Call for Submissions
International Conference on Meaningful Play 2022
October 12-14, 2022
East Lansing, Michigan, USA
https://meaningfulplay.msu.edu/
https://meaningfulplay.msu.edu/submissions.php
Deadline for all submissions: June 14, 2022
Whether designed to entertain or to achieve more “serious” purposes, games, virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality have the potential to impact players’ beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, emotions, cognitive abilities, physical and mental health, and behavior.
Meaningful Play 2022 is a conference about theory, research, and game design innovations, principles and practices. Meaningful Play brings scholars and industry professionals together to understand and improve upon games to entertain, inform, educate, and persuade in meaningful ways.
The conference will include thought-provoking keynotes from leaders in academia and industry, peer-reviewed paper presentations, panel sessions (including academic and industry discussions), innovative workshops, roundtable discussions, and exhibitions of games and prototypes.
CONFERENCE AUDIENCE AND THEMES
The conference is primarily for:
- industry and academic game researchers
- industry and academic game designers and developers
- game educators
- students
- government and NGOs interested in games
The three primary themes of the conference are:
- exploring meaningful applications of games
- issues in designing meaningful play
- learning, education & games
The first theme includes an examination of games (of all types) from primarily an academic research perspective.
The second theme focuses on much more practical knowledge from the front-line of actual design, development, and use of games, virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality experiences for meaningful purposes.
The third theme is focused the use of games for learning and education, as well as the teaching of game making and game studies within academia.
[See the conference website for more details]
SUBMISSIONS
Submissions are sought from both researchers and practitioners in academia and industry. Graduate students are also encouraged to submit either jointly with an academic/member of industry or alone.
Submissions to Meaningful Play 2022 can include:
- Papers
- Posters
- Panel Sessions
- Roundtable Discussions
- Workshops
- Microtalks
- Individual Speakers
- Games and Prototypes
Specific requirements for each type of submission is available below.
PAPER SUBMISSIONS:
Paper submissions should present original, unpublished research or design work. Papers under review elsewhere must not be submitted to Meaningful Play 2022.
Authors are encouraged to go beyond the discussion of their work and address implications back to literature, practice, and/or policy.
Authors of accepted papers are expected to present their work at the conference in an approximately 15-minute presentation depending on how many papers are scheduled for that session. The organizing committee will combine individual presentations into topical paper sessions.
Submissions will undergo a blind peer-review process. Authors will be provided with reviewers’ critical comments as well as any suggestions for revision. All accepted submissions will have their short non-archival abstracts included in the online conference Proceedings of Meaningful Play after the conference. Note that full papers will not appear in the proceedings and there will be no option for journal publication associated with the conference this cycle.
Authors may submit either a full paper (maximum 8000 words not including a required short abstract of 150 words max) or extended abstract (500 – 1500 words, not including a required short abstract of 150 words) submitted electronically in Microsoft Word format. In order to be considered, full papers must follow APA 7th edition format.
Six to ten of the full paper submissions will be selected to receive top-paper designations. NOTE: Only full paper submissions will be considered for top-paper awards.
Abstracts and/or extended abstracts will be included in the conference proceedings.
POSTER SUBMISSIONS:
Poster submissions should present original, unpublished research or design work that directly advances the Meaningful Play 2022 topics. Late-breaking advances and work-in-progress reports from ongoing research or design are particularly encouraged to be submitted to the poster session.
Authors are requested to submit either a 150-500 word abstract of the poster contents OR a draft version of the poster. Submissions will undergo a blind peer-review process.
Poster size and design are flexible but the size should not exceed 40″ wide by 32″ high. It is possible to rotate the orientation if necessary given your poster design. Posters will be hung on a poster board and therefore it is fine to bring a poster with no backing, such as a rolled up poster.
PANEL SESSION SUBMISSIONS:
Individuals (or groups of individuals) are encouraged to submit proposals for panel sessions which provide an opportunity to publicly debate and discuss issues with eager academic and industry audiences. Panel session organizer(s) are required to submit a 150-500 word abstract which describes how 3 to 5 panelists will contribute to the debate as well as the panelists experience/credentials as related to the topic of debate. NOTE: This category will be unblinded for review.
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION SESSION SUBMISSIONS:
Individuals (or groups of individuals) are encouraged to submit proposals for roundtable discussion sessions. At Meaningful Play 2022 roundtables are small peer discussion groups led by a facilitator (the submitter). Roundtable discussion sessions typically feature constructive controversy and debate amongst the attendees, and promote an open-ended exchange of ideas in a relatively casual setting. Roundtable discussion session organizer(s) are required to submit a 150-500 word abstract which describes the topic, the submitter’s plans for facilitating the conversation, and the submitter’s experience/credentials as a facilitator (e.g., classroom teaching experience). NOTE: This category will be unblinded for review.
WORKSHOP SUBMISSIONS:
Individuals (or groups of individuals) are encouraged to submit proposals for workshops. At Meaningful Play 2022, workshops are sessions conducted in a highly hands-on fashion. Workshop sessions can be 1-2 hours in duration. Depending on the nature of each workshop, the number of attendees may be limited accordingly.
Workshop organizer(s) are required to submit a 150-500 word abstract that describes the topics covered, the target/intended audience, the core concepts/skills that attendees will gain, and the facilitator’s experience/credentials as related to the topic of the proposed workshop. NOTE: This category will be unblinded for review.
MICROTALK SUBMISSIONS:
Individuals are encouraged to submit proposals for microtalks (5-10 minutes in length) which discuss any of the subtopics listed below. Microtalks will be combined into topical sessions. Microtalk speakers are required to submit a 200-500 word abstract describing their project as well as their relevant experience/credentials. NOTE: This category will be unblinded for review.
- Game Design Post Mortem — Describe your game design project.
- Theoretical Well-Played — Use a theory from our field to describe a game of interest.
- Meaningful Failures — Describe a research or design project that failed and why.
- Design Principles — Describe a design principle and why it is awesome.
- Game Production Studios — What makes some aspect of your studio special or unique, such as facilities, business model, team, toolset, or pipeline?
- University Program — What makes some aspect of your university program special or unique?
- PechaKucha — 20 slides (20 seconds each) of a story about your game-related work.
INDIVIDUAL SPEAKER SUBMISSIONS:
Individuals are encouraged to submit proposals for individual talks. At Meaningful Play, individual speaker sessions are roughly an hour in length, and explore a specific topic or theme in depth, while providing a strong personal or visionary perspective. Individual speakers are required to submit a 150-500 word abstract describing the talk as well as the speaker’s experience/credentials as related to the topic of the talk.
GAMES AND PROTOTYPES:
View the game exhibition and competition for details on submitting games and prototypes.
HOW TO SUBMIT
All non-game submissions must be submitted electronically through the online system at:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mp2022
All game submissions must be submitted electronically through the online game submission system.
Deadline for all submissions is June 14th, 2022 at 11:59pm Eastern Standard time. Notification of acceptance will be given by July 26th, 2022.
PEER REVIEW PROCESS
All paper and poster proposals will be peer-reviewed by the program committee using a blind-review process. Authors will be provided with reviewers’ critical comments as well as any suggestions for revision.
All panel, roundtable, workshop, and speaker submissions will be reviewed by the organizing committee.
IMPORTANT SUBMISSION DATES
June 15, 2022: Paper, Poster, Panel, Roundtable, Workshop, Microtalk, Speaker, and Game on-time submissions due
July 26, 2022: Notification of acceptance on Paper, Poster, Panel, Roundtable, Workshop, Microtalk, Speaker, and Game submissions
August 31, 2022: Early Bird Registration Deadline & Revised papers due for inclusion in published conference proceedings
October 3, 2022: Deadline for Full Registration Refund
October 11, 2022: Deadline for 50% Registration Refund
October 12, 2022: Conference begins
October 14, 2022: Conference concludes