Museum Game Rush: Videogames and Cultural Heritage in Italy

On October 22, 2021, the online event Museum Game Rush was organized by Entertainment Game Apps, moderated by Valentino Nizzo, director of the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia. Samanta Mariotti, archaeologist at the University of Siena, presented CAPI (Collina Accessibile di Poggio Imperiale), a video game based on historical reconstructions at the Archeodromo di Poggibonsi. Maria Elena Colombo, professor at Brera Academy of Fine Arts and author of Musei e cultura digitale, noted that for the first time, educators (including museum professionals) are less digitally skilled than those they teach. Anna Maria Marras, digital humanist at the University of Turin, discussed citizen curation aligned with the Faro Convention. Francesco Toniolo, researcher at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, argued that video games must stop being ancillary to 'high' culture. Andrea Dresseno, president of IVIPRO, cited a 2019 survey where only 5 out of 827 respondents named video games made for Italian museums, versus 600 mentions of Assassin's Creed, suggesting mainstream historical fiction is more effective. The article concludes that museums should prioritize game design over didacticism.