By GREG J. SMITH [3:AM Magazine] – Over the last two decades, representations of urban space have become a prominent subject within gaming. Franchises such as SimCity and Grand Theft Auto have taken the ebb and flow of the city and created simulations that synthesize the economic, sociopolitical, experiential and aesthetic qualities of urban life into reflexive environments. The eye of the contemporary gamer is trained to decode the isometric projection and urban informatics associated with the “god game” genre and switch over to the point of view of a digital citizen in a sandbox style open-city game without skipping a beat. Advances in computer graphics and a need for increasingly sophisticated in-game navigation and informational systems have made gaming an R&D lab for exploring methods of representation derived from not only architecture, but interface design, cinematography, cartography and data visualization. In 2007, Dariusz Jacob Boron forecasted that the future of gaming would “represent an interbreeding of various genres and points of view”. This interbreeding is not simply a one-way flow of ideas from varied disciplines “into” gaming; as we can clearly see the graphic language of gaming influencing mapping, military imaging, cinema and broadcast design.

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