Paolo Ruffino is Senior Lecturer in Digital Curation and Computational Creativity in the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College London. In his research, Paolo investigate the meanings and values associated with digital play in our contemporary society.

His latest monograph, Unplayable: Videogames for the Post-Anthropocene (MIT Press 2026), considers what videogame players and makers can teach us about our remaining time on this planet—when both the real world and its simulations no longer function as expected.

Paolo also researches how game engines such as Unity and Unreal are shaping contemporary visual culture, and how they are being used beyond the games industry. This work led to the edited collection Game Engine Culture(s) (Mimesis International 2026), co-edited with Matteo Bittanti (IULM) and Valentino Catricalà (Manchester Metropolitan University).

He is the author of Future Gaming: Creative Interventions in Video Game Culture (Goldsmiths Press, 2018), editor of Independent Videogames: Cultures, Networks, Techniques and Politics (Routledge 2021), and co-editor of Rethinking Gamification (Meson Press 2013). He has published articles and co-edited special issues in journals including Convergence, Games and Culture, Television & New Media and Critical Studies in Media Communication. Before joining King's, he worked at the University of Liverpool, the University of Lincoln, the University of York, Goldsmiths, University of London, and the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana University Lüneburg.

Paolo is one of four founding members of the art collective IOCOSE. Founded in 2006, the group explores how stories about the future of society and technology leave traces in the present. IOCOSE has exhibited at Tate Modern, Jeu de Paume, FACT, Science Gallery Dublin, transmediale, The Photographers' Gallery, Fotomuseum Winterthur, MAMbo, Aksioma and NARS Foundation, among others.

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Videogames, the Anthropocene and ecocritical approaches to interactive media
• Nonhuman and posthuman play
• Game engines, media art and visual culture
• Videogame production, independent game-making and labour organising in the games industry
• Gamification and the culture of play in everyday life.

I am particularly interested in projects that draw on posthumanism, media philosophy, cultural studies and semiotics. I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students working in any of these areas, including practice-based research.

Teaching

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

Selected publications

• Ruffino, P. 2026. Unplayable: Videogames for the Post-Anthropocene. MIT Press.
• Bittanti, M., Ruffino, P., Catricalà, V. (editors) 2026. Game Engine Culture(s). Mimesis International, Milan: Italy.
• 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. 2018. Future Gaming: Creative interventions in video game culture. London and Cambridge (MA): Goldsmiths Press.