ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the capacity of games to create new localities as virtual environments. It argues that video game tourism is fundamentally different from other types of media tourism, since tourism is actually heavily embedded within the structure of these media. The chapter introduces a conceptual and descriptive understanding of game tourism. It analyzes new spaces of tourism as they emerge in relation to new media, such as virtual reality, and to the particular medium of games and play. The chapter relies on studies done on the mediation of tourism and narratives. These studies focus heavily on locality and media, and analyze media places, such as production spaces and narrative spaces connected to media. While entertainment games allow for a touristic gaze or play style, it is equally important to examine the virtual reality games and applications that are increasingly designed for touristic purposes. The chapter shows that game tourism is fundamentally different from other types of media tourism.