About the Journal
Board Game Academics is a peer-reviewed journal published by the editorial board of BGA. Board Game Academics publishes articles and reviews discussing the role of tabletop board games, card games, roleplaying games, and other analog gaming experiences in achieving the stated goals of the higher education community.
We invite papers from across areas of study including media studies, fan studies, psychology, writing center studies, and pedagogy. We publish discussions on modern strategy board games, historically significant games, gamification in higher education, the use of play and games in clinical settings, fandom within the tabletop community, and the use of board games and tabletop game experiences on college campuses, including in the classroom. We encourage authors to explore tabletop games from a number of critical approaches, in the format of personal essays, experience-based narratives, reviews of significant texts in the field of game studies, and other expansions of academic discourse around the use of games in higher education.
Our Story
Board Gamers Anonymous was founded in 2013 to explore the use of games to build communities through play. Since then, the founders have created hundreds of hours of audio and video recordings exploring current gaming habits, the use of games in diverse spaces, the role of games in academic and commercial discourse, and the way in which games interact with a broad range of communities, within fandom and for general audiences. BGA was founded in 2022 to further explore the role of tabletop board games in higher education.
Our Vision
Board Game Academics (BGA) is a peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to publishing research on the creation, distribution, and participation of board games, broadly considered, from interdisciplinary perspectives. In particular, we are devoted to the historical, cultural, and systemic exploration of games that highlight previously under-researched foci, such as race, gender, nationality, (de)coloniality, ability, sexuality, and class.
We welcome the multidisciplinary and diverse perspectives of those interested in the wide-range of issues related to the ever-broadening field of tabletop gaming, including but not limited to the practical application of gaming within higher-ed spaces, gaming as a form of community building, and critical issues of identity found within the games and their communities.
Our Vision
Publishing research that takes a critical approach to analyzing the role of gaming in society, psychology, pedagogy, and more.
Publishing research that examines critical approaches to the discussion, analysis, creation, pedagogy, participation, and distribution of tabletop games.
Board Game Academics seeks to elevate voices from across the spectrum of academic writing to discuss how board games, tabletop roleplaying games, and other analog gaming experiences can serve as
Get Involved
We welcome a range of critical approaches and diverse voices to explore how games intersect with literary criticism, media studies, writing pedagogy, psychology, career development, gender studies, and other elements of the higher education experience.