The Publish or Perish Game 2025

Welcome to the chaotic life of academic publishing.

In Publish or Perish, you are a clueless researcher trying to do the one and only thing that matters in your academic life: churning out publications, fast. You will publish useless nonsense, sabotage your colleagues’ research, and provide unhelpful comments, Reviewer 2 style. Your goal is to gain as many citations as possible when the game ends, ideally with your sanity and self-respect intact.

Publish or Perish is a card game where players attempt to publish 5 manuscripts and collect the most citations to win. Using Action cards, players move their own publications along or sabotage the work of other players. After a player publishes 5 manuscripts, the game goes into the Defense round, where players defend their manuscripts and a voting round is held to vote for awards (giving bonus citations). The player with the most citations after the voting, wins.