3D Printing, and the Platformization of Analog Play’
11:15–11:30 Break
11:30–13:00 Session 2: Worlds and Histories
Ioannis Costas Batlle, ‘Mythbusters, icebergs, and why you learn more from Warhammer than you realise’
James Holloway and Gianluca Raccagni, ‘‘Larger, wilder, and far more dangerous’: Medieval and Medievalist Imagery in the Warhammer games’
Tomas Rawlings, ‘Chaos in the Warhammer Setting’
Patrick Prax and Ray Whitcher, ‘‘More more warp death!’ Skaven and Warpstone as Environmental and Economic Critique’
13:00-13:45 Lunch break
13:45-14:45 ‘Games Workshop’s Player Communities’ – roundtable discussion
15:00-17:30 Playable Exhibition
Join us to play and discuss Games Workshop’s games at our playable exhibition.
18:00-20:30 – Blood Bowl live!
In collaboration with The Waterbowl, Manchester’s oldest and best Blood Bowl league, we’ll end the day by watching a Blood Bowl match, with commentary from RickWreckless and filmed by Geek Pride’s Matt Geary.
About the Manchester Game Centre
The Manchester Game Centre promotes game studies across a number of disciplines at local, national, and international levels. We deliver knowledge via our public-facing events, workshops, and teaching at our home at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The MGC was established in 2016 as a cross-university research network, drawing its membership from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Health and Education, and Science and Engineering at Manchester Met. It is co-led by Professor Paul Wake (English), Dr Chloé Germaine (English) and Dr Jennifer Cromwell (History), supported by a wider leadership group including Dr Tom Brock (Sociology), Dr John Henry (Maths and Computing), Dr Frazer Heritage (Linguistics), Dr David Jackson (School of Digital Arts), Dr Wahida Khandker (Philosophy), Dr John Lean (Education), Dr Matteo Polato (English), and Dr Reuben Martens (English). Together we develop and promote research on games at Manchester Met, and we have unique expertise in creative research methods, game making, and games for social impact.
DVRK PLAY: Subcultures, Countercultures, Occultures and games
Dark Play is a research cluster within the Manchester Game Centre at Manchester Metropolitan University. We investigate the cultural margins of play, exploring DIY and indie game-making, gothic and horror in games, and the role of occulture and ritual in contemporary play practices. Through collaborations with the DVRK (Dark Arts Research Kollective), we combine creative practice with critical research to understand how games reflect, contest, and reimagine the world.
