Visiting new locations

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about how the virtual environments of computer games can help us to navigate through unknown locations.

When a traveler visits for the very first time a new city, he needs some time to orientate himself to be able to navigate through the unknown location. Over time, the visitor gets used to the city and starts developing shortcuts. Finally, the visitor is able to navigate through the city without getting lost, because he has developed a certain understanding.

The same thing applies to virtual cities in computer games: the player gets used to the virtual environment over time. After a short learning period, the player is able to move quickly through the environment and to develop some shortcuts.

These virtual cities mostly share some similarities with real world cities and thus the general location is mostly familiar to the players. In Mafia 2[1], the player explores the fictional city „Empire Bay“ which is based on real cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. At first, all the streets are completely new to the player and he doesn’t know where he is. But over time, the player gets used to the city and knows how he can navigate through the streets of Empire Bay.

This can lead to the assumption, that virtual environments in computer games can train the ability of computer game players to navigate through unknown locations without any difficulties. Additionally, developing a general understanding of a new city can be much easier to computer game players who are used to explore new locations on a regular basis.

Apart from the training effects of getting used to new locations, it could be also interesting to create real cities in a computer game. On the one hand, this could allow players from all over the world to explore famous cities, they’ve never visited before. Furthermore, it could be used in order to boost the tourism. The story of the game could take place at the most special locations of a city thus evoking a desire to visit this city in the reality.

On the other hand, it could be interesting as a preparation for a visit. The player can get used to the city and won’t get lost on the very first visit. Moreover, it would be an interesting experiment to rebuild a location in a computer game. Players then could start exploring the virtual version of the location and get used to it. Afterwards, they would be challenged to do a scavanger hunt in the real location to test out if they’ve really benefited from playing the game.