Video Games and Virtual Tourism

In this paper the author discusses similarities and differences between playing certain video games and the practices of tourism. He claims that playing is a type of virtual tourism. Video games often simulate the real world. Thanks to the interactivity of the video game as a medium, in certain aspects, the player's experience is similar to that of a traveler’s or a tourist’s. Video games and tourism both give mediated experiences. The experience of a video game player is simulated, but at the same time actual experience; the experience of a tourist is actual, but at the same time simulated experience. The main difference between them is that video games cannot hide their constructed nature, while the constructed characteristic of real-world tourism is less prominent.