My Articles

Here you'll find articles that I wrote. Some are journalistic, others academic. I do try hard to avoid academese, so don't be (too) afraid :)

• Trouble in Super Macho World?, Serious Games Source, 2006. Male and Female characters in Nintendo's world.
• Enemy Dolls, Some ideas about bin Laden dolls.
• When Advergaming backfires, The day Intel forgot about women.
• Have a very Serious Xmas! Some wacky examples of traditional Christmas games from around the world.
• The Little Game that Could, A review of the World Cup Zidane head-butt webgame.
• Serious Games, Serious Oportunities.
• Serious Games And The Japanese Toilet. It's amazing all we can learn from Japanese toilets ;)
• Playing in miniature gardens*, Project Cluster, 2005 (Pdf file, both in Italian and English).
• Playing for the White House: videogames in the current US Presidential Campaign, Interact Magazine, 2004.
• Sim Sin City: some thoughts about Grand Theft Auto 3, Game Studies, 2001. Those were the days... We were young and GTA3 was all fresh and new...
• Ludologists love stories, too: notes from a debate that never took place, 2003 (pdf). The debate did take place in the worst possible conditions. An analysis of a very tiresome topic in an attempt to set the record straight.
• Ideological Videogames: Press left button to dissent, IGDA, 2003.
• Simulation versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology in The Video Game Theory Reader, 2003.
• Videogames of the Oppressed: critical thinking, education, tolerance and other trivial issues. in First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, 2004.
• Videogames of the Oppressed: videogames as a means of critical thinking and debate, 2001. (M.Sc. dissertation, 2003. pdf)
• Rethinking Agency and Immersion: playing with videogame characters, 2001.
  Erratum: Should say "constructionism" instead of "constructivism" (doh!)
• Ludology meets Narratology: Similitude and differences between (video)games and narrative (1999). We need a ludology (theory of games) in order to understand games in general, and videogames in particular. (Also available in Japanese)
• Simulation 101: Simulation versus Representation* (2002). Some of the core ideas on simulation that I later developed in my Masters dissertation.
• Grandmothers are cooler than trolls Game Studies # 1. My review of The Sims.
• Ephemeral games: Is it barbaric to design videogames after Auschwitz?*, 2000. An early reflection on so-called serious games.

(*) These are the only texts provided under (cc). Many others are free to reproduce with attribution (please check on their respective websites for copyright conditions.) Btw, I do think most copyright laws are silly, particularly when dealing with educational texts. Sadly, most book and corporate editors don't think like this.