15 Jun Chapter in “Tourism & the Creative Industries”
About the Book: This book focuses on the theoretical, policy and practice linkages and disjunctures between tourism and the creative industries. There are clear and strong intersections between the sectors, for example in the development and application of new and emerging media in tourism; festivals and cultural events showcasing the creative identity of place; tours and place identities associated with film, TV, music and arts tourism; as well as particular destinations being promoted on the basis of their ‘creative’ endowments such as theatre breaks, art exhibitions and fashion shows.
Chapter 10:
The virtual tourist: the simulated environments and impossible geographies of videogames.
(Michael Salmond and Dr. Jacqueline Salmond)
Abstract –
This chapter will explore ideas of different spaces of tourism as they are manifested within the creative industry of videogames. Virtual spaces are designed within videogames in the same way that physical spaces are designed by tourism promoters. From manufactured wildernesses such as Yellowstone, created environments such as Disney World or the immovable and trapped aesthetic of Venice or Stratford Upon Avon, these geographies are as ‘fake’ and virtual as any digital realm. These spaces are removed from real-world reality and are cultivated to remain in a fixed state for the benefit of tourists. Videogames, too, create an alternative version of reality and thus enable an alternative version of tourism. Through exploring the game-space the player is performing as a tourist and consuming the created landscapes in the virtual world as they would in reality-based spaces.
Videogames as part of the creative industries drives a particular relationship with the real world when impossible or unlikely scenarios are projected onto real environments. The player is immersed in an overlaid universe which explores alternative versions of reality and this allows for a touristic exploration of virtual space. Players can enact touristic behaviors by ‘collecting’ locations, recording game play and accumulating in-game ‘souvenirs’. Many games also include quests as a journey, provide maps and include historical and/or geographical information to enhance the player’s connection to the place. Open-world games reward the players for exploring their environment and have in-built serendipitous moments where a player may encounter something unexpected as they would when exploring a real environment. This chapter will explore several different aspects of videogames as tourism including representations of real environments (ex. Fallout 3 and The Last of Us), fictional spaces (ex. Skyrim and Mass Effect), historical explorations (LA Noir and Assassin’s Creed) and impossible spaces (Katamari Damacy and Mario Galaxy).