Stefano Gualeni, Ph.D., is an Italian philosopher and

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

who created

videogame Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedback ...

s such as ''

Tony Tough and the Night of Roasted Moths ''Tony Tough and the Night of Roasted Moths'' is a 1999 adventure game developed by Nayma Software. The game's first appearance was in December 1997 in Torino during the multimedia event Saloon.bit at Nayma Expo-Stand and then on March 24, 1998 ...

,'' '' Gua-Le-Ni; or, The Horrendous Parade,'' and '' Something Something Soup Something''. Gualeni is an

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the '' North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is ...

at the Institute of Digital Games of the

University of Malta The University of Malta (, UM, formerly UOM) is a higher education institution in Malta. It offers undergraduate bachelor's degrees, postgraduate master's degrees and postgraduate doctorates. It is a member of the European University Association ...

, where he pursues academic research in the fields of

philosophy of technology The philosophy of technology is a sub-field of philosophy that studies the nature of technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also m ...

game design Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

, virtual worlds research,

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

, and

existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning Meaning most comm ...

. Since 2015, he is a

visiting professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

at the Laguna College of Art and Design of

Laguna Beach, California Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish for "Lagoon") is a seaside resort city located in southern Orange County, California, in the United States. It is known for its mild year-round climate, scenic coves, environmental preservation efforts, and ...

. He is also currently a

visiting researcher In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

at the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies (RCGS) at the

Ritsumeikan University is a private university in Kyoto, Japan, that traces its origin to 1869. With the Kinugasa Campus (KIC) in Kyoto, and Kyoto Prefecture, the university also has a satellite called Biwako-Kusatsu Campus (BKC) and Osaka-Ibaraki Campus (OIC). Tod ...

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ...

, Japan. For a few months in 2019 he was a

at Centre of the Digital Humanities of the

University of Gothenburg The University of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs universitet) is a university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. Founded in 1891, the university is the third-oldest of the current Swedish universities and with 37,000 students and 6000 s ...

, Sweden.

Background

Born in

Lovere Lovere ( Bergamasque: ) is a town and '' comune'' in the province of Bergamo, in Lombardy, northern Italy, at the northwest end of Lake Iseo. The houses in the city have overhanging wooden roofs, typical of Switzerland, combined with the heavy ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, in 1978, Gualeni graduated in 2004 in

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

at the

Politecnico di Milano The Polytechnic University of Milan () is the largest technical university in Italy, with about 42,000 students. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and higher education courses in engineering, architecture and design. Founded in 186 ...

. His final thesis was developed in

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

supported by

ITESM Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) ( en, Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education), also known as Tecnológico de Monterrey or just Tec, is a secular and coeducational private university based in ...

(Tec de Monterrey, Campus Ciudad de Mexico).Stefano Gualeni's CV
/ref> Gualeni was awarded his

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. ...

in 2008 at the Utrecht School of the Arts. In his thesis, he proposed a model for digital

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philosophy of ...

inspired by

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centu ...

existential phenomenology Existential phenomenology encompasses a wide range of thinkers who take up the view that philosophy must begin from experience like phenomenology, but argues for the temporality of personal existence as the framework for analysis of the human condi ...

. He obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy (

and

) at the

Erasmus University Rotterdam Erasmus University Rotterdam (abbreviated as ''EUR'', nl, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam ) is a public research university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th-century humani ...

in 2014. His dissertation, titled ''Augmented Ontologies'', focuses on virtual worlds in their role as mediators: as interactive, artificial environments where philosophical ideas, world-views, and thought-experiments can be experienced, manipulated, and communicated experientially.

Academic work

Gualeni's work takes place in the intersection between

continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a term used to describe some philosophers and philosophical traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of analytic philosophy. However, there is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Prio ...

and the design of virtual worlds. Given the practical and interdisciplinary focus of his research - and depending on the topics and the resources at hand - his output takes the form of academic texts and/or of interactive digital experiences. In his articles and essays, he presents computers as instruments to prefigure and design ourselves and our worlds, and as gateways to experience alternative possibilities of being. In 2015, Gualeni released the book
Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools: How to Philosophize with a Digital Hammer
' with

Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...

. Inspired by post-phenomenology and by

, the book attempts to answer questions such as: will experiencing worlds that are not 'actual' change our ways of structuring thought? Can virtual worlds open up new possibilities to philosophize? His 2020 book with Daniel Vella
''Virtual Existentialism: Meaning and Subjectivity in Virtual Worlds''
engages with the question of what it means to exist in virtual worlds. Drawing from the tradition of

, it introduces the notion of 'virtual subjectivity' and discusses the experiential and existential mechanisms by which can move into, and out of, virtual subjectivities. It also includes chapters that specifically leverage the work of Helmuth Plessner, Peter W. Zapffe,

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialist, existentialism (and Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter ...

and Eugen Fink to think through the existential significance of the virtual. His contributions to the edited volumes ''Experience Machines: Philosophy in Virtual Worlds'', ''Towards a Philosophy of Digital Media'', and ''Perspectives on the European Videogame'' similarly focus on the experiential and existential effects and possibilities disclosed by virtual technologies. One of the central themes of Gualeni's work revolves around the fact that the history of philosophy has, until recently, merely been the history of written thought. He argues that we are, however, witnessing a technological shift in how philosophy is pursued, valued, and communicated. In that respect, Gualeni advances the claim that digital media can constitute an alternative and a complement to our almost-exclusively linguistic approach to developing and communicating thought. He considers virtual worlds to be philosophically viable and advantageous in contexts like thought experiments (where we can objectively test and evaluate possible courses of action and corresponding consequences), in the case of philosophical inquiries concerning non-actual state of affairs, and for research into non-human phenomenologies.

Books

Monographic books

* Gualeni, S. & Fassone, R. 2022. ''Fictional Games: A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play''. London (UK):

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

. * Gualeni, S. & Vella, D. 2020. ''Virtual Existentialism: Meaning and Subjectivity in Virtual Worlds.'' Basingstoke (UK): Palgrave Pivot. * Gualeni, S. 2015. ''Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools: How to Philosophize with a Digital Hammer.'' Basingstoke (UK):

Palgrave MacMillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...

Book chapters

* Gualeni, S. & Vella, D. 2021
“Existential Ludology and Peter Wessel Zapffe”
In Navarro-Remesal, V. & Pérez-Latorre O. (eds.) ''Perspectives on the European Videogame'', 175-192. Amsterdam (The Netherlands): Amsterdam University Press. *Gualeni, S. 2019
“Virtual World-Weariness: On Delaying the Experiential Erosion of Digital Environments”
In Gerber, A. and Goetz, U. (eds.) ''The Architectonics of Game Spaces: The Spatial Logic of the Virtual and its Meaning for the Real'', 153–165. Bielefeld (Germany): Transcript. * Gualeni, S. 2018
“A Philosophy of ‘DOING’ in the digital”
In Romele, A. and Terrone, E. (eds.), ''Towards a Philosophy of Digital Media'', 225–255. Basingstoke (UK):

. * Gualeni, S. 2017
“VIRTUAL WELTSCHMERZ: Things to keep in mind while building experience machines and other tragic technologies”
In Silcox, M. (ed.), ''Experience Machines: The Philosophy of Virtual Worlds'', 113–136. London (UK): Rowman and Littlefield International. * Gualeni, S. 2015
“Playing with Puzzling Philosophical Problems”
In Zagalo, N. and Branco, P. (eds.). ''Creativity in the Digital Age''. Springer Series on Cultural Computing, XIV, 59–74. London (UK): Springer-Verlag.

Playable academic works

Stefano is a philosopher who designs games

videogames Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedbac ...

and a game designer who is passionate about philosophy. Although his academic work largely takes the form of texts, he also designs virtual experiences that have the specific objective of disclosing thought experiments and ideas in ways that are interactive and negotiable (and perhaps even playful).Self-reflexive videogames: observations and corollaries on virtual worlds as philosophical artifacts
/ref> The following are part of his ongoing 'playable philosophy' project: *
Doors (the game)
' (2021): a weird, postmodern

point and click Point and click are the actions of a computer user moving a pointer to a certain location on a screen (''pointing'') and then pressing a button on a mouse, usually the left button (''click''), or other pointing device. An example of point and c ...

adventure videogame about how objects (and doors in particular) are represented within

*
"HERE"
' (2018): a mock- JRPG playfully invites to reflect on how many types of 'here' co-exist in a virtual world *'' Something Something Soup Something'' (2017): a short first-person adventure videogame about analytical definitions and family resemblances *
Necessary Evil
' (2013): a self-reflexive game about the centrality of player-experience in videogame design Other playable academic works: *
Construction BOOM!
' (2020) a strategic 2-player tile-laying game meant as a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...

take on the unrestrained residential construction in Malta. The game was a finalist for

SaltCON SaltCON is the largest Board Game Convention in Utah held annually in Layton at the Davis Conference Center with the "aim of bringing people together with games." The event is family friendly, and focuses on hobby and designer board games. ...

's 2021 Ion Award in the Strategy Category. *
CURIO
' (2021): a free, playful toolkit for primary school students to be used in class, part of a 3-year research project funded by the

Erasmus+ Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' was a ...

program

Commercial titles released as game designer

* '' Gua-Le-Ni; or, The Horrendous Parade'' (2011) (

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operati ...

) * ''Prezzemolo in una Giornata da Incubo'' (2007) ( DVD TV game) * '' Tony Tough 2: A Rake's Progress'' (2006) ( PC) * ''Midway Classics 2'' (2006) ( GBA) * ''Midway Classics 1'' (2006) ( GBA) * ''Dangerous Heaven'' (2005) ( DVD TV game) * '' Prezzemolo in una Giornata da Incubo'' (2003) ( PC) * ''

'' (1997) ( PC) * ''

Mikro Mortal Tennis Mikro may refer to: * Mikro (author), pseudonym of South African author Christoffel Hermanus Kühn (1903–1968) * Mikro (Greek band), a Greek electronic music group formed in 1998 * ''Mikro'' (gastropod), a genus of sea snails See also * * * Mi ...

'' (1996) (

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...

)

Other game industry credits

*Stefano is listed in the 'extra credits' of the 2013

Independent Games Festival The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, ...

(IGF) 'Student Showcase finalist' videogame ''ATUM'' for having acted as project supervisor and game design consultant. *Stefano designed ''Necessary Evil'', a small, critical videogame developed together with Dino Dini, Marcello Gòmez Maureira and Jimena Sànchez Sarquiz. The game was presented at the 2013

Digital Games Research Association Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) is a nonprofit international learned society whose work focuses on game studies and associated activities. DiGRA was formally established in 2003 in Finland. It is a leading academic organization in th ...

conference in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,71 ...

as an example of the meta-reflexive and critical potential of the medium. *Stefano is listed in the credits of the 2012 action-adventure videogame ''

The Unfinished Swan ''The Unfinished Swan'' is an adventure video game developed by Santa Monica Studio and Giant Sparrow and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3 in October 2012. The game starts with a completely white space in which the ...

'' (

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

, developed by ''

Giant Sparrow Giant Sparrow is an American independent video game company based in Santa Monica, California, led by creative director Ian Dallas. Its first game, '' The Unfinished Swan'', was released in 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and 2014 for PlayStation 4. T ...

'') for having tested early versions of the game and having provided design-related feedback. *Gualeni appears in the credits of Playlogic Entertainment's 2009

hack-and-slash Hack and slash, also known as hack and slay (H&S or HnS) or slash 'em up, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat with melee-based weapons (such as swords or blades). They may also feature projectile-based weapons as well (such as ...

videogame '' Fairytale Fights'' (for

and

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

) for having helped with quality assurance recruiting and training. *Stefano is thanked in the credits of the

''EXP'' for having helped with the structuring of the game concept and having acted as project supervisor. ''EXP'' received honorable mention in the 2011

Student Showcase. *Stefano is in the 'special thanks' section of the credits of the videogame ''Chewy!'' for having provided

guidance. ''Chewy!'' was honored with the 'Best Design' award ($25,000) at the 2011 Independent Propeller Awards at the

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, ...

(SXSW) festival in Austin,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

.2011 Independent Propeller Award winners announced

External links

Stefano Gualeni's personal websiteProf. Stefano Gualeni's profile at the University of MaltaThe website of the Institute of Digital Games at the University of MaltaA selection of Gualeni's articles and publicationsThe website for the free, philosophical videogame ''NECESSARY EVIL''''Something Something Soup Something'': playable philosophyThe website for the free, philosophical videogame ''HERE''''Construction BOOM!'' A satirical tile-laying board game free to print-and-playThe official website for ''CURIO'', the free, playful toolkit to stimulate curiosity in primary school students''Doors (the game)'': a playable philosophical essay

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gualeni, Stefano Italian video game designers Video game designers Video game researchers Philosophers of technology 1978 births Living people Italian designers Polytechnic University of Milan alumni Utrecht School of the Arts alumni Erasmus University Rotterdam alumni People from Lovere University of Malta academic personnel Maltese academics