Meaningful Play 2026
Thank You for a Joyful Meaningful Play 2026!
Meaningful Play 2026, hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in partnership with Michigan State University, was a resounding success thanks to all of our attendees. More than 300 people from 16 different countries helped make this year's conference an amazing convening of ideas, playful experiences, and transformational design.
Read More About This Year's Conference...
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! This event will return to Michigan State University in 2028.
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, sign up for our mailing list, or be first in line for calls for submissions and registration, please fill 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 To that end, submissions should present original, unpublished research or design work that is not currently under review by any other venue.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.