Call for Papers EXTENDED – Special issue on “Programmed to Love: Players and Virtual Lovers” in International Journal of Games and Social Impact (IJGSI)

Games often offer their players strong emotional experiences. Love is a profound human experience that affects all aspects of our lives. Indeed, many games include love as part of their narrative and/or gameplay. Nevertheless, is this truly love? Unlike other media, in which the audience reads about or watches a love story unfold, in games players take on an active role in the execution of the love story.
This raises concerns as to the ability of games to simulate love. Can a player love a (virtual) character? If not, what does this mean for the capacity of games to afford love? If yes, how does this change our understanding of love? Game Studies have approached the concept of love from multiple perspectives: philosophical inquiries (Leino 2015, Dicken 2018), game design challenges (Grace 2020), feminist and queer analyses (Salter 2020, Youngblood 2015), and sociological studies (Burgess and Jones 2020, Bopp et al. 2019, Karhulahti and Välisalo 2021). Yet, despite the multitude and resonance of the existing scholarship, love in games remains an underexplored and fascinating topic that interests both game players and creators alike.

For this issue of the International Journal of Games and Social Impact (IJGSI), we are accepting full papers that are related, not exclusively, to one or more of the following aspects:

• Meaning of love in games
• Love relationships between human players and NPCs
• Representation and poetics of love in games
• Queer and feminist approaches to game love
• Close reading of games featuring love
• Love as a mechanics and design challenge
• History of love in games
• Games as spaces for humans to fall in love
• Roleplaying and love in games

We welcome submissions relating to any type of game: digital, online, VR, tabletop, board games, LARP, etc.

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. All manuscripts are referred through a double-blind peer-review process. Dates are indicative.

Submission deadline for full-papers: 01-06-2024, extended until 10-06-2024
Notifications of reviews sent to authors: 30-07-2024
Submission deadline for final full-papers:  05-09-2024
Publication of full-papers in special issue: 01-10-2024

Special issue Editor
Renata Ntelia (School of Computer Science, University of Lincoln)

To potential Authors
Please submit your proposals via the IJGSI website, according to the format standards for publication: https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/ijgsi/about/submissions

About the International Journal of Games and Social Impact
The International Journal of Games and Social Impact (IJGSI) is a semiannual open-access publication for games research and critique on social change, inclusion, education and Human Rights. IJGSI was established in Lusófona University, by the Games and Social Impact Media Research Lab (GLOW) to research, discover, and foster links between games studies in academia and civil society through educational and knowledge exchanges.

This Journal is supported through Hei-Lab (https://hei-lab.ulusofona.pt/; https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/05380/2020) and CICANT (https://cicant.ulusofona.pt/; https://cicant.ulusofona.pt/; https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/05260/2020)) research units as a strategy to foster multidisciplinary, fundamental, and applied research approaching the intersections between games and human activities. IJGSI is also supported by the FILMEU (https://www.filmeu.eu/) alliance.
Source: https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/ijgsi/about