Digital Games Research Conference

概要

The 2026 DiGRA conference theme is Intersectional Pleasures. The theme invites a critical and celebratory exploration of how games (digital, analogue, and hybrid) enable, mediate, or restrict pleasure across lines of identity, genre, platforms, politics and more. We welcome interdisciplinary submissions across multiple fields. Just outside of Dublin, Maynooth is Ireland’s only university town, balancing historic charm with accessibility. Historic and cultural attractions in the township include the Russell Library: a celebrated 19th‑century library constructed by Augustus Pugin, with medieval manuscripts and curated summer exhibitions and St Patrick’s College’s chapels. The town is full of historic houses and medieval castle ruins. The conference is supported by the Maynooth University Arts & Humanities Institute (AHI) and the departments of Computer Science (CS) and Media Studies (MS). Intersectional pleasures invite the DiGRA community to reflect and reframe the ways in which games are pleasurable. We picked this theme because it highlights the pleasure inherent in game play and creation and foregrounds contemporary intersectional complexities of our ludic landscapes. Intersectionality highlights the many ways in which race, class, gender and other formative factors can shape our life experiences and nowhere is this more visible than in game play. In light of contemporary understandings of identities and social justice DiGRA 2026 seeks to ask what strengths and pleasures intersectional dynamics can offer the field of game design from analysis to creation, to play and to market. These themes emphasize pleasure not as frivolous or escapist, but as a radical and complex affective terrain in play. PhD students are encouraged to apply as there will is a dedicated emerging stars PhD consortium on Day 1 which will provide opportunities for further development of research skills that will be of help to emerging scholars in achieving their academic goals. Potential full paper, abstract, and workshop topics include: Explorations of algorithmic systems in games; Identity Politics in games; Accessibility in game design and play; Diasporic and indigenous game narratives; Examining how bodies and senses experience pleasure and restriction in physical/digital play; Feminist Games; AI in Games; Explorations of analogue and non-digital play and pleasures; Climate change factors, eco computing and green games; Intersectional Games; Exploring innovative, participatory, and intersectional research approaches for studying pleasure in games and gaming; Community games as tools for learning and expression and inclusive engagements; Queer Gaming; Virtual Utopias; Sonic and Haptic Pleasures in Game Design; Homonationalism, capitalism and games markets; Cross Platform Chaos and Synergy; Software, tools and production processes and how software shapes how pleasure is encoded; Pleasurable Aesthetics for Games; Aural Pleasures for Games; Making Pleasurable Experiences – games creation; Gambling Games and Troubling Pleasures; Games Processes, Policies and Structures for Pleasure; PhD doctoral candidates work in development. The organizers also accept thematic workshop proposals. In light of global events, DiGRA 2026 is departing from business as usual. This year we encourage attendees to register as independent scholars to distance themselves from governments and institutions which support war and genocide. This year, we are introducing a human rights evaluation framework that considers breaches of international law. Conference registration will still provide the opportunity to register with a university affiliation for those who must have a university affiliation as a condition to receive funding, or who wish to represent their university or institution for other reasons. For those who are able, and who wish to protest global injustice, registering as an independent scholar is a means of doing so. Any individuals lacking legal permission to enter the country of Ireland will be denied registration to the DiGRA conference.

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