Urban Visions in Video Games: London and Paris
In: Cultural Perspectives of Video Games: From Desiger to PlayerSearch for other papers by Aránzazu Pérez Indaverea in
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Video games have been developing their own language for over fifty years now. This has been clearly conditioned by technical advances, but also by the influence of the language of cinema. Just as the Seventh Art did and as soon as the graphic processors allowed them to do so, video games were inclined to use cities as one of their favourite scenarios. What we intend to prove in this chapter is that the change in perception and narration brought by video games has been also accompanied by a change in the vision of cities. Our objective is to find out what their real contributions to this have been. In order to do so, we are conducting a comparative study of the representation of London and Paris in video games. We have chosen these two world capital cities because having two physical references with a well defined imaginary and a great presence in media will make the comparison easier. We are applying a double methodology: on one hand we are first doing a technical analysis and on the other a historical artistic one. This qualitative approach will let us have a critical vision of the works in their historical moment and the vision they offer. It will also show if there has been an evolution in these depictions, always using a cultural frame as a background. This will let us compare it to other manifestations. We believe that this research is of great interest since video games have become, in the last decade, one of the most prominent cultural industries and the one which generates more income. Therefore, they are having an impact on our imaginary that may influence the way we see our physical environment. We intend to find out how this is done and what can be expected in the near future.