The computer game and interactive entertainment industry is now a multi-billion industry driving new computer technologies and defining a new set of cultural conventions. The lack of game-specific academic conferences has prevented many academics from fully embracing game development as a serious field of study. As a result, although current research in games and interactive entertainment is published in a wide range of specialised conferences/journals, there is limited collaboration between researchers from different academic fields.

The Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment is a cross-disciplinary conference that will bring together researchers from artificial intelligence, cognitive science, media studies, drama, HCI, psychology, interactive media, cultural studies, graphics, audio, as well as researchers from other disciplines working on new game specific technologies or providing critical analysis of games and interactive environments.