The huge spread of gaming, for greater growth in audience development in museums, has enormous positive potential and is part of the museum’s duties and its fundamental mission; mission which, as already said, has been transformed over time to keep up with the digital revolution underway and has led to a transition from a museum as an institution that deals only with conversation to a user-centered museum.

Gamification, like other digital technologies, plays a primary role and instead of being simple tools for communication or transmission of messages, they are vehicles for audience participation and involvement. Video games then facilitate interaction between gamers (players) belonging to each generation and museum who consequently must try to attract a segment of the public that is difficult to involve both for reasons relating to age and for the activation methods. These typical gaming tools, equipped with immersive features that can be combined with virtual or augmented realities, can be considered effective and efficient for producing a type of education, entertainment which has elements of storytelling and interactivity. Consequently, the player, by repeating the same actions in the game sessions, improves learning.

Cases that have been analyzed, such as that of the MANN in Naples and the V&A in London, have shown (in the case of the MANN) that the video game can be played outside the museum or build (in the case of the V&A in London) a one-to-one relationship between man / user and cultural asset, leading him to discover the secrets of the various collections kept inside with a focus on the protagonists who “inhabit” the museum.

In conclusion, the museum must have the courage and the ability to redefine the boundaries of its communication, adopting the new possibilities offered by the contemporary world, without fear of ruining the study and conservation activities of the collections and its own educational vocation, because they are elements that they define the cultural institution as such.