Who we are

Olivier Mauco is a video game designer and political science researcher. His approach combines academic research, game creation and critical analysis to explore the many facets of this constantly evolving medium.

He holds a doctorate in political science from the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, and has written a thesis on the impact of regulatory policies on video game content. He is recognised for his expertise in analysing the discourses and ideologies of video games and their socio-economic impact. He has published several books, including GTA IV: l’envers du rêve américain and Jeux vidéo hors de contrôle. He regularly appears in the media to analyse video games and their political and ideological content, as well as debates on violence, gaming addiction and socio-economic change. He also teaches video game economics and game design at Dauphine, Sciences Po Paris and Toulouse, and ISART.

He founded Game in Society, an agency dedicated to communications through gaming for private and public players at national and European level, as well as to research into issues such as media education, emotions in democracy and mental health, again through the creation of experimental video games.

Matthieu Blondeau is an expert in European public affairs, specialising in digital technologies, with a background both as an administrator in the European institutions and as a consultant to public and private sector players.

Throughout his career, Matthieu has been driven by the desire to bring institutions closer to everyday players, and to bring citizens closer to institutions. He has been involved in ambitious European projects, in particular supporting local authorities in their bid to become the European Capital of Culture, as well as research groups on opinion and information struggles.

Matthieu has piloted innovative concepts of engagement, particularly around societal and democratic issues, always with a view to mobilising the most affinitive media with the audiences involved, by running event-based communication campaigns (concerts, stand-ups, conferences) within the institutional framework, but also influencer relations, immersive projects such as educational video games, interactive platforms integrating gaming and streaming platforms.

With a background in the humanities, he worked for multinational entertainment companies on titles such as Fifa, The Sims and Crash Bandicoot before teaching at numerous universities and academies, including the New Media Chair at the International Film School of Cuba. He is the author of numerous essays such as “The Art of Engagement” (Hoepli), “GameDesigner”, “Cultural Industry of Video Games”. His tourism and cultural innovation projects such as Father and Son for the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, PlayAlghero for the city of Alghero and MetaDest funded by the European Community have reached millions of “players”/visitors.

He has been game department curator at the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin launching the first permanent collection of video games in a national museum and is currently gaming area coordinator of Lucca Comics & Games, Europe’s largest cultural festival. Among his new projects, the first retrospective exhibition “Amano Corpus Animae” at Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan based on the artworks of Yoshitaka Amano.

Miguel Sicart is a play scholar working at the Center for Digital Play, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His research focuses on understanding the role of play in digital culture, from games to playable experiences. He is the author of The Ethics of Computer Games (2009), Beyond Choices: The Design of Ethical Gameplay (2013), Play Matters (2014), and Playing Software (2014, all with MIT Press).