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Replaying Japan 2025

 – The 13th International Japan Game Studies Conference –

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Abstract submission deadline: Feb 14th, 2025

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Call for Papers

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This conference, hosted by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), is organized in collaboration with the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies, the University of Alberta, the University of Delaware, Bath Spa University, DiGRA Japan, Liège Game Lab and l’Université de l’Ontario français. This conference, the 14th collaboratively organized event, focuses broadly on Japanese game culture, education, and industry. It aims to bring together a wide range of researchers and creators from many different countries to present and exchange their work.

The main theme of the conference this year is “Homebrew: hobbyist games, hacks and (other) homegrown activities.” Here, we conceptualise homebrew in the broadest sense possible, from unsanctioned (mis)uses of proprietary hardware to house-rule-driven riffs on preexisting games.

We encourage submissions that engage with existing homebrew scholarship. Such as historical accounts charting the early adoption of digital technologies (Swalwell 2021; Kobayashi & Koyama 2020), examinations of homebrew’s significance in community formation (Švelch 2013), work that explores the tensions between commercial and amateur game development (Keogh 2023; Vanderhoef 2017) and comparisons between different localised development contexts (Fiadotau 2019), for example.

However, we also encourage submissions promoting a broader understanding of homebrew as a local, social, and community-oriented homegrown activity. This includes, but is not limited to, closely related fan activities such as ROM hacking, speedrunning, and modding, as well as other transgressive and subversive forms of play, including house-rule implementations, translations, and other interpretations and adaptations of games and gaming technologies. We also welcome submissions on related topics currently underrepresented within extant games scholarship.

We also invite papers on other topics relating to games and game cultures in East Asia and the Global South, digital narratives, artificial intelligence and education from the perspectives of humanities, social sciences, business, or education.

RMIT is an international university of technology and design and Australia’s largest tertiary institution. RMIT’s Melbourne City campus is located in the cosmopolitan heart of one of the world’s most liveable cities. Melbourne is considered Australia’s central hub for game development. Home to 170 of Australia’s 200 digital games studios, Melbourne’s deep-seated creativity contributes to a vibrant indie development scene, supported by state government grants, global gaming events like the Melbourne International Games Week (MIGW) and PAX Australia, and the long-running Freeplay Games Festival, which celebrates independent and alternative games and their creators. 

Fiadotau, M. (2019). Indie and Dojin Games: A Multilayered Cross-Cultural Comparison. Gamevironments, #10, Article #10. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:46-00107541-19

Keogh, B. (2023). The videogame industry does not exist: Why we should think beyond commercial game production. MIT Press.

Kobayashi, N., & Koyama, Y. (2020). The Early History of the Hobbyist Production Field of Video Games and its Impacts on the Establishment of Japan’s Video Game Industries. Replaying Japan, 2(2020), 73–82.

Švelch, J. (2013). Say it with a computer game: Hobby computer culture and the non-entertainment uses of homebrew games in the 1980s Czechoslovakia. Game Studies, 13(2).

Swalwell, M. (2021). Homebrew gaming and the beginnings of vernacular digitality. MIT Press.

Vanderhoef, J. (2017). NES homebrew and the margins of the retro-gaming industry. In Fans and Videogames: Histories, Fandoms and Archives (pp. 111–127). Routledge.

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Submission Guidelines

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Important Dates

Abstract registration deadline: February 14th, 2025
Notification of Acceptance: Early April 2025

[Conference Format] The following paper categories are welcome:

• Full Papers and Panels: Each session will be 60 minutes and will have a chair. For Panel sessions, a chair will be one of the panellists.
• Poster/Demo session: A 90-minute session will be set aside during the event schedule for poster/demonstration proposals of games or interactive projects. The date and time will be communicated to presenters after the program is finalized.
  Presenters who want to demonstrate innovative work best shown visually rather than submit a written paper should take advantage of our poster/demo session.
• Lightning Talks: At least one 60-minute session will be secured for Lightning Talks for works in progress.
  If you have work in progress that you would like to present we will have a Lightning Talk session. Student and early career submissions are highly encouraged. Abstracts can be shorter than 500 words.

All papers must be original. Abstracts must be submitted to replayingjapan@gmail.com as an anonymised abstract (pdf). The abstract should be no more than 500 words. Figures, tables and references do not count toward the word limit.

Please include your name, affiliation, and email address in the email, but not in the submitted abstract. In addition, please add the title of your presentation/demo in the email when submitting. Information for the submission email (only):

• Type of submission (poster, demonstration, poster & demonstration, lightning talk, paper, or panel):
• Title of submission:
• Name of author(s):
• Affiliation(s):
• Email address(es):

Sessions will be in English, but we will have translation support for presenters who are not comfortable with English.

Replaying Japan is an in-person conference. Where possible, hybrid sessions will be available but cannot be guaranteed.