iThrive Games — a non-profit that partners with game developers, researchers and youth organizations to facilitate the positive use of video games to enhance social and emotional skills — is proud to announce a partnership with academic publisher Carnegie Mellon’s ETC Pressfor a special peer-reviewed issue of Well Played, the analytical video game journal. The two organizations have issued a call for contributors to submit in-depth essays on the various meanings, values and experiences provided by video games in their design and during play. Essays can be empirical or theoretical. Submissions will be curated by a team of highly respected game industry academics from around the United States.
iThrive Games specializes in the promotion of games as tools for emotional and social skill development in growing teens by practicing in-game positive psychology habits, such as growth mindset and empathy. The organization collaborates with game developers, tests games with teens and provides resources to foster teens thriving through gaming. iThrive Games’ vision for this special issue of Well Played is to encourage new scholarship in the area of game design that encourages personal growth and prosocial outcomes for adolescent gamers.
The Well Played journal gives academics and junior faculty a place to share their ideas, theories and analysis of the game industry and its works as a means of advancing knowledge in the field. Contributors are encouraged to analyze sequences in a game in detail to illustrate and interpret how the various components of a game come together to create a fulfilling play experience unique to this medium.
Well Played journal essay submissions should be sent by September 1, 2017. Peer reviewers will assess all essays through a blind process and notify all authors of their submission status by November 1, 2017.
