BEYOND PLAYFULNESS: BEYOND VIDEO GAME ENJOYMENT

Matteo Genovesi, Manuel Maximilian Riolo

The growth of the video game medium in recent years has been undeniably significant, and this type of production has quickly established itself in the pantheon of cultural systems, soon becoming a reference point for generations of consumers and creators. However, even today, there is a certain obscurity associated with the fundamental idea that characterizes these products. It is challenging to identify interpretations that distance video games from mere entertainment or from the pure, albeit culturally valuable, ludus. What this collection of essays attempts to offer, without claiming to exhaust the topic, is a sequence of reasoned perspectives on this multifaceted subject under examination.

Art, control, education, empathy, illness, and further, culture, industry, interfaces, communities—there are as many perspectives as there are interpreters, for a discourse that deserves to be at the center of contemporary sociocultural debate. The video game beyond playfulness, as can also be discovered through the contributions in this collection, is not a contradiction in terms; on the contrary, it could be seen as a goal to strive for to better reflect on our contemporaneity and induce a virtuous evolution.

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