Paolo Ruffino is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Curation and Computational Creativity in the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College. He is also Postgraduate Research lead for the 2024/25 academic year.

He is currently working on a new monograph on videogames and post-Anthropocene imaginaries. He is also collaborating to a project on the impact of videogame engines, such as Unity and Unreal, on our contemporary visual culture.

Before joining King's College, Paolo worked at the University of Liverpool, the University of Lincoln, the University of York, Goldsmiths, and the Centre for Digital Culture at Leuphana University in Germany.

Paolo is also one of the four founding members of the artist group IOCOSE. The collective investigates how the narratives about the future of society and technology leave traces in the present. Founded in 2006, IOCOSE has exhibited at major artistic and cultural institutions such as Tate Modern (2011), Photographers Gallery (2018, 2016), FACT (2012), Transmediale (2013, 2015), MAMbo (2018), Fotomuseum Winterthur (2017), Science Gallery (2012), Jeu de Paume (2011), NARS Foundation (2024), Aksioma (2021).

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

• Videogames, the Anthropocene, and eco-critical engagement with interactive media
• Videogame engines, media arts and 3D aesthetics
• Nonhuman and posthuman play
• Videogame production, independent game-making and unionisation in the games industry

My research is concerned with how power and control are negotiated and challenged by players, game-makers, and theorists through digital games. I am currently working on a new monograph and a series of articles on the significance of digital entertainment in the Anthropocene. I am also researching the impact of videogame engines such as Unity and Unreal on our contemporary visual culture. I am particularly interested in approaches coming from studies on posthumanism, media philosophy, cultural studies and semiotics.

I have worked with videogame developers and produced research on independent game-making and unionisation in the games industry. I have also explored the gamification of life and wellness, and the use of videogames in serious contexts.

Teaching

I am currently involved in modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level on digital play, digital culture and media studies. In the past I have been designing and teaching modules on cultural studies, game studies and media arts.

Selected publications

• Ruffino, P. 2022. There is No Cure: Paratexts as remediations of agency in Red Dead Redemption 2. Convergence 28(2): 345-358.
• Ruffino, P. 2021. Workers’ Visibility and Union Organizing in the UK Videogames Industry. Critical Studies in Media Communication 39(1): 15–28.
• Ruffino, P. (editor) 2021. Independent Videogames: Cultures, Networks, Techniques and Politics. London: Routledge.
• Ruffino, P. 2019. The End of Capitalism: The economic imaginaries of incremental games. Games and Culture 16(2): 208-227.
• Ruffino, P. 2018. Future Gaming: Creative interventions in video game culture. London and Cambridge (MA): Goldsmiths/MIT Press.