Traveling through Video Games

Tom van Nuenen

ISBN 10: 1032519509 / ISBN 13: 9781032519500

Published by Routledge, 2025

About this Item

Traveling through Video Games | Tom van Nuenen | Taschenbuch | Einband - flex.(Paperback) | Englisch | 2025 | Routledge | EAN 9781032519500 | Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Taylor & Francis Verlag GmbH, Kaufingerstr. 24, 80331 München, gpsr[at]taylorandfrancis[dot]com | Anbieter: preigu.

Seller Inventory # 130665592

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Traveling through Video Games
• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032519509
• ISBN 13: 9781032519500
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 216W x 140H x 7D millimeters 216 millimeters width by 140 millimeters height by 7 millimeters depth
• Weight: 162 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Bücher

About this title

Synopsis

This book unlocks an understanding of video games as virtual travel. It explains how video game design increasingly takes cues from the promotional language of tourism, and how this connection raises issues of power and commodification.

Bridging the disciplinary gap between game and tourism studies, the book offers a comprehensive account of touristic gazing in games such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Minecraft, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. Traveling through video games involves a mythological promise of open-ended opportunity, summarized in the slogan you can go there. Van Nuenen discusses the scale of game worlds, the elusive nature of freedom and control, and the pivotal role of work in creating a sense of belonging. The logic of tourism is fundamentally consumptive―but through design choices, players can also be invited to approach their travels more critically. This is the difference between moving through a game world, and being moved by it.

This interdisciplinary and innovative study will interest students and scholars of digital media studies, game studies, tourism and technology, and the Digital Humanities.

About the Author

Tom van Nuenen is a researcher and educator in data science and algorithmic culture. He works as a Lecturer and Assistant Project Scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, USA.