Journal profile · EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Simulation & Gaming
ISSN 1046-8781 · eISSN 1552-826X · SAGE
Simulation & Gaming: CAS Zone 4 · Education (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 2.2 (journal website); hybrid open access; APC about USD 3,650; review about 176 days (submission to acceptance, publisher); acceptance rate 11.1% (journal website); 41 articles in 2025; indexed in ESCI and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Simulation & Gaming is published by SAGE and is in Zone 4 of Education in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Educational Games and Gamification, Digital Games and Media and Diverse Scientific and Economic Studies, together about 40.2% of its articles. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
For more than five decades, Simulation & Gaming: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Theory, Practice and Research has served as a leading international forum for the exploration and development of simulation/gaming methodologies used in education, training, consultation, and research. It appraises academic and applied issues in the expanding fields of simulation, computer- and internet-mediated simulation, virtual reality, educational games, video games, industrial simulators, active and experiential learning, case studies, and related methodologies. Multidisciplinary in ScopeThe broad scope and interdisciplinary nature of Simulation & Gaming are demonstrated by the wide variety of interests and disciplines of its readers and contributors, who practice in areas such as: business, cognition, communication, decision making, economics, education, educational technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, environmental issues, human resources, international studies, language training, learning theory, management, marketing, medicine, multiculturalism, negotiation, organization studies, peace and conflict studies, policy and planning, political science, project management, psychology, research methodology, sociology, teamwork, and technology. Special Theme Issues & DebatesSimulation & Gaming frequently publishes single-theme Symposium Issues and Special Sections guest-edited by experts in the field. Distinguished SponsorsInternational Simulation and Gaming Association North American Simulation and Gaming Association Rigorous Peer ReviewThis journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).Submit your manuscript today at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sg.
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Editorial board by country: 1 in mainland China (about 2%); most named United States 8, Netherlands 5, Japan 4, Germany 3, Italy 3 (44 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Educational Games and GamificationPsychology21.8%
- Digital Games and MediaSocial Sciences10.3%
- Diverse Scientific and Economic StudiesEconomics, Econometrics and Finance8%
- Complex Systems and Decision MakingDecision Sciences5.4%
- Simulation-Based Education in HealthcareMedicine4.6%
- Human auditory perception and evaluationEngineering4.3%
- Artificial Intelligence in GamesComputer Science4%
- Innovative Teaching Methodologies in Social SciencesSocial Sciences4%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Education Zone 4
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Education | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Education & Educational Research | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Education Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Education | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Education & Educational Research | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
Database indexing
ESCIScopusLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 2.2Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher)
- 3.2Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 4.5LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.57LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.12LetPub ·
- h-index
- 100OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 770OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 2.91OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 0%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 37.29%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 35LetPub ·
- Articles per year (publisher)
- 3Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 1,983 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 33 | 18 | 2 |
| 2025 | 41 | 26 | 49 |
| 2024 | 53 | 38 | 319 |
| 2023 | 43 | 29 | 278 |
| 2022 | 42 | 14 | 478 |
| 2021 | 29 | 13 | 397 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with PubMed · to
Too few articlesOnly 2 articles from the last 24 months carry both submission and acceptance dates, too few for a median
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Figures by source
- Acceptance rate (publisher)
- 11.1%Publisher website ·
- Submission to first decision
- 4 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to acceptance
- 176 daysPublisher website ·
- Acceptance to publication
- 17 daysPublisher website ·
- Peer review
- Double anonymous peer reviewPublisher website
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Hybrid open accessLetPub
A subscription journal in which authors can pay to publish their article open access.
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAlex | USD 3,650 / GBP 2,676 | — | — | |
| Publisher website | Yes, amount not published | — | — |
A hybrid journal charges the APC only when the author chooses open access; publishing under the subscription model is usually free.
Other charges and waivers (author guidelines)
- Other fees
- USD 800
- Submission fee
- No submission fee
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare3 items from the author guidelines
- Abstract
- 200–300 words
- Manuscript length
- ≤ 7,000 words
- Reference style
- APA
Article types accepted10
- case reportPlease carefully review the following guidelines while preparing and submitting your manuscript: Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Research articles. These are …Length not stated
- literature reviewPlease carefully review the following guidelines while preparing and submitting your manuscript: Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Research articles. These are …Length not stated
- meta-analysisPlease carefully review the following guidelines while preparing and submitting your manuscript: Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Research articles. These are …Length not stated
- original researchPlease carefully review the following guidelines while preparing and submitting your manuscript: Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Research articles. These are …Length not stated
- research articlePlease carefully review the following guidelines while preparing and submitting your manuscript: Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Research articles. These are …Length not stated
- research reportPlease carefully review the following guidelines while preparing and submitting your manuscript: Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Research articles. These are …Length not stated
- reviewPlease carefully review the following guidelines while preparing and submitting your manuscript: Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Research articles. These are …Length not stated
- short research reportsShort research reports. These are research articles that summarize pilot studies, usually involving a smaller sample. Limited to two tables and two figures. Wor…Length not stated
- systematic reviewPlease carefully review the following guidelines while preparing and submitting your manuscript: Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Research articles. These are …Length not stated
- theoretical articlesTheoretical articles. A theoretical article may report on new or preexisting principles related to a specific field of knowledge or discipline. These peer-revie…Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAuthorship, Data availability, Publication ethics, Open access, Peer review, Plagiarism, Preprints, Trial registration / reporting guidelines
- Authorship Author contributions
You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please include the Author Contributions heading within your submission after the Acknowledgements section. The information you give on submission will then show under the Author Contributions heading later at the proofing stage.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Data availability Data availability
The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages. Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to: Share your research data in a relevant public data repository Include a data ava…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Publication ethics Ethical considerations
COPE member Model summary
Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved th…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Publishing fees and open access
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal. Figures submitted in color will be published in color in the online version of the journal at no cost. If you wish to have color figures in the printed version, the following fees apply: charges are $800 for first color image in print and $200 for each additional image Optional open access publishing is available for a fee via the Sag…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
Double anonymized peer review Model summary
The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal: Identity transparency: Double-anonymized Reviewer interacts with: Editor Review information published: None Your manuscript will undergo an initial evaluation. If it does not conform to the requirements laid out in these guidelines, it will be returned to you for amendments prior to peer review. Manuscripts may be desk rejec…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Plagiarism Plagiarism
The journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Please read Sage's complete policy on plagiarism and the actions we may take.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Preprints Preprints
Preprints accepted Model summary
The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers. Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission. Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Trial registration / reporting guidelines Clinical trial registration
The journal conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first participant enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- SAGE
- ISSN
- 1046-8781
- Electronic ISSN
- 1552-826X
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗OpenAlex
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Simulation & Gaming
What CAS zone is Simulation & Gaming in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Simulation & Gaming is in Zone 4 of Education, and in Zone 4 of the minor category Education & Educational Research. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 3 of Education. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Simulation & Gaming?
The journal's website gives an impact factor of 2.2; this is the journal's own figure, as LetPub lists none for it; CiteScore 4.5, h-index 100.
How long does peer review take at Simulation & Gaming?
The publisher reports about 176 days (submission to acceptance); the journal's website gives an acceptance rate of 11.1%. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of Simulation & Gaming?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Abstract: 200–300 words; Manuscript length: ≤ 7,000 words; Reference style: APA. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Where are the editorial board members of Simulation & Gaming based?
Of the 44 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 1 (about 2%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are United States (8), Netherlands (5) and Japan (4). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Simulation & Gaming?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Simulation & Gaming is indexed in ESCI and Scopus.
Is Simulation & Gaming open access, and what is the APC?
Simulation & Gaming is a hybrid journal. For open-access publication: APC about USD 3,650.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, Publisher website, OpenAlex; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .