This special issue of ToDiGRA gathers some of the best papers presented between 2017 and 2018 at the first three national conferences of the Italian division of DiGRA. The selection is emblematic of the diversity of the contributions received so far. Authors were invited to submit proposals at the end of the third national conference in June 2018. We received a total of 13 proposals, eight of which were invited to submit a full article. The triple-blind peer-reviewing process was used to select a final list of four articles. The selection process was more complex than what would normally be expected in the preparation of a journal issue.
The theoretical framework supporting most of the submissions was not necessarily aligned to the literature, methodologies and questions that can be found in anglophone studies on digital games. On the one hand, knowledge of relevant international literature was considered a prerequisite for being accepted for publication, and on the other, we decided to preserve the originality of those submissions that were drawing on literature and methodologies not typically represented at international DiGRA conferences. The selection was carried with due consideration of various approaches, to find a compromise that could work for both the authors and the expected readers of this issue. Overall, the process involved continuous revisions and rewriting over the course of one year, aimed at preserving the original methodologies and arguments, while establishing a dialogue with the international scholarship.