Call for Abstracts

*Call for Abstracts -
Towards Sustainable Game Design: The Game Needs to Change*

Book chapter for an edited collection 

Publisher: CRC Press (Taylor & Francis Group)

500 word abstract deadline 15th of June 2024.

There are NO submission or processing fees
for accepted manuscripts.

Mission:

Join us in contributing to a groundbreaking collection of research and white papers aimed at exploring the intersection of games and sustainability. We invite abstract submissions from both industry professionals and academics passionate about effecting positive change in the gaming sphere. Together, we’re making a book about moving beyond mere greenwashing to collectively work towards systemic solutions. Let's make games toward a sustainable world, sustainably!

In this upcoming publication, we seek to distinguish genuine sustainability efforts from mere green-washing tactics prevalent in the industry. Our editorial team will meticulously review abstract submissions, selecting those with potential to offer substantive insights and practical solutions to the pressing challenges of sustainability in gaming and a compelling vision for how we can achieve a sustainable future.

Our goal is to empower individuals and organizations across the games industry who are eager to make meaningful contributions towards sustainability. Through a blend of industry expertise and scholarly research, our book aims to provide actionable strategies and real-world examples to guide readers in integrating evidence-based sustainability principles into their professional endeavors and work for real, systemic change.

Possible Topics Include but are not Limited to:

• Systemic approaches to sustainability

• Production, processes and material conditions

• Telling Stories for a Sustainable Future

• Integrating Environmental Messaging and Learning into Game Mechanics

• The unique challenges of games

• Stories and visions of a sustainable game industry and future

• Discipline-specific methods and practices

• Impact-focused research on games and sustainability

• Analyzed experiences or stories of designing for sustainability

• Retrospectives on industry practice for sustainability game design

• Collaborations between research and industry teams

• Design theory or design practice theory

To have your essay or research considered, please submit a 500 word abstract by 15th of June 2024. Email abstracts with the title “book submission” to Clayton_Whittle@outlook.com

The Book:

For industry professionals, this book is a way to highlight both the challenges you are facing and your approach to them, to connect it to evidence-based research. For researchers, organizers, and activists, this offers the possibility for real-world impact and a chance to apply your findings in a concrete and impactful way. For all of us, it  presents a chance to work with like-minded individuals on suggesting pragmatic solutions and to build a community for sustainability in the games industry.

As a book aimed at advising practice, essays and research will be organized into topic-focused sections. The editors will work with authors to organize essays appropriately. Editors will also provide a structure for each topic-focused section that frames the work of authors in the context of real-world stories, practical examples, and actionable advice. To facilitate this connected organization, and to also make sure that each contributor knows what is being said in the chapters before and after their own, we are planning a digital meeting between the editors and the contributors for each topic. In this meeting, we will give feedback to each other's draft texts, find connecting points, and strengthen the argument of the book, while meeting the people who are working in our exact field. 

In order to respect your time and work, and to make such a meeting possible within the time-frame of the editing process, the editors are aiming for a fast turn-around for submissions within 2-3 weeks. 

Contributions:

Chapters will be max. 8000 words written in accessible language. Shorter contributions, especially practice-based and design work, are also explicitly welcome. Specialist terms and concepts will be explained and there will be no assumption that the reader is a researcher or specialist in a given development field. That said, it will be possible to use scientific and other references. About 50 illustrations in black and white are available for the entire book. We accept submissions with multiple authors as well as more than one submission per author. 

Given that we are expecting contributions from a variety of fields, chapters can look quite different from each other. Some might be academic text while others can be an explanation of a successful organization process or advice for impactful design. We strive to accommodate these differences in the structure of the book and encourage submissions with practice-based topics. The editors offer support to contributors who are not necessarily used to writing in order to support such submissions and help you tell your story. What exact form this support will take will be based on the need of contributors in collaboration with the editor team. 

We’re very interested in contributions and perspectives from those actively working on game development projects, and we also recognize that game industry professionals may not have as much experience with the writing and editing processes involved with this project compared to contributors with a more academic background. As a 15-year game industry veteran who has more recently learned to research, write, and publish work in this space, editor Trevin York is on hand to support contributors who are similarly interested in sharing their processes through these types of written projects. 

Editors and Publisher:

The book is to be published by CRC Press, in the Tyler and Francis Group, in 2026 with a release during GDC. The printed book will have the following ISBN: 9781032836195. It is edited by Dr. Patrick Prax, Dr. Clayton Whittle, and Trevin York. Patrick is Associate professor of Game Design at Uppsala University and has been working with sustainability in game design education and the game industry. Clayton is the co-chair of the IGDA Climate SIG and Ph.D. research consultant for transformational games. Trevin is the founder & director of Dire Lark, a game design for change studio. Clayton and Trevin are also the first authors of the Environmental Game Design Playbook by the IGDA Climate SIG.

Timeline:

Submission deadline for abstracts: 15th of June 2024

Submission format: 500 words excluding literature

Editor feedback: acceptance within three weeks, 7th of July

Peer feedback on in-progress chapters: 15th of October, submission 10th of October

Full chapter submission deadline: : 2nd of December 2024

Feedback within six weeks, 15th of January

Final submission deadline to editors: 15th of March 2025

Final Print Deadline: 01 May 2025

Publication: GDC 2026

Abstracts with the title “book submission” to be emailed to: clayton_whittle@outlook.com

Please do not hesitate to contact us if there are any questions at all!

Thanks,

Patrick, Clayton, and Trevin

Editors

Please email submissions to clayton_whittle@outlook.com with the subject “Book Submission”.