As games have become a more important and influential part of the creative industries and our culture as a whole, we face a wide range of issues and opportunities. Diversity and inclusion are a continual challenge, whether it is implicit workplace bias, the representation of characters in games, or the valuing of diversity in the cultures in and around games.
ETC Press and the Well Played Journal are committed to a culture where everyone—regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, socio-economics, religion, age or disability—who makes, enjoys and critiques games and other creative media deserves an inclusive experience free from harassment, discrimination and threats.
The recent disheartening online discourse around women in games only underscores how this is a both a historical, and on-going issue for the creative industries in general and the game industry in particular. Well Played was founded on the assumption that playing games is a valuable experience, and we explore and analyze games through their gameplay experiences. Similarly, we take it as given that diversity and inclusion are valuable to the culture and creative community.
We are requesting submissions that explore and analyze examples of diversity and inclusion in games, particularly of women and other under-represented groups, in terms of representation within gameplay experiences with unusual or unique protagonists, or games created by women and diverse development teams.
Well Played has always explored the value and meaning of games by close analysis of the actual experience of what it means to play games. We believe this focus helps surface what games do well, and how they can do even better. It’s through our actions and words that we establish our values and develop our culture and community. The inclusion of a diversity of people in our profession and our games will only help improve the game industry and the games we make and play.
ETC Press is accepting submissions for this special issue of the Well Played journal.
All submissions are due 23 February 2015.
All submissions and questions should be sent to:
well-played (at) lists (dot) andrew (dot) cmu (dot) edu
For more information and formatting guidelines, visit:
http://press.etc.cmu.edu/wellplayed
http://press.etc.cmu.edu/files/WellPlayed-Guidelines.pdf
The Well Played Journal is a forum for in-depth close readings of video games that parse out the various meanings to be found in the experience of playing a game. It is a reviewed journal open to submissions that will be released on a regular basis.
Contributors are encouraged to analyze sequences in a game in detail in order to illustrate and interpret how the various components of a game can come together to create a fulfilling playing experience unique to this medium. Through contributors, the journal will provide a variety of perspectives on the value of games.
The goal of the journal is to continue developing and defining a literacy of games as well as a sense of their value as an experience. Video games are a complex medium that merits careful interpretation and insightful analysis. By inviting contributors to look closely at video games and the experience of playing them, we hope to expand the discussion, and show how games are well played in a variety of ways.
The ETC Press is an academic and open-source publishing imprint that distributes its work in print, electronic and digital form. Inviting readers to contribute to and create versions of each publication, ETC Press fosters a community of collaborative authorship and dialogue across media. ETC Press represents an experiment and an evolution in publishing, bridging virtual and physical media to redefine the future of publication.
http://press.etc.cmu.edu//wellplayed
Twittter:http://twitter.com/#!/etcwellplayed
ISSN 2164-344X (Print)
ISSN 2164-3458 (Online)
