Paolo Ruffino
Biographic Data
| ID | 660217 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paolo Ruffino |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paolo |
| FAMILY NAME | Ruffino |
| SIGNATURE | RUFFINO P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Liverpool |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7112-9483 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
There is no cure: Paratexts as remediations of agency in Red Dead Redemption 2
Towards the end of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), the main character Arthur Morgan contracts tuberculosis. The videogame is set in the United States in 1899, a time when many died from the respiratory infection. The videogame does not provide a cure for the disease, nor does it show when the contagion happens. It is presented as the consequence of an invisible action. Combining auto-ethnographic analysis with (para-)textual reading…
Special Issue Introduction: Politicizing agency in digital play after humanism
Although digital games offer pleasures of causal clarity – and moral order – much remains unresolved in their texts, paratexts, and practices. The worldly coherence and agential harmony of digital games are not innocent. They cultivate modes of subjectivity in game culture that vindicate masculinist, colonial, and extractivist ways of being in the world. At the same time, games are used by developers, players, and streamers to wrestle with the li…
Deep Games: Addressing Mental Health Through Independent Videogame Development
Game workers and reports on the videogame industry frequently document cases of anxiety, depression, burnout and impostor syndrome. Mental health issues are exacerbated among independent developers and freelancers. The article draws on interviews with four London-based independent videogame developers who have been producing 'deep games' about mental health. The article argues that conceiving, producing and releasing these videogames is understoo…
Game Workers and the Empire: Unionisation in the UK Video Game Industry
This article investigates some of the key debates that have emerged within the nascent union organising project Game Workers Unite, with a specific focus on its UK branch (GWU UK). The analysis is based on a period of participatory observation and a series of interviews with board members of GWU UK. This article evaluates Game Workers Unite (GWU) in relation to other recent attempts at unionising the game industry. It concludes that the strategie…
The End of Capitalism: Disengaging From the Economic Imaginary of Incremental Games
The article investigates how players of the incremental game AdVenture Capitalist write about the end of the game and the end of capitalism with it. The game visually and mechanically represents the economic imaginary of frictionless capitalism, characterized by endless and self-sufficient growth. AdVenture Capitalist has no end and does not require the player’s interaction. The analysis shows that players’ responses to their marginalization from…
Seeking Deep Relations in a Precarious Industry: Addressing Mental Health through Independent Videogame Development
Anxiety, depression, burnout and impostor syndrome are frequently reported among those who work in the videogame industry, and are exacerbated among independents and freelancers. The article draws on interviews with four London-based independent videogame developers who have engaged with the production of videogames about mental health. The article argues that conceiving, producing and releasing these games is understood by their makers as a stra…
Games of Empire Ten Years On
The panel will retrospectively evaluate the significance of the seminal text Games of Empire (2009) for new media and game studies, reflecting on the contribution of autonomous Marxism to the study of digital culture today, as well as the methodological move it performed in tracing continuities and discontinuities between sites of production and play. Each paper will take one or two key concepts from the original book, including Empire, multitude…
Independent Videogames: Cultures, Networks, Techniques and Politics
This study sheds light on the different modes of independence in the Finnish game development scene by putting the focus on two games: Nex Machina (2017) and Baba is You (2017/2019). A contextualizing reading of selected games connects them to their relevant cultural and economic framings. Special focus is placed on funding schemes, production networks, and distribution channels that make these games possible in the first place and shape the form…
Future Gaming: Creative Interventions in Video Game Culture
Paolo Ruffino, Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Lincoln discusses his new book “Future Gaming.” \nPaolo presents a critical take on contemporary game culture, in a talk which encourages us to raise ethical questions on the production of games, and of the events which unfold after their release
Introduction: The Other Caillois: The Many Masks of Game Studies
The legacy of the rich, stratified work of Roger Caillois, the multifaceted and complex French scholar and intellectual, seems to have almost solely impinged on game studies through his most popular work, Les Jeux et les Hommes. Translated in English as Man, Play and Games, this is the text which popularized Caillois' ideas among those who do study and research on games and game cultures today, and which most often appears in publications that at…
Introduction: The Other Caillois: The Many Masks of Game Studies
The legacy of the rich, stratified work of Roger Caillois, the multifaceted and complex French scholar and intellectual, seems to have almost solely impinged on game studies through his most popular work, Les Jeux et les Hommes. Translated in English as Man, Play and Games, this is the text which popularized Caillois' ideas among those who do study and research on games and game cultures today, and which most often appears in publications that at…
Introduction: The Other Caillois: The Many Masks of Game Studies
The legacy of the rich, stratified work of Roger Caillois, the multifaceted and complex French scholar and intellectual, seems to have almost solely impinged on game studies through his most popular work, Les Jeux et les Hommes. Translated in English as Man, Play and Games, this is the text which popularized Caillois' ideas among those who do study and research on games and game cultures today, and which most often appears in publications that at…
Future Gaming: Creative Interventions in Video Game Culture
Paolo Ruffino, Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Lincoln discusses his new book “Future Gaming.” \nPaolo presents a critical take on contemporary game culture, in a talk which encourages us to raise ethical questions on the production of games, and of the events which unfold after their release
Games of Empire Ten Years On
The panel will retrospectively evaluate the significance of the seminal text Games of Empire (2009) for new media and game studies, reflecting on the contribution of autonomous Marxism to the study of digital culture today, as well as the methodological move it performed in tracing continuities and discontinuities between sites of production and play. Each paper will take one or two key concepts from the original book, including Empire, multitude…
Independent Videogames: Cultures, Networks, Techniques and Politics
This study sheds light on the different modes of independence in the Finnish game development scene by putting the focus on two games: Nex Machina (2017) and Baba is You (2017/2019). A contextualizing reading of selected games connects them to their relevant cultural and economic framings. Special focus is placed on funding schemes, production networks, and distribution channels that make these games possible in the first place and shape the form…
Deep Games: Addressing Mental Health Through Independent Videogame Development
Game workers and reports on the videogame industry frequently document cases of anxiety, depression, burnout and impostor syndrome. Mental health issues are exacerbated among independent developers and freelancers. The article draws on interviews with four London-based independent videogame developers who have been producing 'deep games' about mental health. The article argues that conceiving, producing and releasing these videogames is understoo…
Game Workers and the Empire: Unionisation in the UK Video Game Industry
This article investigates some of the key debates that have emerged within the nascent union organising project Game Workers Unite, with a specific focus on its UK branch (GWU UK). The analysis is based on a period of participatory observation and a series of interviews with board members of GWU UK. This article evaluates Game Workers Unite (GWU) in relation to other recent attempts at unionising the game industry. It concludes that the strategie…
The End of Capitalism: Disengaging From the Economic Imaginary of Incremental Games
The article investigates how players of the incremental game AdVenture Capitalist write about the end of the game and the end of capitalism with it. The game visually and mechanically represents the economic imaginary of frictionless capitalism, characterized by endless and self-sufficient growth. AdVenture Capitalist has no end and does not require the player’s interaction. The analysis shows that players’ responses to their marginalization from…
Seeking Deep Relations in a Precarious Industry: Addressing Mental Health through Independent Videogame Development
Anxiety, depression, burnout and impostor syndrome are frequently reported among those who work in the videogame industry, and are exacerbated among independents and freelancers. The article draws on interviews with four London-based independent videogame developers who have engaged with the production of videogames about mental health. The article argues that conceiving, producing and releasing these games is understood by their makers as a stra…
There is no cure: Paratexts as remediations of agency in Red Dead Redemption 2
Towards the end of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), the main character Arthur Morgan contracts tuberculosis. The videogame is set in the United States in 1899, a time when many died from the respiratory infection. The videogame does not provide a cure for the disease, nor does it show when the contagion happens. It is presented as the consequence of an invisible action. Combining auto-ethnographic analysis with (para-)textual reading…
Special Issue Introduction: Politicizing agency in digital play after humanism
Although digital games offer pleasures of causal clarity – and moral order – much remains unresolved in their texts, paratexts, and practices. The worldly coherence and agential harmony of digital games are not innocent. They cultivate modes of subjectivity in game culture that vindicate masculinist, colonial, and extractivist ways of being in the world. At the same time, games are used by developers, players, and streamers to wrestle with the li…
Digital Games and Media (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Media studies (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Game studies (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Politics (4 works)