Video games are no longer—if they ever were—a simple technological pastime. They are a social environment, a cultural language, an economic infrastructure, a political space. With Gamer Society. For a Sociology of Videogames (Infinito Edizioni, 2025), Emiliano Chirchiano and Alberto Maria De Mascellis propose an approach that is still rarely established in the Italian landscape: treating video games not as marginal objects of custom, but as a fundamental structural phenomenon of contemporary life. Let's look at everything in detail.
A neotenic medium
From the very first pages, the authors introduce a key concept: "mediological neoteny." Video games, despite being over sixty years old, continue to present themselves as a young, ever-changing medium. This seemingly perpetual novelty isn't immaturity, but a structural trait: video games renew themselves because they are intricately intertwined with technological innovation and the evolution of narrative forms. This is precisely the book's strength: it doesn't simply tell the history of the industry, but interprets technical evolution as a cultural transformation.
From military origins to global pop culture
Historical reconstruction occupies a significant portion of the volume, evident from the authors' background and media studies. From the early experiments of the 1950s to the ties with the military industry, up to the arcade era and the domestic revolution of Atari and Nintendo, video games are placed within a broader process of technology transfer and remediation (Bolter and Grusin, 2005).
Particularly interesting is the way the authors demonstrate the continuity between war technologies, simulators, and game development. This isn't a technical detail: it's a sociological point. Video games originate within control and simulation systems and gradually transform into mass-market devices.
Likewise, the section dedicated to the rise of Japan—from Space Invaders to Super Mario Bros.—is not simply a nostalgic celebration, but an analysis of processes of cultural hybridization. The global success of Japanese video games is interpreted as a phenomenon of transculturality: local elements become universal without losing their specificity.
Video games as a social environment
One of the book's strongest contributions concerns the community dimension. Drawing on McLuhan, Jenkins, and theories of participatory culture, Gamer Society emphasizes a crucial point: video games are highly participatory mediums.
It's not just enjoyment, but co-construction. Online communities, modding, shared lore, and multiplayer dynamics transform the player into an active agent. In this sense, video games become spaces for digital re-tribalization : new communities form not around physical proximity, but around shared play practices. The gamer is no longer a marginal or caricatured figure, but a cultural actor embedded in global networks.
Ethics, economics, conflict
The book does not shy away from problematic issues. Ample space is devoted to monetization and free-to-play, platform-based economic models, competitive dynamics and meta-games, gender representation, violence, and deviance. Particularly interesting is the parallel/play on words between the Protestant ethic and the spirit of free-to-play : the logic of performance, accumulation, and optimization is interpreted as a playful translation of values typical of contemporary capitalism.
Here the text becomes more critical: video games are not only creative spaces, but also laboratories for new forms of light labor and invisible exploitation. The economies within games and the logic of permanent engagement raise questions that go beyond the industry.
The Empathy Machine
One of the most evocative sections is dedicated to the possibility of a video game like "Empathy Machine." Through the analysis of authors like Kojima and the idea of conscious gaming, the book explores the medium's ability to address complex social issues and generate ethical reflection.
Here a crucial point emerges: video games can suspend the rules of reality, but they are never neutral. Even in simulated spaces, decisive cultural games are played out. Values, ideologies, and conflicts find a narrative and interactive form in the medium.
Is an introductory manual necessary?
One thing needs to be made clear: Gamer Society is, admittedly, an introductory manual. And this very nature lies in one of its main strengths. The breadth of topics covered—from technological genealogy to online communities, from the ethics of free-to-play to gender issues, and even artificial intelligence—does not aspire to extreme specialization, but rather to the construction of a solid and coherent guidepost.
In an Italian academic context where video game sociology is still struggling to find a systematic place in university curricula, a text of this kind plays a fundamental role: it provides theoretical frameworks, bibliographical references, and interpretative frameworks. It is a tool for access, not an exercise in hyper-specialization.
The choice to maintain a balance between theoretical depth and clarity of exposition makes the volume suitable for both students and scholars in training as well as readers interested in understanding the phenomenon without getting bogged down in specialist technicalities. In this sense, Gamer Society fills a void: it doesn't claim to exhaust the field, but to make it practicable.
Why read it today?
In 2025, video games are one of the leading global cultural industries, surpassing film and music in revenue, shaping transnational communities, and influencing languages, aesthetics, and imaginations. To ignore them would be to misunderstand contemporary society.
Gamer Society offers tools for understanding this landscape without moralizing or naive enthusiasm. It doesn't demonize the medium, but it doesn't idealize it either. It treats it for what it has become: a total cultural device.
And perhaps this is precisely his strongest thesis: if we want to understand the transformations of identity, work, politics, and digital sociality, we must also consider the controller.
References
- Bittanti, M. (edited by) (2017). Machinima: From Video Game to Video ArtMilan: Mimesis Editions.
- Bolter, J. D., & Grusin, R. (2005). Remediation: Competition and Integration between Old and New MediaMilan: Guerini and Associates.
- Huizinga, J. (1967). homo ludensMilan: Il Saggiatore.
- Jenkins, H. (2007). Convergent Culture: When Media Mix and Audiences Matter (it. trans. of Convergence Culture). Milan: Apogee.
- McLuhan, M. (1967). The tools of communicationMilan: Il Saggiatore.
Lecturer in Communications and HR Management. Journalist with a degree in Sociology (cum laude). Editor-in-Chief of Sociologicamente.it.
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