Virtual places and landscapes

a conceptual and methodological approach of the geographic representations in the digital games

Abstract

The present work addresses the geovisualization of places and virtual landscapes represented in digital
game scenarios. The overlap between geographic space and virtual reality created in these games is
vast and generates numerous possibilities for different geovisualization of geographical aspects,
occurring in the cyberspace and integrating the cyberculture. Digital game scenarios play the role of
place of individual experiences and the landscape of particular emotions, participating in the daily
lives of players who may be distributed globally and have never been in the places and landscapes that
were represented virtually. Digital scenarios are distinguished between real and partially or fictional
ones. The Street Fighter franchise was selected due to the worldwide popularity of the games and the
fact that the scenarios have a unique and definite perspective. These were organized in a database,
classified according to typology and then georeferenced. Thematic maps of the spatial coverage of
each significant franchise title were generated and a web geo-view interface created for all franchise
scenarios. The interface allowed interactive access and georeferenced visualisation of the locations
and landscapes depicted in the game, plus the inventoried information and real images with more or less similarity to the scenarios represented. The geographic scope represented in the franchise
encompasses 27 countries on 6 continents, highlighting the bias of cultural synthesis in the scenarios represented.