Molleindustria

Molleindustria is an Italian guerrilla semiotics and culture jamming website[1] that produces flash videogames based on provocative left-wing socio-political points of view, like on topics like labour market flexibility and Queer theory, in explicit opposition with the mainstream video game industry.[2] They feature games like Queer Power, Faith Fighter and the McDonald's Video Game. The games are often offered as freeware under a Creative Commons license, CC BY-NC-SA or CC BY-NC.[3][4]

Molleindustria
Type of site
Political flash games
URLhttp://www.molleindustria.org
LaunchedDecember 2003
Tamatipico screenshot
Free culture game
Oiligarchy screenshot
Run jesus run title screen

Works and activism

In June 2007 the game Operazione: Pretofilia (Operation: Pedopriest), inspired by the controversial BBC documentary Sex Crimes and the Vatican, was removed from the site after a point of order in the Italian Parliament called "Countermeasures to the religions' offences".[5]

In April 2009, Molleindustria initially bowed to complaints from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference by removing Faith Fighter from their site,[6] but later put up a new version that gives the player the choice between a full and a censored version. Molleindustria has later started producing a mock sequel that sarcastically pretends to promote religious pluralism and tolerance.[7] Both games have since been put back on the website.

In September 2011, Molleindustria released a game entitled Phone Story for smartphones that was promptly banned from the Apple iTunes Store.[8] Phone Story focused on what Molleindustira considered the "dark side" of smartphone manufacturing. When Apple banned the game, Molleindustria released the game for the Android market. All the funds raised from the game were donated, and the game is now available for free online.

List of Molleindustria games

See also

References

  1. Grindon, Gavin (2008) Aesthetics and Radical Politics p.36 "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."
  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. orgasm-simulator on molleindustry.org '"CC BY-NC 3.0 US"
  4. run jesus run on molleindustria.org "CC BY-SA-NC 3.0 US"
  5. Operation Pedopriest: Banned Archived 30 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine on ecopolis.org
  6. Jesus vs. Mohammed? Video Game Upsets Islamic Group on foxnews.com
  7. Nixed 'Faith Fighter' Game Gets Lovey-Dovey Sequel
  8. Olson, Parmy. "Infamous Anti-iPhone Game Goes To Android". Forbes. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  9. 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.
  10. Ryan Rigney (5 April 2013). "The Best Amendment Indie Game Takes on the NRA". Wired. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
  11. Tracey Lien (4 March 2014). "Poking fun at trademark disputes with Trademarkville". Polygon. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  12. 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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