About the Journal

The International Journal on Games and Narrative (IJGaN) is the official publication of the International Conference on Games and Narrative (ICGaN), a bi-annual hybrid conference hosted at the University of Waterloo Games Institute. IJGaN is a venue for researchers from various disciplines ( computer science, digital media, human-computer interaction, culture studies, software or systems design engineering, various mass communication studies, psychology, etc.) to discuss the plethora of factors impacting games and interactive storytelling.

Games engage players through a variety of modalities—such as audio, visual, and haptic cues—which are filtered through the player’s senses and cognitive perception. These experiences are reinforced by narratives. Narratives, as understood through the video game medium, have now extended broadly toward many different forms of interactive and immersive media. Interactive media exploit narrative techniques, employ narrative suspense, and rely on our existing understanding of narrative concepts such as setting and character. Games and interactive immersive media development continue to push the bounds of how we understand the power of storytelling both within game worlds as well as the culture and experiences surrounding them.

Access: IJGaN is a fully open-access journal that houses the proceedings of ICGaN, but we plan to expand its mandate to include special issues in the future. We are committed to knowledge dissemination and making research accessible to various audiences without paywalls or subscriptions.

Internationality: IJGaN strives to be fully international and feature scholarships on games and narratives worldwide. This means that it is normal and expected to encounter differences in language, culture, and academic norms between IJGaN works. We view this as another kind of knowledge sharing that contributes to welcoming and supporting community building.

Interdisciplinarity: Different disciplines have various ideas about what “conferences” look like and how they work, as well as which methodologies are suited to studying gaming artefacts. The same is true for publications like journals. Creating a conference or journal that provides researchers from all disciplines with a structure that works for them is daunting, but we are up for the challenge! We have taken steps to use inclusive language and always contextualized terms that may have varying meanings across disciplines.

For an earnest exchange of ideas with folks from all walks of life and research, We welcome submissions from researchers studying games and narratives from any and all disciplinary and academic backgrounds, including independent scholars, artists, journalists, and industry professionals. We also value both new and experienced voices.

Equity: We respect people of all ethnic, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds and all personal expressions of culture, sexual orientation, gender identity, and physical and mental ability. Differences bring new perspectives and can offer powerful insights that enhance academic work.