Hiloko Kato

Hiloko Kato is a postdoctoral researcher in the SNF Sinergia project Confoederatio Ludens – Swiss Game History, Play and Game Design 1968–2000 and a senior lecturer in the Game Design programme at the Zurich University of the Arts. She is affiliated with the Chair of Prof. Noah Bubenhofer in German Linguistics at the University of Zurich and serves as a lecturer at the University of Zurich’s Department of German.
With a background in linguistics, her research focuses on the multifaceted interfaces between digital games and language. Her work includes the semiotic analysis of games as multimodal texts, game interaction studies drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, and the examination of games as cultural artefacts through media and discourse-linguistic approaches.
Since August 2022, she has served as Chair of the DSI Community Gaming, fostering interdisciplinary exchange among researchers working on and with games. In addition, she is a board member of the Swiss Game Developers Association (SGDA), where she contributes to strengthening the visibility and sustainability of the Swiss games sector and to promoting dialogue between research, education, and professional practice.