Meaningful Play 2026
Meaningful Play Conference
October 13-15, 2026
Please join The Center for Transformational Play for Meaningful Play 2026, hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in partnership with Michigan State University.
Key Submission Deadlines:
- Full Papers: March 31
- Games, Lightning Talks, Posters: May 15
- Hosted Sessions: June 15
Submission guidelines and details will be released soon!
Meaningful Play brings together academics, game designers, and educators to explore how games and play can change people’s lives. If you make or study games, this is the conference for you! The conference runs October 13-15 with the option to stay an extra day and play in Pittsburgh on October 16.
We invite academics, professionals, and practitioners to join us. Our target audience includes:
- Game researchers
- Game designers and developers
- Educators who use games or teach about games
- Students with an interest in game design, research, or education
- Government organizations and NGOs interested in games
To stay up-to-date on the latest conference details or to be first in line for calls for submissions and registration, please fill out our interest form.
We look forward to seeing you in Pittsburgh in October 2026!
Meaningful Play Interest Form
Stay up-to-date on the latest conference details and be first in line for calls for submissions and registration by filling out our interest form:
Submission Categories
Full Papers
The Full Papers track welcomes contributions from researchers and practitioners in industry and academia that advance our understanding of meaningful play broadly construed. The purpose of the Full Papers Track is to present the community’s understanding of the current state of the art, practice, science, and/or discipline of Meaningful Play. To that end, submissions should present original, unpublished research or design work that is not currently under review by any other venue.
Games
The Meaningful Play Game Exhibition and Competition invites academic, independent, experimental, serious, transformational, and/or student game developers to showcase and gain recognition for their creative/innovative work in game design and development. Analog and digital games are all welcome. The purpose of the Games and Prototypes track is to highlight the things that the community has built and allow us to play with each other’s work. Games and prototypes at Meaningful play will be showcased in an exhibition during the conference that provides attendees opportunities to play with them.
Microtalks
The Microtalks track encourages Individuals to submit proposals for microtalks which discuss any of the subtopics relevant to the conference. The purpose of Microtalks is to present perspective or pose challenges to the community toward energizing new or ongoing work. To that end we encourage insightful, speculative, or creative content in addition to descriptions of ongoing work.
Hosted Sessions
The Hosted Sessions track invites submissions of engaging interactive sessions to be organized by members of our community. Examples include Workshops, Roundtables, Game Play, etc. The purpose of the Hosted Sessions track is to provide opportunities for community building and community engagement around topics of interest to the broader community. These sessions could take the form of a panel or roundtable discussion among community members, a game play session, or an interactive workshop to get people working together.