Introduction

GachaCon 2026 brings together game studies, psychology, law, and all researchers from around the world to explore the implications of gacha games on game design, player communities, and regulatory policy, with a spotlight on the Chinese game, Genshin Impact.

Call for Papers

https://tinyurl.com/gachaconcfp

Important Dates

Abstract submission deadline: 14 November 2025
https://tinyurl.com/gachaconsubmit

Notification of acceptance: 28 November 2025

Conference: 12–13 February 2026

Extended Abstract Template

https://tinyurl.com/gachacontemplate

Abstracts may address (but are not limited to) the following topics:

• Genshin Impact
• Gacha games as a genre 
• Game design and storytelling
• Cultural representation (positives and/or negatives)
• Monetisation, including gacha, battle pass, and daily login
• Free-to-play, pay-to-win, and grinding
• Parasocial relationships with in-game characters
• Player practices, including summoning ‘rituals’
• Player communities, including their reaction to various issues
• User-generated content: fanart, cosplay, livestreaming, ‘playbour,’ etc.
• Voice actors: labour strikes and (improper) interactions with players
• Marketing: offline events, social media posts, etc. 
• Video game industry issues

Organisers

Leon Xiao, City University of Hong Kong
Leon is trained in English law and researches video game regulation. He played Genshin Impact since its release but has played far less more recently. Through regulatory complaints, he forced Genshin Impact to duly disclose the presence of gacha mechanics in its ESRB age rating and caused the game’s age rating to be increased from PG to M in Australia.

Johnathan Harrington, Hong Kong Baptist University
Johnathan is a game researcher especially focused on analogue games, game communities, and their intersection with popular culture. While playing Genshin Impact, he liked to spend his time collecting oculi, seelies and of course character pulls – he does not remember the main story at all.

Benjamin Horn, University of Hong Kong
Ben specialises in the study and interpretation of narrative games, drawing strongly from humanistic literary traditions of analysis. He has played hundreds of hours of Genshin Impact, and has fully completed all major quest-lines for the first four regions, as well as all Archon Quests. More recently, he has conducted research into the representation of food in the game from a comparative cultural perspective. His favourite character is Arataki Itto.

Invited speakers

Heather Blakey, The University of Western Australia, Perth
Joleen Blom, Tampere University, Finland
Claudia Fu, University of British Columbia, Canada
Taylor Hardwick, University of Sydney, Australia
Yeonwoo Lee, Yonsei University, South Korea & University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Anh-Thu Nguyen, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan
Yixiang (Zero) Que, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Orlando Woods, Singapore Management University

Art & design: DAWN (@dawv6_)

Presented by School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong