Call for Papers - Vol. 5, No. 1
Guest Editors: Luciana Lima (Integrated Researcher at Interactive Technologies Institute (https://iti.larsys.pt), LARSyS (Laboratory of Robotics and Systems in Engineering and Science), Universidade de Lisboa) & Ana Pires (Integrated Researcher at Interactive Technologies Institute (https://iti.larsys.pt), LARSyS (Laboratory of Robotics and Systems in Engineering and Science) and Invited Professor at Instituto Técnico Superior (IST), Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Recently, a game that invited players to become “the worst nightmare of women” and to “not accept a ‘no’ as an answer”[1] provoked widespread international condemnation. Activists, gamers, researchers, journalists, and streamers across the globe mobilised to demand its removal from Steam and other platforms. This episode is emblematic of broader dynamics within digital culture: it exposes how games can serve as vehicles for misogynistic and gender-violent imaginaries, while simultaneously revealing the collective power of communities to resist, demand accountability, and prompt regulatory and ethical intervention.
In addition, rather than standing as an isolated incident, it highlights a deeper tension at the core of gaming cultures. Such tension underscores the urgent need for research that not only analyses exclusion and toxicity but also actively engages in transforming gaming cultures toward justice and inclusion, effectively challenging persistent practices of misogyny, sexism, and gender-based violence.
Research across feminist, queer, intersectional, and decolonial approaches (Cote, 2020; Chess, 2020; Shaw, 2014; Consalvo, 2017; Gray, 2020; Mota and Duarte, 2026; Lima et al., 2024) demonstrates how game cultures can be reimagined through creative collaboration, co-design, and justice-oriented engagement. Projects such as Mnema, a short animation bridging research and artistic practice to confront gender inequity in the gaming sector (Lima et al., 2026), exemplify the power of collaboration to raise awareness and foster relational responsibility (Henriques et al., 2025, Tronto, 2013), echoing Joan Tronto’s call for an ethics of care.
We particularly encourage work that moves beyond diagnostic critique—that is, beyond merely identifying and describing the symptoms of gendered inequity, toxicity, and exclusion in gaming cultures. While such analyses remain essential for exposing structural injustices, the field urgently needs approaches that translate critique into action and transformation. We therefore invite contributions that propose strategies for change, including inclusive design practices, intersectional moderation systems, case studies of community resistance, feminist pedagogies, collective activism, and studies that reimagine representation, participation, and relational responsibility in different forms of play.
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.
Submissions may address (but are not limited to) the following questions:
- How do communities, both within and beyond “traditional” gamer identities, mobilise to challenge and/or resist gender-based violence and misogyny?
- How can co-creation, participatory design, and inclusive development practices combat structural exclusion and gendered toxicity?
- What industry, sports and live-streaming practices dismantle power asymmetries in games?
- How can justice-oriented frameworks help us understand how women and other marginalized groups respond to gendered toxicity (e.g., collective action, exit strategies, community building) and envision new possibilities for play?
Authors are encouraged to address one or more of the following topics:
- The mobilisation of gamer and non-gamer communities against toxic, misogynistic, exclusionary game practices
- Power, representation, and resistance in game narratives and mechanics
- Transdisciplinary and art-based interventions in game cultures
- Co-creation, participatory design, and inclusive development practices to combat gendered toxicity, systemic exclusion, and power asymmetries in gaming cultures and industry
- Transforming toxic game cultures: from critique to collective action
- Gendered toxicity in competitive gaming
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 rigour and originality.
Full papers must be submitted electronically after registering on the platform, respecting the guidelines established in the Submissions section.
When submitting, please indicate which call you are referring to.
Publication Timeline
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Dates are indicative.
Full Paper Submission Deadline: 31-04-2026
Notification of Acceptance for Full Paper Submissions: 31-07-2026
Publication Date: First semester of 2027
References
Cote, A. C. (2020). Gaming Sexism: Gender and Identity in the Era of Casual Video Games. NYU Press.
Chess, S. (2020). Play Like a Feminist. MIT Press.
Shaw, A. (2014). Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture. University of Minnesota Press.
Consalvo, M. (2017). Atari to Zelda: Japan’s Videogames in Global Contexts. MIT Press.
Gray, K. L. (2020). Intersectional Tech: Black Users in Digital Gaming. LSU Press.
Henriques, A. O., Carter, A. R. L., Severes, B., Talhouk, R., Strohmayer, A., Pires, A.C., Gray, C. M., Montague, K., & Nicolau. H. (2025). A Feminist Care Ethics Toolkit for Community-Based Design: Bridging Theory and Practice. In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 396, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713950
Lima, L., Costa, I., Bonzinho, C., Correia, S., & Martins, C. (2026). Mnema: Bridging Research and Art to Combat Gender Inequity in the Gaming Sector. In Darin, T., Rios, K., Cruz, G., Tórtoro, L., Ricca, D. (eds). Interaction and Player Research in Game Development (WIPlay 2025). Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 2623. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01426-9_5
Lima, L., Gouveia, P., Ramos, L., Marttila, T., Correia, S., Costa, I., Gouveia, M. (2024). (In)Visible Women: Multidisciplinary Creation and Collaborative Research in Transmedia Art and Gaming in Portugal. ISEA 2024, Brisbane.
Mota, V.F., Duarte, E.F. (2026). Revisiting and Reframing Play: Towards Incorporating Representation and Diversity in Contemporary Game Design. In: Darin, T., Rios, K., Cruz, G., Tórtoro, L., Ricca, D. (eds). Interaction and Player Research in Game Development. WIPlay 2025. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 2623. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01426-9_2
Tronto, J. C. (2013). Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice. NYU Press.
