How do videogames transform tourist destinations? Dale Leorke will speak at ICSJ

Videogames inspire players to visit real-world locations and are increasingly featured in state-funded tourism campaigns. But how does videogame tourism differ from film or literary tourism, and who decides what these places become? Drawing on fieldwork in China and Japan, Dale Leorke will explore these questions in the guest lecture Playing the Place: Videogame Tourism and Its Destinations, taking place on 19 October at 12:30 in room H215 at Hollar.

Dale Leorke is based at the Centre for the Sciences of Place & Memory at the University of Stirling in Scotland. They completed their PhD at the University of Melbourne, and their research focuses on the relationships between games, technologies, places and environments.

The lecture will be held as part of the Game Industry Production Studies and Introduction to Game Studies courses. It will also be open to students taking other courses and studying in other programmes at ICSJ.