[Commlist] CFP Video Game Cultures 2026: Ludic Literacies

We are delighted to announce that the 2026 instance of Video Game 
Cultures will be held on 3-5 September at the University of Klagenfurt, 
Austria.

The _call for papers 
<https://videogamecultures.org/call-for-papers/>_ is now live, and a pdf 
version can be downloaded _here 
<https://videogamecultures.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/CfP-Video-Game-Cultures-2026_final.pdf>_. 
The full text of the call is below. Queries about the conference can be 
made to the organising chairs at: (vgc2026 /at/ aau.at) <mailto:(vgc2026 /at/ aau.at)>.


*/Video Game Cultures 2026: Ludic Literacies - Learning Across Playful 
Contexts/*

*/September 3 - 5, 2026 / University of Klagenfurt (Austria)/*

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 /at/ 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.


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