For the 27th edition of the Board Game Studies Colloquium, we invite participants  to engage with the following themes:

• Collecting and preserving the cultural asset of games
• History through games, using the example of the GDR
• Seriously? Should we rethink gamification?
• Games and education - two faces of a die. 

The main topic: Collecting and preserving games as a cultural asset.

Who collects games and why? In most cases, private individuals, private companies (e.g. publishers) or public institutions (e.g. museums, archives) do this. It is often based on private interest of the collectors or follows collection concepts. It would be desirable for everyone to work together in order to represent and preserve cultural assets in their entirety. This requires constant exchange, communication and agreement on basic methods of cataloging, archiving and accessing collections. We are currently observing that many private collections are looking for a future home, whether due to advanced age, the death of the collector, lack of space or simply because interests have changed.

There are already various exciting approaches that we would like to think about and discuss further, and certainly want and need to rethink. This applies both nationally and internationally to games as a cultural heritage of humankind. “The cultural asset of play in the Germany Democratic Republic”.

The GDR existed for almost 40 years before the unity of the two German states was restored in 1990. Of course, there was also a games industry in the GDR that was based on earlier traditions. This was shaped by the mechanisms of the socialist planned economy and developed in a completely different way to the BRD, for example. This can be seen in the content of the games, their materiality and their quality. And the political change in 1990 also brought the end of the GDR games industry in many areas. There is some fundamental research and collections on games in the GDR - we would like to continue the exchange and gain new insights at this point. “Gamification” - this buzzword has been used in many contexts and constellations for several years now. Everywhere there has been gamification and everything can be gamified, even by people who do not actually know what it means to play. One can speak of an overuse of this topic. We would like to look at it from the perspective of those who really know about games, deal with it and think about new approaches in the context of games education. Let us discuss these and more in the European Capital of Culture 2025: Chemnitz!

They should include the following: • Title • Abstract (200 to 500 words) • Author's brief bio • Other information is also welcome, i.e. recent publications, institutional affiliations, and academic or other relevant credentials. Submissions should use the following form no later than December 31th, 2024. You will be notified if your proposal has been accepted in mid-February. Presentations should not exceed twenty minutes to allow time for questions and discussion.

Slides: PowerPoint, Keynote-type, PDF.

Lenght of the talks: 20 minutes.

Language: English (let us know in case you are considering to present in a different language). 

Deadline: 31 December 2024.

Response: 09 February 2025.

Publication of the program: 15 March 2025.

Closing of the registration: 01 April 2025.

The papers will be submitted to a blind revision process evaluating:

• Scientific relevance of the topic selected: how the argument proposed correspond to an interests felt by the scholars that study board games;

• Innovation: how the lecture proposed could shed a light on neglected aspects, open new perspective or area of research;

• Scientific quality of the work: how the lecture proposed would match the expectations of an academical public in terms of methods, results, and presentation.