10th International Workshop on Games and Software EngineeringGAS 2026

The growing adoption of gameful experiences make their development increasingly complex due to, for example, the number and variety of users, goals, potential mission criticality, and their inherent interdisciplinary nature. This complexity is exasperated by current limitations in theoretical grounding and methodologies to engineer the intended solutions. To help address this complexity, the ICSE 10th International Workshop on Games and Software Engineering (GAS 2026) seeks to highlight the opportunities and challenges involved in emerging trends and issues related to the development of gameful systems (entertainment games, serious games, and gamified applications). The workshop provides a forum to explore issues that crosscut the software engineering and game engineering communities. This on-going workshop series is co-hosted with the premier conference series on Software Engineering research: the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering.

Goals

The goals of GAS 2026 are to:

• Bring together the greater communities of Software Engineering and Game Engineering in a highly interactive programme that encourages discussion and scholarly debate from interdisciplinary perspectives. The programme includes keynotes, research presentations, and a lively panel discussion.
• Identify and explore emerging opportunities, research challenges, costs, and benefits for entertainment games, serious games, and the gamification of traditional (non-game) applications and activities.
• Explore advanced technologies (e.g., AI, HCI/CHI, UX, assessment, automation) that are essential in the development of gameful applications.
• Generate a new research agenda, identify topics of interest for this community, and how future workshops and social media groups may explore these topics.

Topics of Interest

The GAS 2026 workshop welcomes submissions addressing topics at the intersection of software engineering and entertainment games, serious games, and gamification such as: - engineering activities (requirements engineering, architecture, design, testing, playtesting) tailored for gameful systems. - umbrella activities (adherence to standards (e.g., Code of Ethics), build management, configuration management, lifecycle processes (e.g., Agile, DevOps), traceability) tailored for gameful systems. - AI in game development and game play. - automated, adaptable game development and game play. - competitions (e.g., game jams). - data analytics and visualisations. - domain specific languages and formal methods for games. - emerging approaches for testing games. - games in the metaverse and virtual environments. - HCI/CHI methods and technologies (AR/VR/MR, wearable computing for games). - maintenance and evolution of games. - metrics, biometrics for game development and game play. - model based representations, analyses, and transformations. - procedural content generation. - QoS properties (e.g., accessibility, privacy, usability, user experience). - qualitative and quantitative impact evaluation methods for games. - re-use in games (e.g., franchises, modding, product lines). - software engineering education and training. - tools, infrastructure, and services.

Call for Papers

Games now go beyond entertainment, serving as tools for engagement, learning, and impact. This includes serious games for education, health, and sustainability, and gamification, which applies game elements to influence behavior in areas like business and mobility.

The rise of gameful systems in critical domains brings challenges in scalability, usability, interoperability, and security, alongside the need for engaging experiences—further compounded by fragmented practices and diverse stakeholder needs.

Advances in Software Engineering for Digital Games tackle these challenges via innovations in architecture, DevOps, testing, and AI-assisted design. Industry adoption of analytics and adaptive systems to enhance gameplay highlights the need for closer collaboration between academia and industry.

GAS 2026 aims to unite software engineering and game development communities to explore emerging trends, share practices, and build the foundations for next-generation gameful systems.

The main goals of GAS 2026 are to:

• Foster collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and developers in Software and Game Engineering, enabling key discussions.
• Identify and analyze challenges and innovations in developing entertainment and serious games, and gamified applications.
• Explore how modern SE methods support scalable, secure, and sustainable gameful systems for real-world impact.
• Promote a shared R&D agenda by exposing open problems, future directions, and fostering collaboration via workshops and community platforms.

Topics of Interest

GAS 2026 welcomes submissions on the evolving intersection of software engineering and digital games—including entertainment, serious, and gamified applications—with emphasis on novel methods, technologies, and interdisciplinary approaches to address challenges in academic and industrial contexts. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Software engineering for games: Requirements, architecture, testing, verification, validation, and automated playtesting.
• Lifecycle and Process Innovations: DevOps pipelines, CI/CD for games, agile workflows, traceability, and ethical compliance.
• Adaptive and personalized game development and gameplay experiences, including player modeling and real-time adaptation.
• AI in game engineering: procedural generation, NPC behavior modeling, tutoring systems, and AI-assisted code/content design.
• Use of biometric data and physiological feedback (e.g., EEG, eye tracking, GSR) to improve user experience and game evaluation.
• Industrial practices and ecosystems: workflows, pipelines, and best practices used by studios in production.
• Competitions and co-design events: game jams, hackathons, and sprints for rapid prototyping.
• Data analytics and visualization: telemetry, behavior modeling, A/B testing, and large-scale analysis of gameplay data.
• Formal methods and DSLs for designing, simulating, and analyzing game mechanics and player interactions.
• Game evolution and maintenance: modding, product lines, backward compatibility, and sustained community engagement.
• Metrics and quality models: user experience (UX), accessibility, performance, fairness, and ethical gameplay indicators.
• Model-driven game development: representations, analysis, and transformation techniques for reusable and scalable designs.
• Human-in-the-loop and co-creative game development tools that support joint human-AI creation and testing.
• Infrastructure, platforms, and tools: support for scalable multiplayer, XR, cloud gaming, and microservice architectures.
• Education and training: Games and gamification in SE education, and SE for game-based learning systems.

Submission Guidelines

We will accept the following types of submissions:

• Long Papers (e.g., research papers): max. 8 pages.
• Extended Abstracts (e.g., demos, position statement): 5 pages.

The submission formatting instructions are available at:
https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template (LaTeX and Word formats).

All workshop papers should be submitted electronically in PDF format through HotCRP

Submissions will be desk-checked to ensure they meet the requirements (e.g., page limitations, format) and are within the scope of the workshop. A single-blind review process will be used.

Accepted papers will be published in the workshop proceedings, officially dated when released in the ACM Library — up to two weeks before the first day of ICSE 2026.
The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. As ACM in January 2026 enters a fully open access publishing model, long papers require the payment of Article Processing Charges (APC). Extended abstracts are free of APC but they will be explicitly tagged as extended abstracts in the digital libraries.

As ACM will transition to a fully open access publishing model in January 2026:

• Long papers require the payment of Article Processing Charges (APC).
• Extended abstracts are free of APC, but they will be explicitly tagged as extended abstracts in the digital libraries.

If you have any questions or wonder whether your submission is in scope, please contact the co-organizers by e-mail:
icse.gas.workshop.2026@gmail.com