Submissions

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Author Guidelines

It’s all about style…

Please arrange your text in the following way:

  • Use a clear structure with chapters, headings and if necessary subheadings.
  • Do not insert any automatic Microsoft Word functions (“auto format”), such as automatic headlines, numeration, etc.
  • Use a tab instead of spaces for indentation.
  • Use endnotes instead of footnotes.
  • Be consistent in your choice of either British or American spelling.
  • Include a bibliography with a complete list of all publications cited at the end of your article or review.
  • Follow the guidelines for citations and formatting set forward by the Harvard Style, in which citations within the text include the author’s name and the date of publication (Gamer 2020).

Please find the detailed style sheet here.

 

Peer Review Process  

Submission of Contributions

The authors submit contributions to the journal gamevironments via the journal website. As part of the submission process, authors are required to check their submission's compliance with required items you find listed in the submission section. In case contributions don’t meet the requirements of the journal, they can be rejected by the editorial team.

Peer Review Process for Articles

Gamevironments adheres to a double-blind peer review process for articles. Submissions are first assessed by the editorial team, who determine whether the submission is of sufficiently quality to go to peer review. The editorial team will then find an expert reviewer, who will be asked to submit their anonymous review according to the journal’s review form within four weeks. This form includes a section for comments to be seen only by the editorial team and guest editor(s) (if applicable).

Due to the small size of the field, articles are usually assessed by one peer reviewer. If deemed necessary, additional reviewers may be contacted.

Reviewers are asked to state if they have any potential conflicts of interest, for example if they believe they know who the author is.In cases such as these, the reviewer should explain the situation to the editors, who will decide if they should be disqualified from the review or not. If they are disqualified, a new reviewer will be found.

Authors or guest issue editor(s) can appeal to the editorial team if they believe a review to be unfair or insufficient. The editorial team will assess the article again in conjunction with the review and determine whether the appeal has merit. If the appeal is deemed to have merit, a new peer reviewer will be contacted. Depending on specifics of the review and the appeal, the first peer review will be considered alongside the new review or discarded.

Once a paper is accepted, the editorial team will ask the author(s) to submit a revised version of their manuscript based on the review(s) and any additional suggestions that the editors have. If the revisions are deemed insufficient, the author(s) are asked to revise the manuscript again. The article may be pushed to the next issue if there will not be enough time for revisions.

Editorial Review for Research Reports, Interviews, Game and Book reviews

Other submissions are assessed only by the editorial team and/or the guest editor(s) and are not marked as peer-reviewed. The editorial review is then shared with the author(s) along with the decision. If accepted, authors then revise their submission according to the editorial review.

Review Decision and Response to Review

Authors or guest issue editors can appeal to the editorial team if they believe a review to be unfair or insufficient. The editorial team will assess the article again in conjunction with the review and determine whether the appeal has merit. If the appeal is deemed to have merit, a new peer reviewer will be contacted.

Depending on specifics of the review and the appeal, the first peer review will be considered alongside the new review or discarded.

Authors who are required to revise their manuscript must submit three documents: the revised document with tracked changes, the revised document without tracked changes, and a response to review in which the author outlines how they have addressed the review(s).

Preparation for Publication

All contributions must be formatted according to the journal’s style. You can find the style guide here. After acceptance, articles will enter into a copyediting, proofreading and layout editing process, during which the author will need to review and approve changes, deal with any issues that arise, provide author information and sign copyright forms. If the author is unable to respond in a timely manner to these requests, their contribution may be pushed to the next issue or, if it had already been pushed, rejected.

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements.

  • If your work was funded in some form, please include all details required by your funding bodies with "funding agency" and "funding number."
  • For all material (e.g., screenshots from video games) for which you as author(s) do not own the copyright, you have included written permissions (e.g., informal confirmation via email) that you are allowed to use the material.
  • Alongside the contribution for all authors email addresses, institutional affiliation and biographical paragraphs (100-150 words) are included.
  • An abstract (around 200 words) and keywords (5 to 10) are included.
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
  • All illustrations, figures, and tables are included as extra files (.jpg or .png). The position of all illustrations, figures, and tables are marked within the text at the appropriate points.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is currently under consideration for another journal.
  • ORCID iDs should be included for all authors.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in journal's style sheet. Any in-text reference includes the authorship and the year of the work. Additionally, all mentioned video games are included in the references according to the journal's style sheet.

Peer-reviewed Articles

Articles should be 5-10.000 words in length. In general, articles should have a clear structure including an introduction, a discussion of the relevance of the idea, the theoretical frame being used, a methodology and the case study or analysis.

Reports

Sometimes you want to give an impression of your current research or introduce a new project. You may want to get some recognition for being in the roughly 5% of successful third-party funding applications! This is where a non-peer-reviewed report can come in.

Reports should give insight into a new project, idea/concept, or other forms of current, ongoing research. An analytical and critical approach towards your main questions is crucial. Furthermore, you should include the relevant theoretical and methodological approaches and an outline of the plan for the project.

In general, reports should be 3-5.000 words in length. They are not peer-reviewed, but will be reviewed by the editorial team (or guest editor(s) in case of a special issue).

Interviews

We are also interested in projects related to games, gamers and gaming in culture and society. For instance, if you have a connection to a game designer, an educator working with games, an artist, a museum curator, etc., then we are happy to publish interviews with them.

In your contribution, you should describe why this interview is relevant for this research area and discuss possible implications or interesting aspects for future research.

In general, reviews should be 2-7.000 words in length. They are not peer-reviewed, but will be reviewed by the editorial team (or guest editor(s) in case of a special issue).

Reviews

Book Reviews 

you are reading a new book that may be of interest to other researchers, feel free to propose a book review.

If you do not have a copy, contact the editorial team and we may be able to get a review copy from the publisher. However, we cannot guarantee this.

Reviews should engage critically with the book. They should introduce and describe the contents of the book, but must engage with it as well, weighing its strengths and weaknesses, discussing its relevancy and importance to the field, and pointing out relevant aspects for future research.

Reviews should be 1-2.000 in length. They are not peer-reviewed, but will be reviewed by the editorial team (or guest editor(s) in case of a special issue).

 

Game Reviews

As a games journal that aims to collect and develop the various multidisciplinary approaches in the field, we also need to be familiar with our subject matter: games! If you are playing a game which could be an interesting or promising object of investigation, please send in a proposal for a game review.

Game reviews should engage critically with the game in question, explaining how it may be interesting or useful to researchers.

Reviews should be 1-2.000 words in length. Please note that in most cases, the journal will not be able to provide a review copy of games.

 

Copyright Notice

Gamevironments is hosted at the University of Bremen in Germany, so all legal questions (e.g., concerning copyright) will be regarded under the German law. Because of this, authors must accept full responsibility for the content of their article by signing a copyright form, which needs to reach us before the article’s publication. For any questions, please contact the managing editor at games2@uni-bremen.de.

 

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.