Call for Papers:

Video Game Cultures 2026: Ludic Literacies – Learning Across Playful Contexts
September 3- 5, 2026
University of Klagenfurt
Klagenfurt, Austria
https://videogamecultures.org/call-for-papers/

Deadline for submissions of abstracts and bio statements: May 4, 2026

As digital games increasingly shape how we learn, relate, deliberate, and imagine the future, questions of what it means to be literate in and through ludic systems have become both urgent and expansive. Games are no longer marginal cultural artifacts; they are complex aesthetic, ethical, and political environments in which knowledge, values, and identities are negotiated across multiple contexts. Responding to shared interests and themes emerging from our recent Video Game Cultures conferences in Birmingham (2024) and Prague (2025), this year’s conference theme is ludic literacies, with a special focus on learning from, with, in, and about video games across contexts, from formal to informal, individual to collective. This includes but is not limited to: forms of learning, teaching, and education in institutional environments, such as schools, professional training, or university programmes; community-oriented and collective social and political work, such as engineered, participatory processes in project planning; ludified interventions in political and/or community dynamics, or (global) citizenship education; but also individual experiences of learning and growth through the development of ludic literacy on affective, interpersonal, and/or ethical levels. Additionally, we seek to critically explore how the ongoing global crisis of democratic, open societies is reflected in the virtual and actual spaces of gaming environments and practices. What are the meanings created and shared in and through them, how do they function on a mechanical and ethical level, and what are their aesthetic and narrative points of reference? More importantly, with accelerating developments in AI technology and diffusion, how might our gaming spaces and practices be designed and used in the future, and what will be the roles of human agents in this process?

We therefore seek proposals for papers exploring all possible forms of ludic literacy and learning in games and virtual environments. Video Game Cultures 2026 investigates how technologies, practices, communities, paratexts, and genres develop within the framework of five thematic tracks. As digital games encompass an expanding range of highly complex and variant phenomena, this often leads to an overlap of issues across themes. In response to the diversity of these digital experiences, we are inviting participants of all backgrounds to submit proposals to this traditionally interdisciplinary event.

Participants are encouraged to think broadly within and across thematic tracks. Submissions can address topics and questions relevant to games such as, but not limited to:

• PERSONAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT: Decision and feedback design. Normative ethical structures in ludic media. Interpersonal relationships across the ontological divide. Reward systems, motivation, and incentivization in game design. Identity play and creation. Moral and ethical exploration in ludic systems. Developing understanding for/of the Other in virtual spaces. Empathy and sympathy as values in game design and gaming practice.
• INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING AND TEACHING: Using serious and/or commercial games to teach disciplinary content in classroom contexts. Learning with, through, and about games in schools and universities. Applying principles of game design, ludification, gamification, and systems thinking to curriculum development, assessment, and learning environments. Teachers as designers, facilitators, and co-players in game-informed education.
• PROFESSIONAL TRAINING AND COACHING: Simulation-based learning and serious games for skill development in professional environments. Ludified and gamified feedback and performance systems. Scenario-based rehearsal and role-play in corporate, medical, legal, or civic contexts. AI-enhanced training environments. Motivation, behavioral design, and the ethical implications of gamified professional development.
• EDUCATIONAL AND LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES: CREATING ENGINES FOR DIDACTIC PURPOSES. LEARNING TO CODE OR TO PROGRAMME. RE-IMAGINING LESSON PLANS AS TECHNICAL FRAMEWORKS. EVALUATING HARDWARE FOR TEACHING PURPOSES. Critical reflection of the interconnections between game cultures, technologies, and platforms. Combining the natural and social sciences, technology, culture, and the arts in subject-spanning games and playful exercises.
• SOCIAL, CULTURAL, AND POLITICAL INTERVENTIONS: Ludification of and gamified approaches in social work. Activist games, explicitly political games, and games for change. Ludic interventions in the political sphere beyond the community. (Re-)Designing democratic processes and systems. Political and/or citizenship education through ludic media. Playful cultural education in institutions such as museums, galleries, archives.

We welcome contributions to these areas that consider video games as texts and/or engines of experience, that approach these areas from the designer’s perspective, and/or that consider practices and cultures of videogaming.

We invite submission of proposals in the form of academic papers, short workshops, practitioner-based activities, best practice showcases, how-to sessions, live demonstrations, performances, and pre-formed panels.

We especially welcome and encourage submission of short-film screenings, photographic essays, installations, interactive talks, or any other alternative presentation styles that facilitate and support active involvement, exchange, and engagement.

WHAT TO SEND?

300-word proposals and 100-word bio notes should be submitted by Monday, May 4, 2026. Two versions of the proposal are required:

1) One with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s)
b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in the programme
c) e-mail address
d) title of proposal
e) body of proposal (300 words)
f) up to ten keywords

2) Another version without items a) to c).

All submissions must be made to: vgc2026@aau.at

Submissions will be double reviewed, under anonymous (blind) conditions, by an interdisciplinary, global panel drawn from members of the local Project Team and the international academic Video Game Cultures Advisory Board.

You will be notified of the panel’s decision on or by Friday, June 5, 2026.

VGC ETHOS

This event is designed to be an inclusive academic research and publishing project. It aims to bring people together from different areas and interests and at different stages of their careers to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

We believe it is a mark of personal courtesy to and professional respect for your colleagues that all delegates should attend for the full duration of the conference and participate in all presentations. The main intention of Video Game Cultures 2026 is to create a personal, in-presence experience for its participants and to facilitate community building. Please consider this carefully when submitting an abstract for presentation.

All papers accepted for and presented at the conference must be in English. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hardcopy volume.

MORE INFORMATION

Queries about the conference can be made to the organising chairs at: vgc2026@aau.at.

We hope to see you in Klagenfurt!