Do players believe they can learn through digital games?

In the last two decades digital games (DG) have acquired more and more relevance in everyday life. Today the effects of the wide diffusion of digital games among laypersons represent a main fi eld of interest in the study of education and learning in a long life perspective. Literature provides evidences in conceiving DG as optimal learning environments, instead of being a simple leisure providing no special cognitive, emotional or social advantage. This paper focuses on the players’ implicit theories on DGs, and how these theories impact on the learning process. Our main question concerns the degree of awareness of the players: do they perceive DGs as a learning opportunity? Are they aware of which soft skills they develop in their experience? Finally, are such skills perceived as transferable? A semi-structured questionnaire, specifi cally designed for this study was administered to a sample of 160 participants: 70 Adults (18-30 yrs. old) and 90 Children (8-15 yrs. old). Results show that participants seem to be aware of the positive impact of DGs on their skills, and which ones are developed. Regardless of age, the perceived skills improvement is focused upon four main domains: visuomotor, cognitive, motivational, social skills.