Registration for in-person attendance is now closed. Online registration is still open. Please click here to register. Walk-ins will be accepted.
Ticket sales for the Conference Reception Dinner are now closed.
The full 3-day conference programme is here.
Monday 1 to Wednesday 3 September 2025.
Building 80, Melbourne City Campus, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
In person and online via Microsoft Teams (requires registration).
Replaying Japan 2025, the 13th International Japan Game Studies Conference, focuses broadly on Japanese game culture, education, and industry. It aims to bring together a wide range of researchers and creators from many different countries to present and exchange their work.
Hosted this year by RMIT Games, Digital Design discipline, School of Design, RMIT University, organised in collaboration with the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies (RCGS), the University of Alberta, the University of Delaware, Bath Spa University, DiGRA Japan, Liège Game Lab, l’Université de l’Ontario français and Baruch College.
For further information about Replaying Japan, please visit replaying.jp and rcgs.jp.
For more information about RMIT's Bachelor of Design (Games) program, please visit RMIT Games' graduate showcase.
The main theme of the conference this year is “Homebrew: hobbyist games, hacks and (other) homegrown activities.” Here, we conceptualise homebrew in the broadest sense possible, from unsanctioned (mis)uses of proprietary hardware to house-rule-driven riffs on preexisting games.
We encourage submissions that engage with existing homebrew scholarship. Such as historical accounts charting the early adoption of digital technologies (Swalwell 2021; Kobayashi & Koyama 2020), examinations of homebrew’s significance in community formation (Švelch 2013), work that explores the tensions between commercial and amateur game development (Keogh 2023; Vanderhoef 2017) and comparisons between different localised development contexts (Fiadotau 2019), for example.
However, we also encourage submissions promoting a broader understanding of homebrew as a local, social, and community-oriented homegrown activity. This includes, but is not limited to, closely related fan activities such as ROM hacking, speedrunning, and modding, as well as other transgressive and subversive forms of play, including house-rule implementations, translations, and other interpretations and adaptations of games and gaming technologies. We also welcome submissions on related topics currently underrepresented within extant games scholarship.
We also invite papers on other topics relating to games and game cultures in East Asia and the Global South, digital narratives, artificial intelligence and education from the perspectives of humanities, social sciences, business, or education.
RMIT Games, Digital Design discipline, School of Design, College of Design & Social Context, RMIT University
Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.