[Commlist] Call for workshop submissions at DiGRA 2026: Playing Between The Lines: The Pleasures (and Despair) of Real and Virtual Football

Please see below a call for contributions to *Playing Between The Lines: 
The Pleasures (and Despair) of Real and Virtual Football, 
*workshop**that will happen at*DiGRA 2026, Maynooth, Ireland, 14-18 June 
2026.*

*Overview*

With the FIFA World Cup 2026 overlapping with DiGRA 2026 this workshop 
invites researchers, designers, and critics to explore intersectional 
pleasures and despair within real and virtual football.

Football videogames are forms of play that exist between performance and 
simulation, fandom and labour, identity and escapism. This can take the 
form of photorealistic simulation sports games such as EA FC, eFootball, 
and Football Manager, or as abstract or fictionalised videogame takes on 
football formats such as Rocket Leagueand Despelote. These games sit at 
an intersection of realism, repetition, and affect (Cotta et al. 2016; 
Guins, Lowood and Wing 2022). Often dismissed as formulaic or commercial 
(Heffernan 2024), they can offer complex perspectives on the world 
(Srauy and Cheney-Lippold 2019), societal pleasures (Kim, Walia and 
Sanders 2023) and everyday engagements (Kim, Tan and Bairner 2023; 
Butcher and Bryant 2024) that blur the lines between play, media 
consumption, and sporting culture (Crawford 2004).

This workshop invites consideration of intersectionality (Collins and 
Bilge 2020) through aspects of purpose, cultivation, sense-making, 
belonging, and perceived cultural capital between - and within - 
football and videogames. Considering how football videogames create 
rhythm, routine, ritual, identity, and meaning that permeate beyond the 
screen.


    Aims and Objectives

Despite their global appeal (Markovits and Green 2018; Deshbandhu 2020) 
akin to the popularity of football (Sandvoss 2004), research into sports 
videogames is arguably a niche within games studies. With hundreds of 
millions of players and their experiences, behaviours, and rituals, 
there are opportunities to cultivate a seminal understanding of the 
intersectionality of fandoms between football and videogames (Donald and 
Reid in print).

Games Studies scholarship has largely focused on concepts of identity, 
narrative, meaning-making, and cultural studies, with DiGRA previously 
hosting workshops on identity construction through narrative choices 
(Knysheva et al. 2025), and responsible design practices for game fandom 
(Włodarczyk, Tymińska and Lamerichs 2025). This workshop will build on 
this momentum, exploring the space between identity and culture 
(football and games) and how these are constructed, understood, and 
rewritten through the intersection of their interaction (football 
videogames).

The workshop aims to:

  *

    Stimulate conversation around intersectional pleasures in football
    videogame play, fandom, and sport culture.

  *

    Reframe football videogames as critical cultural artefacts.

  *

    Connect media, cultural, and ludic analysis to the lived experiences
    of players, fans, and creators.

  *

    Form critical perspectives of experiences that emphasise “pleasure”
    through eudaimonia, virtuosity, and craft in football and football
    videogames.

Participants are invited to consider questions such as:

  *

    How do football videogames operate intersectionally between sport
    and play, work and leisure, competition and narrative?

  *

    In what ways do football videogames reflect oscillating emotional
    journeys between pleasure and despair, adulation and alienation?

  *

    What kinds of temporalities and rituals do players construct through
    repetitive engagement such as daily matches, time-limited game
    modes, and online seasons?

  *

    How do designed game components and economic systems shape emotional
    and affective investment in intersectional play?

  *

    In what ways do these games perform national, gendered, or classed
    identities within global sporting imaginaries?

  *

    How do fans, streamers, or modders extend or reframe these games in
    everyday life and online communities?

  *

    How might we rethink football videogames as a form of slow media,
    grounded in routine, care, and long-term attachment?

Workshop outcome(s):

  *

    A collaboratively developed conceptual framework for intersectional
    pleasures in sports and football games.

  *

    A working group or special interest network within DiGRA focused on
    Sports, Simulation, and Everyday Play.

  *

    A proposed Special Issue or Edited Collection offering accessible
    methodological, theoretical and conceptual approaches to the study
    of sports videogames.


    Format and Submission Details

This half-day workshop will comprise of three paper sessions each 
involving three 15-minute papers, grouped thematically and followed by a 
15-minute collective Q&A. 15-minute breaks between sessions, will be 
included.

Please prepare up to a 500-word abstract (excluding references) related 
to the questions and topics listed above. The official language of the 
workshop is English, but we welcome contributions from outside the 
Anglosphere. Authors should make clear in their submission of their 
intention to attend in-person or remotely, with both submission types 
welcomed. Participation from colleagues with research or development 
experience from the games industry and broader sports culture is very 
welcome. Submission of in-progress results is encouraged.

Please send submissions to Dr. Iain Donald ((i.donald /at/ napier.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(i.donald /at/ napier.ac.uk)>). All submissions will be evaluated by 
the workshop organisers, who will make the final selection.

Important dates:

  *

    Paper submission: Friday 10th April 2026

  *

    Notification to authors: Thursday 30th April 2026

  *

    Camera Ready: Friday 15th May 2026

  *

    Workshop: TBC (between Sunday 14th June and Thursday 18th June 2026)


    Organisers

Dr Iain Donaldis a Lecturer in Design and User Experience in the School 
of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment at Edinburgh Napier 
University. His research examines the intersection of games, digital 
media and history with a focus on commemoration and memorialisation.

Dr Andrew Reid is a Lecturer in Games Production at Abertay University. 
Andrew is an interdisciplinary researcher that explores collaborative 
practices and evaluations of “applied games” in areas such as heritage 
and culture, education, health and wellbeing, and within the third sector.

Dr Michael McDougall is a Lecturer in Sport Psychology at University of 
Stirling. His research is interdisciplinary in exploring cultural and 
social issues in sport and traditional work domains, trying to surface 
what is socially significant to people and groups, and to suggest 
alternative forms of sensemaking and organising.

Dr Bruno de Paulais an Associate Professor in Digital Media (Game 
Studies) at University College London. His research focuses on digital 
games, more specifically in decoloniality, locality, and history of 
games. He has published on digital games and education, multimodality, 
media and game literacies.


    References

Butcher, L. and Bryant, M., 2024. Millennial football fan participation: 
the influence of football video games on play and engagement. Sport, 
Business and Management: An International Journal, 14(3), pp.443-463.

Collins, P.H. and Bilge, S. 2020. Intersectionality(2nd Edition). Wiley.

Cotta, L., Vaz de Melo, P.O.S., Benvenuto, F. and Loureiro, A.A.F. 2016. 
“Using FIFA Soccer video game data for soccer analytics.” In Workshop on 
Large Scale Sports Analytics, pp. 1-4. 2016..

Crawford, G., 2004. Consuming Sport: Fans, Sport and Culture. Routledge.

Deshbandhu, A., 2020. Towards a Monopoly: Examining FIFA’s Dominance in 
Simulated Football. Gamevironments, (12), pp.28-28.

Donald, I. and Reid, A.J. in print. View from the (Virtual) Terraces: 
Football Fandom in Videogames. In C. Stevens, K. Aller, M. Evans and R. 
R. Schallegger (Eds.), Encountering Otherness in Video Game Cultures, 
Sidestone Press.

Guins, R., Lowood, H. and Wing, C. 2022. Introduction: Pre-Match 
Commentary. In R. Guins, H. Lowood and C. Wing (Eds.), EA Sports FIFA: 
Feeling the Game, Bloomsbury.

Heffernan, C., 2024. ‘It’s in the game’: FIFA videogames and the misuse 
of history. Sport in History, 44(4), pp.590-611.

Kim, J., Walia, B. and Sanders, S. (2024) ‘Exploring soccer video games 
as a channel to promote well-being and soccer appreciation among North 
American adults’, Soccer & Society, 25(1), pp. 29–44. doi: 
10.1080/14660970.2023.2219623.

Kim, L., Tan, T.-C. and Bairner, A. (2025) ‘A Beautiful Game: 
Interpreting Football Videogame Experiences’, Leisure Sciences, 47(5), 
pp. 939–957. doi: 10.1080/01490400.2023.2170497.

Knysheva, A., Gutoreva, A., Tuchashvili, D., Mezin, A. and Allcoat, D. 
2025. “The Train Parable”: Exploring Identity Through Play. DiGRA 2025, 
30 June - 4 July, Valletta, Malta.

Markovits, A.S. and Green, A.I., 2018. FIFA, the video game: a major 
vehicle for soccer’s popularization in the United States. In FIFA World 
Cup and Beyond(pp. 170-188). Routledge.

Sandvoss, C., 2004. A Game of Two Halves: Football Fandom, Television 
and Globalisation. Routledge.

Srauy, S. and Cheney-Lippold, J., 2019. Realism in FIFA? How social 
realism enabled platformed racism in a video game. First Monday.

Włodarczyk, A., Tymińska, M. and Lamerichs, N. 2025. Responsible Design 
for Game Fandom. DiGRA 2025, 30 June - 4 July, Valletta, Malta

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