Paolo Pedercini

Paolo Pedercini (born 1981[1]) is an Italian game designer known for making Flash videogames based on provocative left-wing socio-political points of view, on topics such as labour market flexibility and Queer theory, in explicit opposition with the mainstream video game industry.[2] He is also known under the pseudonym Molleindustria, the name of his website.[3][1] He is known for games such as Queer Power, Faith Fighter and the McDonald's Video Game. The games are often offered as freeware under a Creative Commons license.[4][5]

Paolo Pedercini
Born1981
NationalityItalian
Alma materRensselaer Polytechnic Institute
OccupationVideo game designer
Years active2002–present
Known for
WebsiteOfficial site

Works and activism

In 2003, Pedercini launched Molleindustria, a platform for politically active video games, along with a manifesto. The manifesto described Molleindustria as the "theory and practice of soft conflict – sneaky, viral, guerrillero, subliminal conflict – through and within videogames."[6]

In June 2007 the game Operazione: Pretofilia (Operation: Pedopriest), inspired by the controversial BBC documentary Sex Crimes and the Vatican, was removed from Pedercini's site after a point of order in the Italian Parliament called "Countermeasures to the religions' offences".[7]

In April 2009, Pedercini initially bowed to complaints from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference by removing Faith Fighter from their site,[8] but later put up a new version that gives the player the choice between a full and a censored version. Pedercini has later started producing a mock sequel that sarcastically pretends to promote religious pluralism and tolerance.[9] Both games have since been put back on the website.

In September 2011, Pedercini released a game entitled Phone Story for smartphones that was promptly banned from the Apple iTunes Store.[10] Phone Story focused on what Pedercini considered the "dark side" of smartphone manufacturing. When Apple banned the game, he released the game for the Android market.

For the tenth anniversary of Molleindustria, the original manifesto was translated into English for the first time.[11]

Games
  • Tamatipico (2003) – a game based on the life of a worker. The game was produced in support of the 2003 Italian referendum, which concerned worker rights.
  • Tuboflex (2003) – a game based on the need of human resources vs. the demands of flex work.
  • Orgasm Simulator (2003) – a game based on how women sometimes fake orgasms.
  • Mayday Net Parade (2004) – a virtual parade for May Day, composed of precarious workers.
  • Queer Power (2004) – a game based on how queer people change gender roles in a sexual setting.
  • McDonald's Video Game (2005) – a game based on how the fast food industry works.
  • Operation: Pedopriest (2007) – a game based on the sexual abuse cases of the Catholic Church.
  • Faith Fighter (2008) – a game based on a satirical vision of religious intolerance.
  • The Free Culture Game (2008) – a game based on the struggle between free culture and copyright laws.
  • Oiligarchy (2008) – A game about how the oil industry works, loosely based on the theory of Peak Oil.[12]
  • Every Day the Same Dream (2009) – a game about short existence, alienation, and refusal of labor
  • To My Favourite Sinner (2009)- a co-operative game set in hell.[13] This game was re-released by LA Game Space in 2013.
  • Ergon/Logos (2009) – non-linear visual poetry.
  • Memory Reloaded (2010) – a game based on recent issues in the world.
  • Run Jesus Run (2010) – "The ten second gospel".
  • Leaky World (2010) – a game based on the issues of WikiLeaks.
  • Inside a Dead Skyscraper (2010) – a game about the September 11 World Trade Center attacks.
  • Phone Story (2011) – a game that looks at the hidden world of smartphone manufacturing, in particular relation to the Foxconn suicides.
  • Unmanned (2012) – a game about the life of an unmanned drone pilot. Won the Grand Jury award at IndieCade 2012.[14]
  • The Best Amendment (2013) – a game that counters Wayne LaPierre's argument, made in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, that "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."[15]
  • To Build A Better Mousetrap (2014) - a game that explores rise of automation in the workforce and its effects on workers (and profits).
  • TrademarkVille (2014) – a word guessing game where trademarked words are disallowed. A critique of trademark abuse released in the wake of King's attempt to trademark the word "candy". Co-developed with Mikhail Popov.[16][17]
  • Nova Alea (2016) – A game on the forces that shape cities.
  • A short history of the Gaze (2016) – A visual essay on virtual reality.
  • The Ills of Woman (2018) – a faux Victorian operation game.
  • A Prison Strike (2018) – a game about the 2018 U.S. prison strike.
  • Guilty Smells (2019) – A game where the player takes on the role of a sniffing dog for the Department for the Enforcement of the American Diet.
  • Lichenia (2019) – An open-ended city building game built around sustainability.
  • Democratic Socialism Simulator (2020) – A government simulation game akin to Reigns, aiming to highlight the challenges and obstacles a Bernie Sanders-like presidential administration would face.
  • Green New Deal Simulator (2023) – A deck-building game focused on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions while balancing a budget.

See also

References
  1. "Interview: Paolo Pedercini". GAME VIDEO/ART. A SURVEY. Paolo Pedercini (b. 1981, Italy) lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and teaches an experimental game design class at Carnegie Mellon University. He often works under the project name "molleindustria" producing video games addressing various social issues such as environmentalism, food politics, labor and gender.
  2. J. Patrick Williams, Jonas Heide Smith (2007) The players' realm: studies on the culture of video games and gaming p.247 "these are games that, for example, seek to make trenchant criticisms of ever-more flexible labour markets and to visualise and make playable the claims of queer theory about the mutability of sexual identity, pleasure and desire. Molleindustria explicitly position their work in opposition to the mainstream industry, which they see as having been invaded by global entertainment giants, and position their work alongside broader indymedia movements."}
  3. Grindon, Gavin (2008). Aesthetics and Radical Politics. p. 36. ISBN 9781847189790. Cresswell suggests the two political objectives of Night discourse/culture jamming/guerrilla semiotics are [...]. The 'simple, meaningful graphics' of Molleindustria discussed in this paper, and the similar approaches of scratchware and others53, do much the same in relation to the games industry.
  4. "orgasm-simulator". molleindustry.org. CC BY-NC 3.0 US
  5. "run jesus run". molleindustria.org. CC BY-SA-NC 3.0 US
  6. "Molleindustria Manifesto (2003) – Molleindustria".
  7. "Operation Pedopriest: Banned". ecopolis.org. Archived from the original on 30 April 2009.
  8. "Jesus vs. Mohammed? Video Game Upsets Islamic Group". Fox News. Associated Press. 14 January 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2022.
  9. "Nixed 'Faith Fighter' Game Gets Lovey-Dovey Sequel". Fox News.
  10. Olson, Parmy (15 September 2011). "Infamous Anti-iPhone Game Goes To Android". Forbes. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  11. "Molleindustria Manifesto (2003) – Molleindustria".
  12. Pedercini, Paolo. "Oiligarchy Postmortem". molleindustria.org. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  13. "To my favorite sinner".
  14. Matulef, Jeffrey (12 October 2012). "IndieCade 2012 winners announced, Unmanned takes the top prize". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 28 February 2016. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
  15. Ryan Rigney (5 April 2013). "The Best Amendment Indie Game Takes on the NRA". Wired. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
  16. Tracey Lien (4 March 2014). "Poking fun at trademark disputes with Trademarkville". Polygon. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  17. Martens, Todd (28 February 2020). "The game we didn't know we needed to survive this primary season". LATimes.com. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
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