Call for Proposals:

North American Conference on Video Game Music 2026
May 1–2, 2026
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Troy, New York (with options to attend and present virtually)
https://nacvgm.org/proposals/

Deadline for submissions: November 21, 2025

Scholars are invited to submit proposals for the twelfth North American Conference on Video Game Music, which will take place May 1–2, 2026 at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and virtually. The conference organizing and program committee is composed of Kate Galloway (host, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Ryan Thompson (program chair, Michigan State University), Jim Buhler (UT Austin), Karen M. Cook (University of Hartford), Julianne Grasso (Florida State University), Neil Lerner (Davidson College), Dana Plank (independent scholar), Sarah Pozderac-Chenevey (independent scholar), Pete Smucker (Stetson University), and Matthew Thompson (University of Michigan).

We are soliciting proposals for presentations on any aspect of game audio (music and sound), including, but not limited to:

• The history of music and or sound in games
• Approaches to analyzing game audio
• Intersections of game audio and other media (film, TV, etc.)
• Programming and implementation of game audio
• Impacts and uses of emerging technology (including generative AI platforms) on game audio
• Critical and/or hermeneutic approaches
• Case studies of specific games
• Game audio and pedagogy
• Ethnographic approaches
• Critical platform and interface studies
• Performance of game music inside and outside of games

This year, we invite scholars and students to submit proposals in any or all of three categories

• Paper presentation
• Poster Session/Game Demonstration/Sound Art Installation
• Recital Performance

General Guidelines

Applicants should submit only one proposal per category. Applicants may submit the same proposal as both a presentation and a poster; submitted proposals will be accepted to only one category. This is so the program committee can accept a wider range of candidates to allow more people to participate in the conference, given the limited availability of presentations across the conference time. The program committee will assume a preference for a presentation if the same abstract is submitted for both categories—submitting in both categories will not harm an applicant’s chances of being accepted for a presentation, but simply indicate a willingness to present a poster.

Medium-Specific Guidelines

PRESENTATION PROPOSALS:

Proposals for presentations must indicate either:

• Twenty minutes in length (with an additional ten minutes for discussion)
• Ten minutes in length (with an additional five minutes for discussion).
• Proposals are limited to 250 words and should include the title of the paper, but should otherwise include no identifying information, including metadata.
• Proposals should include a preliminary bibliography (not included in word count). The committee will look for evidence of your proposal’s connection to other scholarship/work.
• Please provide appropriate, robust content or trigger warnings in the body of your proposal if your talk will contain sensitive material.

POSTER SESSION AND GAME DEMONSTRATIONS/INTERACTIVE SOUND ART INSTALLATION PROPOSALS:

The host institution for 2026, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is celebrating the successful launch of the Department of Games and Experiential Media. In collaboration with RPI, we will have an opportunity for the presentation of posters and live demonstrations of both games and interactive sound art installations.

• Poster proposals are limited to 250 words and should include the title of the poster but otherwise not contain identifying information. These proposals will be evaluated on the same criteria as conference papers.
• Game demonstration and installation proposals are limited to 250 words and should include the title and a description of the game / installation.

RECITAL PERFORMANCE PROPOSALS:

The NACVGM Conference Committee will host a recital of video game music in conjunction with the NACVGM 2026 conference.

We are soliciting proposals for 5–7-minute performances. The approximately 60-minute recital will be free to conference attendees, and performances may be made available on the NACVGM YouTube channel with the performers’ permission.

We aim to program a diverse concert of musical styles relating to video game audio. The music may be inspired by video games or game audio, or a direct/close recreation of music within a game.

• include your name(s), instrument(s), institutional affiliation (if applicable), contact information, and the title and timing of your piece(s)
• The piece must not exceed seven (7) minutes
• A short (50-word) biography for the program that includes the name of each performer
• Links to performance samples (YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, etc.). In-email audio files may be submitted as well, but the email should be limited in size to ~10 MB or less.
• Please indicate if the submitted sample is the performance intended for the recital, or a sample of representative work similar to the intended recital performance.
• Selected performers will be notified on or around January 15, 2026.