BDigra Annual Conference 2026
Join us to explore how games shape identity through diverse players, creators, and communities.
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Join us on 30 June and 1 July 2026 for a conference featuring keynote speakers, workshops, roundtables, talks, presentations, exhibitions, and demos.
Keynotes Speakers:
Adam Porter (Adam in Wales)
An ancient industry in a digital age: The identity of a contemporary tabletop game designer
James Newman
What Could a Videogame Festival Be? GameCity Twenty Years on
To read the full schedule, click the link below.
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Identities & Periphery
Identity runs through all the conference themes, while the periphery provides the critical lens through which we explore non-mainstream, marginalised, and hyper-local practices.
Anchored by discussion from and around communities of producers, players and commentators.
We situate, but not exclusively, discussions on video game creation within the nations and regions of the UK – focusing on knowledge exchange, industry collaboration, and research-driven design practice.
We seek to examine peripheral player cultures; festivals, fringe gatherings, play spaces, player motivations – and exploring how games support identity, wellbeing, and lifelong learning.
We bring together perspectives from players, journalists, influencers, researchers, and designers to examine identity within games discourse, development, and play.
Who we are
Our BA (Hons) Computer Games Design course is one of the longest running games courses in the UK (est. 2004). Game studies discourse has been the underpinning of much of our pedagogy at USW for at least the last 15 years with staff engaged with art and video game curation and exposition, research around game cultures and fandom, surveys of the industrial landscape, and game studies pedagogy. The faculty is also home to The George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling, and Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations. Both research centres have a strong focus on place and culture.
Book nowOur Cardiff campus is in the heart of the city, a ten-minute walk from Cardiff Central rail station and is surrounded by a community of creative industries partners. It is the largest creative faculty in Wales, with courses encompassing film, media, fashion, graphic design and, of course, Computer Games Design, Game Art and Games Enterprise. At undergraduate and post-graduate levels.
Plan your journey
The Atrium
University of South Wales, 86-88 Adam St Cardiff, CF24 2FN
Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JGeYVZPkg2AyUyre7
- From junctions 29, 32 or 33 of the
- There is a large NCP car park opposite the ATRiuM building on Adam Street, alternative parking can be found at Knox Road.
- The ATRiuM is a 10-minute walk from Cardiff Central train station and a 5-minute walk from Cardiff Queen Street train station.
- Cardiff is served by regular National Express services from Sophia Gardens and Megabus coaches from Kingsway.
- There are also a direct services to and from Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Bristol airports.
- Sofia Gardens is a 25-minute walk from the ATRiuM and Kingsway is 15-minutes away on foot.
- Cardiff International Airport is just 11 miles from the city centre and is serviced by regular bus and rail links.
- London’s Heathrow Airport is about two-and-a-half hour drive away
- Bristol Airport is 1 hour 20 mins drive away