Call for Papers - Vol. 3, No. 2

2025-02-07

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Game Jams, Game-Making with Values, and Games Through and For Culture

Guest Editors: Rikkie Toft Nørgård (Aarhus University, Danish School of Education) & Conceição Costa (Lusófona University, CICANT)

The global game industry’s ongoing expansion has revealed critical gaps in its engagement with cultural diversity, inclusivity, and the representation of cultural heritage. Games, as cultural artifacts, have significant potential to bridge these gaps by reflecting diverse traditions, values, and narratives. However, this potential remains underexplored, with mainstream games often failing to represent the richness of intangible-tangible cultural heritage or address pressing cultural or societal challenges. As noted by Anderson et al. (2010) and Barwick et al. (2010), games themselves are also increasingly recognized as part of cultural heritage, serving as mediums that capture and transmit cultural values, histories, and identities.

Game jams, characterized by their collaborative, creative, and time-constrained nature, have emerged as a novel platform for cultural engagement and co-creation. Kultima and Laiti (2019) have highlighted the role of game jams in addressing underrepresented narratives, such as Indigenous cultures, while Friedman and Hendry (2019) emphasize the imperative importance of value-sensitive design. By integrating tangible and intangible cultural heritage into game jams, participants not only create games with cultural value and significance but also engage deeply with the cultural and societal contexts that inspire them. The intersection of game jams and cultural heritage opens up opportunities to explore how games and game design can function as enculturating tools for education, empathy, and empowerment.  Such an approach highlights the transformative potential of game-making as a form of cultural expression and cultural participation.

Furthermore, the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) sector has recognized the value of games as a medium for engaging diverse audiences. Anderson et al. (2010) argue that serious games can enhance cultural heritage experiences by making them more interactive and accessible. As such, game jams held within GLAM contexts has the potential of fostering not only cultural creativity but also encourage participants to interact with tangible and intangible heritage in empowering, participatory, and innovative ways.

Youth empowerment is a central theme in the discourse on cultural game jams. By participating in these events, young people – and other cultural heritage stakeholders and audiences – are positioned as active contributors to cultural heritage. Fowler et al. (2016) and Aurava and Meriläinen (2022) have highlighted the social and educational benefits of game jams, noting their ability to foster collaboration, critical thinking, and community-building. When framed within the context of cultural heritage, these benefits are amplified, enabling youth to develop a sense of ownership and agency in the preservation, transformation, or reinterpretation of cultural values and tangible-intangible heritage. Building on this foundation, research by Lai et al. (2021) and Boulton et al. (2018) has explored the educational and cultural dimensions of game jams, demonstrating their ability to foster intergenerational dialogue and cross-cultural understanding. These studies highlight the importance of creating inclusive environments where participants can explore cultural narratives and societal values through the lens of game design.

The contributions of Park et al. (2023) and Olesen and Halskov (2018) also underscore the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in cultural game jams. By bringing together participants from diverse fields such as art, design, programming, and cultural studies, these events create a dynamic space for innovation and mutual learning. As demonstrated by the Sámi Game Jam (Kultima & Laiti, 2019), this approach can lead to the creation of games that challenge traditional narratives and offer new perspectives on cultural identity and heritage.

This special issue of The International Journal of Games and Social Impact seeks to explore the above in diverse ways, inviting contributions that delve into the manifold theoretical, practical, and methodological dimensions of game jams, game-making and games as cultural expression, engagement, practice, transformation, or invention.

 

Submissions may address (but are not limited to) the following questions:

  1. How can game jams facilitate the integration of tangible/intangible cultural heritage and values into the game-making process?
  2. In what ways do game jams in cultural contexts empower youth as active participants and co-creators of tangible/intangible cultural heritage?
  3. How can game jams foster curiosity, creativity, and community in cultural contexts and among participants from diverse backgrounds?
  4. What are some of the practical and methodological challenges of designing and implementing game jams and game-making in cultural heritage contexts?
  5. How do games created with the use of tangible/intangible cultural heritage or in cultural heritage contexts reimagine, reconfigure, or in other ways transform tangible and intangible cultural heritage?

 

Authors are encouraged to address one or more of the following topics:

  • Value-sensitive and culture-sensitive game design
  • Game jams and game-making in cultural contexts
  • Games as tangible/intangible cultural heritage
  • Youth empowerment in culture through game jams and game-making
  • Game design through the use of tangible/intangible cultural heritage
  • Cultural curiosity, creativity, co-creation, and community-building in game jams and game-making
  • European values and cultural identities in games and game design
  • GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) in relation to game jams and game development
  • Researching game jams and game design in cultural contexts

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should adhere to the journal’s formatting and referencing guidelines. Both full research articles (6,000-8,000 words) and shorter position papers (2,000-4,000 words) are welcome. All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer review process to ensure scholarly rigor and originality.

Full papers must be submitted electronically after registering on the platform, respecting the guidelines established in the Submissions section.

Publication Timeline
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Dates are indicative.

Full Paper Submission Deadline: 15-05-2025

Notification of Acceptance for Full Paper Submissions: 30-07-2025

Publication Date: Second semester of 2025

 

Contact

For inquiries about the special issue or submission process, please contact Rikke Toft Nørgård (rtoft@edu.au.dk)

 

Join us in exploring how games and game-making practices can reshape our engagement with cultural heritage, values, and culture, creating new spaces for cultural expression and social transformation.

 

References

Anderson, E. F., McLoughlin, L., Liarokapis, F., Peters, C., Petridis, P., & de Freitas, S. (2010). Developing serious games for cultural heritage: A state-of-the-art review. Virtual Reality, 14(4), 255–275. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-010-0177-3

Aurava, R., & Meriläinen, M. (2022). Expectations and realities: Examining adolescent students’ game jam experiences. Education and Information Technologies, 27, 4399–4426. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10782-y

Barwick, J., Dearnley, J., & Muir, A. (2010). Playing games with cultural heritage: A comparative case study analysis of the current status of digital game preservation. Games and Culture, 6(4), 373–390. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412010391092

Boulton, H., Spieler, B., Petri, A., Schindler, C., Slany, W., & Beltran, M. (2018). The role of game jams in developing informal learning of computational thinking: A cross-European case study. https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.04458

Fowler, A., Khosmood, F., & Arya, A. (2016). The evolution and significance of the Global Game Jam. International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 6(1), 56–71. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJGBL.2016010105

Friedman, B., & Hendry, D. G. (2019). Value sensitive design: Shaping technology with moral imagination. MIT Press.

Kultima, A. (2015). Defining game jam. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. https://doi.org/10.1145/2793107.2793136

Kultima, A., & Laiti, K. (2019). Reflections on organizing the Sámi Game Jam: Bridging indigenous culture and game development. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. https://doi.org/10.1145/3337722.3341855

Lai, J., Boulton, H., & Slany, W. (2021). Two decades of game jams: A systematic review. International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 11(2), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJGBL.2021040101

Meriläinen, M., Aurava, R., & Kultima, A. (2020). Game jams for learning and creating: A review. Simulation & Gaming, 51(6), 727–752. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878120957001

Olesen, J., & Halskov, K. (2018). 10 years of research with the game jam. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. https://doi.org/10.1145/3235765.3235794

Park, J., Kultima, A., & Cheok, A. D. (2023). Cross-cultural game jams: Expanding global collaboration in game development. Games and Culture, 18(1), 54–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120221098221