We talk to Paolo Pedercini about game curation, game-adjacent art, game hacks, Paolo’s Nova Alea, turism, Atmosfear, and the history of Monopoly.
We talk to Paolo Pedercini (Molleindustria) about his “Invisible Cities” games and his arcade/gallery project LIKELIKE. We also discuss Porko’s peculiar VHStanciero, a hacked version of the Argentine board game El Estanciero to be played alongside a custom VHS tape.
We talk about game curation, politics, economics, artgames, SimCity, the Anthropocene, Monolpoly, and the only real video games.
In August of last year, Matajuegos sat to chat with Paolo Pedercini (of Molleindustria) about videogames and art and politics, resulting in a conversation we divided in four parts. We already published the first, second, and third ones. This is the fourth and last one, where we talk about Paolo’s youth, his first experiences playing videogames and analyzing them critically, the evolution of his political thought, and the stupidity of bees.
Santiago Franzani: So, about you. Did you grow up playing games, is it something that is part of yourself?
Paolo Pedercini: Yeah, I played games, started with Nintendo. Actually Continue reading Interview with Paolo Pedercini (Part 4 of 4)
In August of last year, Matajuegos sat to chat with Paolo Pedercini (of Molleindustria) about videogames and art and politics, resulting in a conversation we divided in four parts. We already published the first, second, and fourth ones. This is the third one, where we talk about the industry, the indie side, experimentation, and representation of broken systems.
Santiago Franzani: Do you make any difference between if you are indie or if you are industry, or there is something that you can say that, OK, this is the opposite, or you can gather all together to think the same way?
Paolo Pedercini: Um…
SF: Hard question?
PP: Yeah, it’s hard. When I was in Italy, Continue reading Interview with Paolo Pedercini (Part 3 of 4)
In August of last year, Matajuegos sat to chat with Paolo Pedercini (of Molleindustria) about videogames and art and politics, resulting in a conversation we divided in four parts. We already published the first, third, and fourth ones. This is the second one, where we talk about metaphors for tactical media, and the kind of audience it can reach.
Santiago Franzani: You use the term “propaganda” when describing your games sometimes, or “contra-propaganda”. Could you explain the role of propaganda in your projects, what does it mean?
Paolo Pedercini: I think I was talking about it last night. I mentioned propaganda because I started a party which was not a mainstream party at all, it was like five percent representation type of party. So the first game was made as part of a promotion for Continue reading Interview with Paolo Pedercini (Part 2 of 4)
In August of last year, Paolo Pedercini came to Buenos Aires to give a talk and a workshop at Media Party 2016, a free conference about the “future of media”, with special attention to advances in tech.
We at Matajuegos already translated texts of his, wrote about his project Molleindustria of subversive games, and have admired his work for years, so we asked him if he had a few hours to sit with us and talk about videogames and art and politics.
The resulting conversation was transcribed, cut, and divided in four parts. We already released the second, third, and fourth ones. This is the first one, where we talk about the origin of Molleindustria, its changes over time, and the importance of expressive systems.
Santiago Franzani: What’s the origin, what’s the meaning of “soft industry” (molle industria) actually?
Paolo Pedercini: The title was like a reference to the industrialization or post-Fordization of the industry. Continue reading Interview with Paolo Pedercini (Part 1 of 4)
…we can imagine ways to fix Monopoly – either rewarding players who are behind to keep them within a reasonable distance of the leaders, or making progress more difficult for rich players. Or course – this might impact the game’s ability to recreate the reality of monopoly practices – but reality isn’t always “fun”.
MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research
Hunicke, LeBlanc y Zubek, 2004
Game criticism always goes back to the question of what’s the purpose of games. The answer has to be complex because not every game has the same goal, and different players look for different things (sometimes in the same games).
For common sense, there is no complexity to it: the purpose of all games is to produce fun, and the player is always looking for new ways to escape from their mundane reality. Sooner or later one encounters different forms of this escapist idea as a justification for criticism being unnecessary, since criticism often explores the juncture where games and reality are more closely related. Criticism is then left in the awkward position of arguing that many games couldn’t care less if their players are having fun, which is true yet counterintuitive.
Continue reading The Real Escapist Was Houdini: Molleindustria and Games for Facing Reality