Events are at the heart of game and play cultures. They are organized for many reasons and purposes, bringing people together to play, socialize, compete, learn and teach, network, sell, perform, celebrate, and exhibit. Game-culture events also exist in many forms, including, but not limited to, festivals and conventions, competitions and tournaments, fairs and parties, conferences, galas, hangouts, exhibitions, performances, and protests. As people come together, events grow into communities. Playing with strangers, brought together into a shared space over similar interests, is a whole different thing to playing alone or with a close circle of friends.
Events and communities are tied in many ways. Events inspire and build communities, make them visible, and reinvigorate them. Some events fail, others succeed, and it is always uncertain whether a new event finds its audience – a promise of a future community. Thus, many events are regular and repeating, bringing together an imagined community. Yet, a smaller community always precedes an event: the group of people who create, organize, and promote the event.
Creating events requires planning and design from programme to codes of conduct and from participant roles to expectation management. Organizing events require work and funding, production and marketing. Yet, it is people who make the event and creating an event requires creating an idea of a community. Any such construction implies boundary work: who belongs and is invited, who is left out.
Simultaneously, the line between an organizer and participant is porous: many events would not be possible without volunteers – and in game-culture events where organized play takes place the line is particularly blurry.
To play around with all these topics and questions, the spring seminar of Game Research Lab wants to carve a space for a discussion of events and communities that relate to games and play. As always, we encourage surprising interpretations of the theme.
With all that in mind, the list of possible topics includes but is not limited to:
- Designing ludic and other game-related events
- Communities that create game-related events
- Game-related events that create communities
- The organization of space in game events and communities
- Inclusion, exclusion, and barriers of entry
- Organization of labour
- Participant experience
- Amateurs, professionals, and serious leisure
- Rules, regulations, codes of conduct
- Economic models underlying game culture events
- Development and change over time of events
- Histories of specific events
- The event as text, as game, as art
- Visual analyses of events and communities
- Marketing as community creation
- Public and private events, open and close communities
- Cultures and traditions of design in event creation
- Playfulness in organizing an event
- Failed events and dispersed communities
- Online/offline ecosystems of events and communities
- Spreadability of ludic cultures in online communities
- Materiality of games and play in online communities
- Identities in ludic events and communities
Seminar information
Events and Communities is the 22nd annual spring seminar organised by the Tampere University Game Research Lab. The seminar emphasises work-in-progress submissions, and we strongly encourage submitting late-breaking results, working papers, as well as submissions from graduate and PhD researchers. The purpose of the seminar is to have peer-to-peer discussions and thereby provide support in refining and improving research work in this area.
The papers to be presented will be chosen based on extended abstract review. Full papers are distributed prior to the event to all participants, in order to facilitate discussion. There will be two invited expert commentators to provide feedback on the papers.
The seminar is potentially looking into partnering with a publisher so that the best papers would be invited to be further developed into publication. In the past, we have collaborated with e.g. Analog Game Studies, Games and Culture, Games: Research and Practice, International Journal of Role-Playing, Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, Simulation & Gaming, and ToDiGRA journals.
The seminar will be held at Tampere University, Finland, on May 5th and 6th, 2026. Attending the seminar is free of charge.
Submission guidelines
The papers will be selected for presentation based on extended abstracts of 500–1000 words (plus references). Abstracts should be delivered in PDF format. Full paper guidelines will be provided with the notification of acceptance.
Our aim is that all participants can familiarise themselves with the papers in advance. Therefore, the maximum length for a full paper is 5000 words (plus references). The seminar presentations should encourage discussion, instead of repeating the information presented in the papers. Every paper will be presented for 10 minutes and discussed for 20 minutes.
Submissions should be sent through this form.
All information will be updated on the seminar website: https://springseminar.org
Organisers can be contacted at: gamestudiesseminar@gmail.com
Important dates
- Abstract deadline: 14 January 2026
- Notification of acceptance: 28 January 2025
- Full paper deadline: 14 April 2026
- Seminar dates: 5-6 May 2026
Organising team
Conference chairs: Mark Maletska, Essi Taino
Volunteer chair: Aasa Timonen
Communication chair: Elina Koskinen
Community manager: Joel Karjalainen
Finance chair: Taina Myöhänen
Program chairs: Ville Kankainen, Jaakko Stenros
Events and Communities 