Independent Game Development (Paolo Ruffino)
This research project seeks to analyse the current forms and geographic specificities of independent game development. The main concern of my research is to evaluate how developers frame their independent subjectivity through a series of discursive performances, how the ethos of independence is enacted and constructed via their work, and the mixed meanings of friendship and competition given to the contexts of networking and collaboration (such as festivals and game jams). What is at stake when making claims of autonomy, self-management, and creative control? Is there still room for independence, in a production context where short-term contracts, individualism, and financial risks are considered necessary to be involved in game development?
Non-Human Gaming (Paolo Ruffino)
This speculative research project looks at different forms of automated and non-human gaming. It includes games that are made by AI and algorithms, games that are played by non-human actors, idle and incremental games that play by themselves, artistic creations and live game performances where humans are involved as spectators, or not at all. Are video games preparing for the imminent and inevitable arrival of the Post-Anthropocene? My concern is to highlight the weirdness and creepiness, the irony and spoofs, the paradoxes and contradictions of video games made by no one and/or for no one.