New minor “Games and Play in a Changing Society” open for registration

Cover image (c) Christopher Paul High via Unsplash. The new curriculum, which replaces the previous minor “Game Studies’, is a transdisciplinary collaboration between the Department of Media & Cultures studies (MCW), the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development and the Department of Information and Computing Sciences and enables students to analyze games and play in contemporary

08-06-2026 // Education // Criticism and Analysis, Game Design, Games Beyond Entertainment, Play Research, Social Games and Play

ASS POWER: Gaming at the Theatre

A review of Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim's 8 hour revolutionary donkey epic that sits between theatre and videogames. A collective gaming experience that will have you braying heeeee-haaaww while you contemplate issues of labor, automation, violence, and the good life.

03-06-2026 // Insights // Criticism and Analysis, Ethics of Play, Game Design, Games Beyond Entertainment

Making Game Studies’ Research Practical with Discursive Game Design

Co-creation of games, participatory design, open dialogue, and social perspective-taking currently lie at the centre of game research at Utrecht University. All these practices are characteristic of Discursive Game Design (DGD), a method that highlights the processes underlying practice-based game research, rather than a final "fixed" product.

Marijn Benschop
02-03-2026 // Insights // Criticism and Analysis, Game Design, Games Beyond Entertainment

All Will Rise – crowdfunding campaign now live!

The Kickstarter campaign for All Will Rise: a narrative courtroom deck-builder has gone live. This game, developed by the team of Speculative Agency, has our own Joost Vervoort as science and impact director. He leads the academic side of the project and focus on the societal impact of the game.

Editorial Team
19-02-2026 // In the media, News // Game Design, Games and Sustainability

Hybrid Franchise Hacking Workshop (Gamelab x Man Met)

On April 30th 2025, the Utrecht Gamelab and the Manchester Game Centre at Manchester Metropolitan University collaborated on a first-of-its-kind hybrid three-hour co-design workshop, building on the work of Chloe Germaine and Paul Wake on ‘game hacking’ and the ‘franchise hacking’ technique developed by the Utrecht Game Lab on the basis of Germaine and Wake’s

07-05-2025 // Education, Events // Criticism and Analysis, Game Design, Games and Sustainability