Please note that Power Fantasy is not yet ready to accept submissions. A contact method will be listed once an editorial board has been formed.
Power Fantasy seeks original pieces on political game studies from any gaming professionals, as well as others who take the medium seriously.
We are also open to questions, comments, concerns, pitches, and more!
Submission Guidelines
Power Fantasy is open to a variety of formats, including but not limited to essays, commentaries, reviews (e.g., book, game), and interviews. While this tends toward the written word, videos are also welcome, so long as they follow the same rigor as written work featured in the journal. Unfortunately, purely audio submissions (e.g., podcasts) will not be accepted at this time and may be better reformatted as a video.
Some basic criteria are as follows:
- 1500–3000 words / 6–12 minutes for videos.
- Submitted in either .docx or Google Docs format for written pieces. For videos, MP4 (including by Google Drive/etc. link) or private YouTube link will work.
- A suggested title.
- Some form of credentialing. This can range a full resume/CV, a portfolio, a LinkedIn profile, a well-written biography, etc. Note this is only necessary for those who have not published here before.
- This criterion is not meant to gatekeep, but to evaluate an author’s professional contributions to games and play. In fact, there are times where certain voices need elevated, so don’t let this be an obstacle to your submission! You may have something very important to say and we may be interested in housing it.
- Must not exist elsewhere on its own prior to submission here, including being under consideration for publication elsewhere or self-hosted. Note you will maintain ownership over your submission (with obvious permissions given to us for reproduction), but we do seek original content.
- Approachable in writing/speech to a general public but seriously substantive nonetheless.
- The tone must be appropriate. This will be decided on a case-by-case basis for the topic and context.
- For videos, your audiovisual quality is important. This means understandable speech, not too loud or too quiet, editing, etc.
- MLA style. This means a Works Cited section at the end of your piece if citations are used. See this MLA Style Center blog post for more on how to cite a game in MLA.
- No endnotes.
- We have no preference on American or Commonwealth spelling, contractions, or for differences in certain gaming terms (e.g., “videogame” versus “video game”). If there appears to be some consensus, however, we will use that usage.
Understanding Submission Types
Essays
These are your traditional analyses, critiques, theorizations, or other intellectual practices of similar nature. This type will require some form of conversation with other existing texts doing the same kind of work, such as books, articles, videos, etc.
Commentaries
These may be thought of as “opinion” pieces. That is, while they may exist in conversation with other texts, they trade a bit of authority for more freedom in making certain claims or discussing certain topics.
Reviews
Not only book reviews are accepted here, but also game reviews. Note that books and games must be relevant to the journal’s scope; e.g., if you are reviewing a game, the connection to politics in games and play must be clear in your review.
Interviews
If there is someone whose voice you have captured in conversation and that you wish to share here, we are more than happy to share it. You must obtain their clear, written permission for publication here if you do not have it already. Should an interviewee wish to rescind or clarify their interview, keep in mind that we may respect this and thus your piece may be modified or removed.
Others
Power Fantasy is always open to formats beyond these! Just reach out and we can have a conversation about what is possible.
Submission Process
Upon receiving your submission, at least two people will review it: one editor plus either another editor or an affiliated reviewer. They may share it with other team members for their insights as relevant.
We do not perform peer review, in order to keep the time between your submission and its publication/rejection as short as possible so that conversations can be had and insights shared more quickly than traditional academic publishing. Please understand the impact this may have on the authority of your piece and the representation of certain positions, however.
You will be notified of any decision made within a month of submission. We aim to decide quicker than this on average though. Should more time be required on our end for extenuating circumstances, you will be notified of this as soon as possible. We may also send pieces back immediately if you have published with us too recently.
Your submission may be accepted as-is, accepted pending revisions, or rejected. Note that revisions may require more than one round. You will be expected to get these revisions back to us within two weeks. Failure to do so will rescind the acceptance offer outside of extenuating circumstances on your end.
Light editing may be performed on our end, but all changes will be ran by you before your piece goes live. You will retain all original ownership over your piece sans a license provided to us for reproduction. This means you can reshare or repurpose it anywhere after its original publication here, provided the new venue is open to this. You may request an edit to or full removal of a piece at a later date, something which we would seek to have a conversation about before obliging.
A final note: we are unable to offer payment for any submissions. We do not aim to change this in the future. This is due to attempting to stay in that middle ground between academic and public; the conversations started here must be of a serious enough nature to benefit games, play, and community rather than with any financial motive attached. We also could not afford to do so without a source of revenue. Power Fantasy at this time is self-hosted, something we commit to the burden of for similar reasons.