The Foundations of Applied Software Engineering for Games workshop (FASE4Games’26) aims to share innovative research contributions in software-engineering methods that address the current challenges in game development, including entertainment games, serious games, and gamified applications.

Challenges to be discussed in FASE4Games’26 include, but are not limited to:

  • Artificial intelligence for software engineering applied to games.
  • Software engineering for artificial intelligence in games.
  • Debugging and fault localization applied to games.
  • Distributed and collaborative software engineering for game development.
  • Empirical software engineering applied to games.
  • Human and social aspects of software engineering in game development.
  • Human-computer interaction in games.
  • Mining software repositories for game development insights.
  • Mobile game development.
  • Model-driven engineering applied to games.
  • Parallel, distributed, and concurrent systems in games.
  • Performance engineering for games.
  • Program analysis for games.
  • Program comprehension in game development.
  • Program repair in games.
  • Programming languages for game development.
  • Recommendation systems in games.
  • Requirements engineering for games.
  • Search-based software engineering applied to games.
  • Services, components, and cloud in game development.
  • Software architectures for games.
  • Software engineering education using games.
  • Software evolution in game development.
  • Software processes for games.
  • Software testing for games.
  • Tools and environments for game development.
  • Debugging for games.
  • Software Quality for games.
  • Game design/requirements engineering in games.

Important Dates

  • Papers submission: Feb 25th, 2026
  • Papers notification: Mar 25th, 2026
  • Papers camera-ready: Apr 25th, 2026

Papers Submission

Submissions are accepted as follows:

  • Research papers: 8 pages (including references)
  • Extended abstracts: 5 pages (including references) – free of APC charges (see bellow)

Papers must be submitted electronically through the HOTCRP site: https://fase4games26.hotcrp.com/

Each submission will be reviewed by at least three members of the program committee. The review process will determine if the submission is accepted or rejected.

Submissions will be evaluated based on:

  • Originality
  • Importance of contribution
  • Soundness
  • Evaluation (if relevant)
  • Quality of presentation
  • Appropriate comparison to related work

In addition to declaring topics relevant to their submissions, authors will also be asked to declare the research methods employed. This ensures reviewer expertise in both research methods and topics. For full definitions of the research methods, refer to the SIGSOFT Empirical Standards.

Note: The names and ordering of authors in the camera-ready version cannot be modified from the submitted version.

FASE4Games requires that at least one author of each accepted paper register for and physically attend the FASE4Games workshop to present their results.

As a published ACM author, you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects.

ACM Article Processing Charges (APC)

From https://conf.researchr.org/track/fse-2026/fse-2026-workshops#acm-article-processing-charges-apc

For FSE 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With over 1,800 institutions already part of ACM Open, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 70-75%).

Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the APC Waivers and Discounts Policy. Keep in mind that waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM.

Understanding that this change could present financial challenges, ACM has approved a temporary subsidy for FSE 2026 to ease the transition and allow more time for institutions to join ACM Open. The subsidy will offer:

  • $250 APC for ACM/SIG members

  • $350 for non-members

This represents a 65% discount, funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to help advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period.

Types of contributions (position papers, research papers, short papers, etc. + MANDATORY “extended abstracts”) and their estimated number and page limits. NOTE: Workshops must include an option for submission of “extended abstracts” (limited to five pages or less) and make it explicit that those are free of APC charges. However, for them to be free, the “extended abstract” term should be explicit in the call (and papers should be marked as such by the proceedings chairs). Please note that “short papers” are charged, but “extended abstracts” are not (see https://libraries.acm.org/acmopen/article-types).

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to cristiano.politowski@ontariotechu.ca