Who’s Afraid of Gamemaking Research? Biases, Obstacles, and Potentials
Presentation at Pracademics – Making Games/Research workshop. Games Now! Aalto 2026
Abstract
Why is it far easier to publish a paper analysing a finished videogame than research conducted through making one, and easier to submit a paper about a prototype than the prototype itself? Part of the reason is that gamemaking research still has no home of its own. Practitioner-academics routinely translate their work into the languages of game studies, HCI, or artistic research for it to count as research, and a growing generation of graduates from gamemaking degrees faces the same detour. This talk makes the case for gamemaking research as a field in its own right, one that could bring together scattered approaches and, ultimately, help us make better games. Drawing on an archive of game design research, I trace how this question has been raised, sidelined, and revived since the 1980s. From my studies of the videogame research landscape, I show how rarely formal discourse includes prototypes, or even images and video, despite studying a medium that is interactive and demands hands-on engagement. I then reflect on my own doctoral experience as an academic-practitioner, and on ongoing efforts with international colleagues to establish a journal for gamemaking research in which playable work counts as a contribution. The talk closes by asking what such a venue would need to offer those who make games, study them, or do both.
Workshop: Pracademics – Making Games/Research
We study games, we make games—but how often do we bring these ways of knowing together? Much of what we know about game making rests on personal experience, scattered accounts and assumptions that rarely get examined. We need more research into how games are actually made, and more academic knowledge into game making.
Some game makers become academics, some academics become game makers, and some work as both. What can these overlapping positions help us see—and what might they obscure? What could a deep academic knowledge provide for game making or game maker communities? How does making a game contribute to research? Why is it easier to submit a paper about a prototype than the prototype itself? Why is it easier to make a game than formalize a paper about the process? Why it is sometimes difficult to utilize one’s knowledge and experience on the other side of the fence?
This full-day workshop brings together talks on the dualities of game scholarship, research through design and practice-based studies. There is room to discuss, think and tinker together as “pracademics”, whether you make games, study them or move between the two. What could we learn from each other, and what would make that exchange easier?
Part of GN! Event Week on Wednesday 11 November, the workshop is organised with the Game Design Praxiology Group and Suomen pelitutkimuksen seura, and hosted by Jaakko Kemppainen (Game Design Praxiology Group / Aalto University) and Elina Koskinen (Suomen pelitutkimuksen seura / University of Jyväskylä).
