Travel Weekly Blog

A while ago I posted something speculative about the the destination marketing potential of big-ticket video games.

To recap, I reckon that the increase in video game penetration, combined with the bigger and better-looking game worlds made possible by modern hardware, mean that titles which represent or mimic real-world locations could boost visitor numbers in the same way blockbuster films traditionally have (Miss Potter for Cumbria, Moulin Rouge for Paris: you know the drill).

So I was interested when a friend forwarded me a flickr gallery making explicit the similarities between Liberty City, the setting for open-world masterpiece Grand Theft Auto IV, and New York. Here's a sample (original spot by Kotaku):

GTA IV is not the only one: forthcoming title Alone in the Dark is set in a meticulously recreated Central Park (albeit one full of zombies), and the climax of Legendary will apparently take place at our own Durham Cathedral (though that kind of thing can land you in trouble, as Sony recently found...).

Nathan Midgley, web producer