Theme: Research through Games; Research for Games
The special theme for FDG 2026 is “Research through Games; Research for Games.” This theme highlights a core strength of FDG: bridging the gap between scientific and humanistic approaches to games research by exploring the dual role of games as both objects of study and powerful tools for discovery.
Paper Submissions
FDG invites authors to submit papers reporting new research. Authors may submit either full papers (typically up to ten pages in length, excluding references and appendices), or short papers (up to six pages, one column or four pages, two columns in length, including references). The length of these submissions should be commensurate with contribution of the paper, in the judgment of reviewers; papers that are significantly longer than recommended page limits without clear justification (e.g., significant use of images) may be desk rejected. Note that reviewers are not required to read material in appendices during the peer-review process; full papers should not exceed 20 pages including appendices. Submitted papers will need to be anonymized by the authors by removing any identifying author and institution information from the submission. Additionally, papers will need to be submitted in the ACM SIGCONF version of the ACM Master Template.
FDG also provides the option for “Abstract Only” submissions. Abstract Only submissions should be submitted to the “Abstract” track, regardless of thematic area, and may be up to five-hundred words on any subject related to digital games. Accepted abstracts will not be published in the conference proceedings, but abstract authors will be given an opportunity to give an oral presentation of their work at the conference
Submissions are handled using the FDG 2026 EasyChair. When submitting a paper, authors will be asked to select one of the conference’s tracks. Please select the track that you feel most closely aligns with the topics covered in your submission. Accepted papers will be included in the proceedings under the track they were accepted for.
The template for the submissions can be found under the following link ACM Template. Please use the template with 2 columns for submissions.
ACM Open Access Fees
This year, ACM has implemented a new system whereby authors are required to pay open access fees (called an Article Processing Charge, see: https://www.acm.org/publications/openaccess). This requires authors to:
a) Be affiliated with an institution which has made an institutional agreement with ACM concerning these fees (called ACM Open, see list of participating institutions here: https://libraries.acm.org/acmopen/open-participants). Only one paper author needs to have this affiliation to cover fees for the entire paper
(b) Pay the Article Processing Charge
Many institutions have funding available to cover publication costs such as this. If your institution has such funding, please use it to cover these fees. If your institution lacks such funding, and all paper authors also lack grant/gift funding to cover such fees, the Foundations of Digital Games conference can reimburse you for these fees. To apply for ACM Article Processing Charge fees, please send an email to Jim Whitehead [ejw@ucsc.edu] and Phil Lopes [phil.lopes@ulusofona.pt] with the following information:
(a) paper title(s),
(b) requested reimbursement amount,
(c) a copy of an email from your institution showing you were unable to secure funding from your institution (e.g., from a department chair, etc.), and
(d) a PayPal account.
Note that we are unable to provide reimbursement to authors from Russia due to the ongoing Ukraine conflict.
Details about publishing fees will be updated soon.
Full details of the new ICPS publishing model: https://www.acm.org/publications/icps/faq
Full details of the ACM Open program: https://www.acm.org/publications/openaccess
Remote Participation
FDG’26 will feature hybrid session allowing for remote presentations.