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Game Studies Starter Kit

This document contains some information on what’s going on in game studies in different parts of the world. It is intended especially for those (relatively) new to the DiGRA and CEEGS* communities and/or to game studies in general. It is by no means comprehensive, but hopefully it may be a useful starting point!

The document focuses on conferences and communication channels. It complements the Digital Games Research Map, prepared by DIGAREC, and the work of Rachel Kowert, who has compiled lists of game studies journals and video game researchers active on Twitter/X.

The information below is mostly about English-language spaces and events – if you want to know more about game studies in other languages, it may be helpful to contact researchers from a particular country or region. If you are interested in Central and Eastern Europe, please take a look at our list of contact persons from several CEE countries.

The document is updated from time to time (the date of the last update is March 7, 2025). If you have any new information you would like to be included here, please send an email to Stanisław Krawczyk, DiGRA CEE’s board member and inclusivity officer.

  1. One way to stay up-to-date is to subscribe to DiGRA’s mailing list (which will provide you with conference announcements and calls for papers, among other things). You can find the instructions here.
  1. Your country or region might have other game studies communication channels (for example, DiGRA’s CEE chapter has its own channel on Discord). It may pay off to ask around. If you don’t know whom to ask, try taking a look at the list of DiGRA chapters. For instance, if you’re looking for information on Central and Eastern Europe, you can contact DiGRA’s CEE board.
  1. If this hasn’t helped, then the program of DiGRA 2023 includes quite a few panels and papers on games and game studies from various parts of the world. With any luck, you’ll find the name of a person who may know more, and then you can look up their email on the Internet and write to them directly.
  1. If you would like to talk to someone in DiGRA about issues of diversity and inclusivity, you may contact the DiGRA Ombuds Team. (If the issue in question concerns Central and Eastern Europe, you can try asking here, too.)
  1. There are many game studies conferences and other events (maybe even in your country or region), including both general and more specialized ones. Leon Y. Xiao is maintaining a spreadsheet about current conference CFPs (calls for papers) which may be useful to you:

  2. In addition, here is an incomplete list of recurring events held at least partly in English, some of which you may want to keep track of. (There is an overlap with the spreadsheet above.)
    1. The Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, or CHI Play (the nearest edition: the United States, October 13-16, 2025)
    2. The European Conference on Games Based Learning (the nearest edition: Norway, October 1-3, 2025)
    3. The Central and Eastern European Game Studies conference, or CEEGS, now organized by DiGRA Central and Eastern Europe (the nearest edition: Poland, September 8-10, 2025)
    4. The History of Games conference (the nearest edition: September 3-5, 2025)
    5. Replaying Japan: The International Japan Game Studies Conference (the nearest edition: Australia, September 1-3, 2025)
    6. The IEEE Conference on Games (the nearest edition: Portugal, August 26-29, 2025)
    7. The IEEE CTSoc Gaming, Entertainment and Media Conference (the nearest edition: Taiwan, July 16-18, 2025)
    8. DiGRA conference (the central one; DiGRA chapters may also hold their own recurring events). The nearest edition: Malta, the turn of June and July 2025
    9. Nordic DiGRA conference (the nearest edition: Finland, May 26-28, 2025)
    10. British DiGRA conference (the nearest edition: May 20-21, 2024)
    11. The Games and Literary Theory conference, or GamesLit (the nearest edition: April 24-25, 2025)
    12. The Foundations of Digital Games conference, or FDG (the nearest edition: Austria, April 15-18, 2025)
    13. DiGRA Australia conference (the latest edition: February 5-7, 2025)
    14. The Esports Research Network conference (the latest edition: the United Kingdom, October 30 – November 1, 2024)
    15. Meaningful Play (the latest edition: the United States, October 16-18, 2024)
    16. Chinese DiGRA conference (the latest edition: September 28-29, 2024)
    17. Generation Analog (the latest edition, online: July 24-25, 2024)
    18. DiGRA Brazil conference (the latest edition: May 2024)
    19. DiGRA India conference (the latest edition, online: December 2023)
    20. DiGRA Italia conference (the latest edition: December 2023)
  1. Using the communication channels from paragraphs 1 and 2 above, you might be able to locate some online seminars. If so, then they should be free to attend and could be a way to get in touch with other researchers without leaving your home.
  1. Some conferences are free but many aren’t. If you’d like to attend DiGRA specifically and you lack the money (or your university lacks the money), a potentially helpful option is the DiGRA solidarity fund.
  1. Good luck!

* “DiGRA” stands for “Digital Games Research Association” but it also gathers researchers interested in non-digital games. “DiGRA CEE” is the association’s chapter for Central and Eastern Europe. “CEEGS” stands for “Central and Eastern European Game Studies [conference]”. The first version of document was published online after CEEGS 2023 in Leipzig, Germany.

Prepared by Stanisław Krawczyk

DiGRA CEE