💘 CFP open: Love in Games workshop! Two venues, pick yours: 🇵🇱 CEEGS26 (Warsaw, Nov 20) ceegs.fsv.cuni.cz/ceegs-2026/#workshop26 🇬🇧 CHI PLAY26 (York, Nov 2) renatantelia.dfs.gr/wip/ Abstracts (150-200 words) due Aug 31 AoE → loveingames26@gmail.com @chiplay.bsky.social @jjol33n.bsky.social

@renatadrlove.bsky.social, Magda Bednorz, and I are organising the workshop "Love in games" at CHI PLAY'26 on Nov. 2. Please find the CFP here: renatantelia.dfs.gr/wip/

If you have played Pokémon Pokopia, we would be grateful if you could fill out our survey on player experiences (especially in relation to the characters)! Find our short survey at: link.webropolsurveys.com/S/C0B1AB08C2... Feel free to share with other Pokopia players :)

Once more, I share with you all this radical starter pack featuring Canadian game studies scholars. Let me know if you or someone you love should be added.

HAPPY NEWSLETTER DAY! This month we are talking about: 🔠 My acronym era - SPACE, EFFECT, CHEER... oh my! 🏫 Libraries lending games? 🎮 Supporting players is not a one and done: player support, reporting tools, and more! open.substack.com/pub/rachelko...

TL;DR July 2026

A compendium of the comings and goings in research, development, and news about our digital playgrounds from July 2026.

open.substack.com

¡Me han entrevistado y traducido al español! "Al igual que los estudios de juegos, el mito es interdisciplinario, y el camino a seguir pasa por aceptar esta interdisciplinariedad y fomentar enfoques diferentes e innovadores."

Victor Navarro-Remesal@vthewanderer.bsky.social · 4w ago

Nuevo informe LUDOMITOLOGÍAS: Entrevistas con la comunidad académica sobre juegos y mitos Con Dom Ford, Souvik Mukherjee, Martin Roth, Susana Tosca, Clara Fernández Vara, Miguel Sicart, Eugen Pfister, Salvador Gómez, Stefano Gualeni y Alexander Vandewalle. blocs.tecnocampus.cat/mito-ideolog...

✨🎀 NEW CFP: The Queer and Feminist Perspectives on Japanese Popular Cultures symposium (supported by the University of Tokyo, Media, Gender, and Sexualities Study Group) is coming back for its third edition!!!✨🎀 📩 Send us your abstract by August 15 at popculturesjapan@gmail.com✨ Share widely!

Call for Papers: Queer and Feminist Perspectives on Japanese Popular Cultures Symposium 2026

A platform for critical discussions about gender and Japanese animation, fashion, video games, literature and digital cultures

events.humanitix.com

(1/12) A short thread based our (@copperkeerthi.bsky.social and me) base on our talk for #GenerationAnalog2026 GREEN "Performing the Dungeon"

Happy to finally share a project we’ve been working on: www.ludolio.com, a digital game distribution platform that lets University libraries lend commercial games like ebooks.

Are you Ukrainian and research games (even if you work abroad)? Join us for the Ukrainian Game Studies Network, a research network focused on supporting early-career researchers! Do you know Ukrainian game studies scholars? Share the announcement with them! More information here: ugsn.carrd.co

✈️ A Lift Home S1:E4 is live July 8, 7 pm CET! We fly Dr. @domford.bsky.social (Univ. Bergen) from Dublin to Bergen — talking myth, lore & FromSoftware. Tune in early at ~6:30 pm. 📺 twitch.tv/gamestudiesinthesky 🛜https://gamestudiesinthesky.de #GameStudies #FromSoftware #ALiftHome

The workshop Renata, Magda, and I designed a while ago has been accepted for Chi Play in December! We'll release the CFP soon.

Renata Ntelia (she/her)@renatadrlove.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Our workshop with @jjol33n.bsky.social and Magda Bednorz "Love in Games: Exploring Emotional Connections with Characters" has been accepted to @chiplay.bsky.social and I couldn't be more excited! Stay tuned for a CFP soon. Looking forward to discussing love and games with you this November in York!

First was @cgsaacej.bsky.social 's 2026 instalment. My talk explored the social politics of boredom and tried to argue that our field should invoke the concept more often to discuss how oppression persists and how we can (and should!) get fed up with that and devise new ways forward.

And finally, @matildastahl.bsky.social and @amayer.bsky.social presented "More Man vs Nature Mechanics": a project with @nickttaylor.bsky.social and Robyn Hope where survival games, survivalism, and contemporary masculinities meet. Abstract here: dl.digra.org/index.php/dl...

Second on the docket was my joint with @t0mm7.bsky.social called "Douchebag Games," a piece about post-9/11, pre-Gamergate masculinities and what happens when being a "loser" is made mainstream. Abstract here: dl.digra.org/index.php/dl...

Next was DiGRA 2026! First, I gave @jjol33n.bsky.social and I's paper, "The Husbando Super-App" on Love and Deepspace as a one-stop shop for gamers to pour their time, money, and energy into. Abstract here: dl.digra.org/index.php/dl...

After more than a year of careful planning, we are happy to announce that our Interdisciplinary Network for Research on Gender and Games (GG) is now open to new members. www4.uib.no/en/research/...

We were happily surprised to be provided funding (by Tampere University’s Library) of making an Open Access version of the entire “Cultural Game Studies” book available. All book version details should eventually be updated into the web page at: www.routledge.com/Cultural-Gam...

Cultural Game Studies: Critical Approaches

Cultural Game Studies provides a comprehensive framework for understanding games and play as interconnected cultural phenomena, examining their roles as art, entertainment, and human experience within...

routledge.com

He kept coming back, repeatedly (in the way AI often loops) to this idea of AI (specifically Claude) representing "a position without an address", and it became increasingly clear to me that there was some odd mystification happening. Of course LLM products have an address. It's a corporate address.

The article is online!!! If you want to know more about why many games make you want to play more even after just a few minutes, here you go: dl.digra.org/index.php/dl...

Brenn du for korleis historier formar måten vi ser og forstår data rundt oss? Vi søkjer ein stipendiat i narrativ datavisualisering hos CDN, tilknytt @jilltxt.bsky.social sitt #ERC-prosjekt #AIStories og VisGroup på institutt for informatikk: www.jobbnorge.no/nn-no/ledige... @erc.europa.eu

Stipendiat i narrativ datavisualisering (303954) | Universitetet i Bergen

Stillingstittel: Stipendiat i narrativ datavisualisering (303954), Arbeidsgivar: Universitetet i Bergen, Søknadsfrist: søndag 30. august 2026

jobbnorge.no

Now that the Finnish public research database has been updated with the complete information, I can announce that I won the 2026 Academy Research Fellowship for the 4-year GenGam: Gendered Gam(bl)ing project.

Amazing call by some dear colleagues for an edited anthology (in German/English) on methodologies & methods for game cultural studies, exemplified through the use for 'The Legend of Zelda' series. There is also an English CfP linked on the website! Abstract Deadline: August 03, 2026

Phillip Brandes@litgamestudies.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Gern RT fellow #gamestudies bubble: @caroleinx.bsky.social, @anjalovescats.bsky.social und ich geben einen Methoden-Band zur Erforschung digitaler Spiele und Spielkulturen, hier exemplarisch aufgezeigt an #TheLegendofZelda, heraus. Abstracts bis 03. August 26, mehr hier: takethismethod.de

I will have a chapter 'Storyworlds and Game Characters' in the forthcoming edited collection Cultural Game Studies (eds. Frans Mäyrä and Raine Koskimaa). The book features much work from other colleagues from the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies.

Still some time to go, but really looking forward to the publication of this, edited by @chriskempshall.bsky.social, @katexe.bsky.social and @robehoughton.bsky.social! Got the chance to contribute a chapter on medieval hagiographies, saintly bodies, and how they connect to medievalist RPGs... 👀

Dr Kate Cook@katexe.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Delighted to see that the Routledge Companion to Video Games and History now has a webpage and a cover! There will be an ebook (which given the length of this I imagine will be many people's preferred reading approach), it just doesn't show on the page yet. www.routledge.com/The-Routledg...

📝Publication day! My piece "Unpacking Unpacking" is out in the latest issue of Well Played works.hcommons.org/records/gnzf... This was a bit of a "fun one" for me - thinking through my fraught feelings about playing this game that I hadn't been able to write about until now!

Very much looking forward to this first event about the Scholar's Codex, and in Rome of all places. I'll go hunting for some Souls-coded ruins in the days after this.

Stefano Gualeni@gua-le-ni.com · 3mo ago

Join us in #Rome on June the 3rd for a 'Bonfireside chat' with the authors of the Scholar's Codex! The event starts at 4PM at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Rome (Vicolo Doria), feat. @domford.bsky.social @danielvella.bsky.social, @nelevdm.bsky.social & more! CC: @tuneandfairweather.bsky.social

Sharing a CFP for a special issue titled "titled “Interactive Digital Narratives: Creativity, Theory, and Emerging Practices,” on behalf of the editors: think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...

Co-authored with actor and researcher Samuel Kujala, our new publication “Rehearsing Disruption. A cross-disciplinary reflection on augmented actor training and Playful Somaesthetic Technology Practices” is out now! doi.org/10.65872/tea... (1/6)

Glimpse of yesterday's sneak-peak of our upcoming OA-book "Learning and Identity in Competitive Gaming: An Empirical and Methodological Discussion" at ÅAU, Vaasa. link.springer.com/book/9783032... We are also giving a public book talk at Vapriikki, Tampere on June 12th! www.vapriikki.fi/tapahtumat/