On the first night of PAX Aus 2025, we presented our panel: How to Level Up Your Holidays with Video Game Tourism. First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who attended our panel at PAX Aus 2025 in Melbourne (Oct 2025). For a late-night session on Friday, it was great to see a crowd eager to chat about travel and gaming. And there was plenty to talk about, thanks to our amazing panel: Chantel Eagle (game developer from Little Pink Clouds), Ambrin Hasnain (PhD Candidate and researcher from MAGPIE/Uni of Melbourne), and Liv Wilson (PR Manager and Guru). For a topic that many travel sites consider a “new trend”, our experiences brought together many years of geek travel! From identifying exactly what Video Game Tourism is to understanding why it is important, and even looking at how to make it a good PR collaboration, we tried to cover everything in the one hour given to us. Fortunately, we have our slides to look back on — and yes, we shared some travel inspiration from games at the end.
Is Video Game Tourism Really a Thing?
When we first suggested this topic for the panel, there was a slight hesitation as to whether anyone would recognise Video Game Tourism as a real ‘Thing’. It’s a topic that divides the camp fairly equally: between those who have always taken inspiration from geek interests, including video games, and those who think it is a new trend or sub-genre in tourism. The truth is, Video Game Tourism has been around for a while, and is simply picking up steam (pun intended) thanks to improvements in game development, through both research and graphic representation.
But it’s more than that. Video Game Tourism includes set-jetting, events like PAX, and special exhibits like the current ‘Game Worlds’ at ACMI (Melbourne, Australia). It makes this type of travel inspiration more about the gaming community and not just the physical games themselves.
So, How Do We Do This?
Start slow: Pick your inspiration, check its authenticity, and then look for collaborations or events. What sets Video Game Tourism apart is our community. We share news, our own research, and ideas. Many creators are aware of this and share their own stories through interviews or within the gaming community. The modern age is making it easier to find these conversations; I tend to start with Reddit and spread out from there.
What you are looking for is a development team that is proud to be authentic and sincere. An increasing number of developers are fact-checking research within game development. Chantel shared her experience from creating Letters to Arralla, a game with a really sweet and comforting Australiana aesthetic. Since the game has been supported and part-funded by Screen Australia, there were additional requirements to ensure the developers considered how the game represented both location and culture, including First Nation languages. The accountability to Screen Australia was second to the integrity of the game devs themselves. The results are clearly evident in the game’s visual presentation and its positive reviews. More importantly, it is a point of pride that Chantel loves to share with gamers, a common element for many game developers.
Can We Trust What We See in Video Games?
Or to put it simply: Are game devs required to be authentic? No. That’s their creative choice. Rather than a responsibility, developers and gamers alike should instead consider it a ‘branding’ issue. Do you want the game to be 100% accurate in its depiction? Do you want it to be loyal to its narrative or game style? Mario Kart World has captured the character of a location, like Sydney Harbour, without having to do a 100% realistic graphic image. On the other hand, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II fully embraced its graphic depiction of Czechia and its historic retelling. Players want to play this game because they know it is as close to the real deal as it can be, and developers respect that. Believe me, the gaming community will not hold back if something fails to live up to the hype or promise. But equally, they will call out games that have clearly sold out on their creative branding, too.
There are four key considerations for this: Research, Respect, Representation, and Collaboration. Developers benefit from being open and transparent about their research, particularly with their inspiration for the game. For example, Relooted is a game where you are stealing historic artefacts from museums and returning them to the rightful owners. The developers have conducted great levels of research on every item depicted in the game, and subsequently shared the same research as extra information within the game itself.
Detailed research will often lead to great respect, which in turn encourages responsible travel. In Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the game developers were in full agreement as a team to protect every real-world item or structure when depicted in game. Indy is unable to destroy any item, temple, shrine, or other historic significance that you could genuinely find in the real world. That level of respect is worthy of our trust because the developers know that we, as gamers, can love the culture and heritage as much as we love the game.
Representation is also important, as it provides a good way to validate what developers include in the game. For Chantel and Letters to Arralla, this included First Nation representation on the development team with direct involvement in how to include First Nation culture and heritage. To be honest, representation is not always a clear-cut issue; often it is more about the intent of the developers rather than simply what is or isn’t included.
The final point to consider is collaboration. If a game has successfully collaborated with local communities or tourism boards, you can almost guarantee that they have navigated all the necessary steps and achieved a higher level of trustworthiness. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is the peak example of this, working directly with Visit Czechia and official authorities to not only promote the game, but also present multiple tourism opportunities and special local events.
But Why is Any of This Important?
How locations and cultures are depicted in video games often influences how we act when travelling there. This is Ambrin’s key research area, exploring the relationship between gamers and location and culture. It’s all part of the immersive experience of video games; we rarely sit and simply observe but rather explore and interact. It is through this interaction that we gain a deeper learning and respect for places, cultures, and people.
Ambrin discussed the responsibility of power dynamics within games, between creators and the cultures they represent. Games like Tomb Raider, Uncharted, and the recent Indiana Jones and the Great Circle have narratives that address culture and location. However, they are also shown through a lens filtered with ‘white saviour’ elements and ‘third world’ context. We, as gamers and travellers, need to be careful that we don’t replicate this same power dynamic in our travels.
It’s also important to consider our gaming experience through the mechanics of the game. There are some games that are designed specifically for photography and travel, such as Lushfoil Photography Sim; which uses photography as a touristic practice, but it leads to purposeful engagement with the in-game environment. Flutter Away has a similar cozy approach.
One last thing to be noted is the risk of overwriting cultural and historical knowledge due to the popularity/power of the video game lore and narrative. Prior to the panel, Ambrin had pointed out to us the importance of identification for many locations. For example, Ta Prohm Temple in Cambodia is unfortunately referenced more frequently as “Lara Croft Temple” or “Angelina Jolie Temple”. It is great to be inspired by video games, but never at the expense of the location and culture itself. This is where strong and positive collaboration with local tourism authorities can both enhance and protect local culture.
How to Find a Good Tourism Collaboration with Video Games
Liv’s experience with SEALife Aquarium and Animal Crossing: New Horizons showed how much opportunity there is for a great collaboration–and how easy it is for tourism authorities to miss even better opportunities. For many businesses and organisations, it is tempting to simply leverage the most popular games and let the fandoms take it from there.
If only it were that easy! As Liv pointed out, the gaming community is not that susceptible to a quick marketing campaign. Good campaigns involve a lot of interaction and trust between tourism bodies and game developers; for the promotion of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, PR stayed on brand with both the game (historic setting) and the location (embracing its history). On the other hand, Mario Kart-inspired go-kart tours of Tokyo and Osaka have been shunned due to accidents, property damage, and injuries. Definitely not the image wanted by Nintendo or Japan in general.
A well-placed campaign can result in measurable spikes in attendance; it’s more a question of exactly who the expected audience is. While working with SEALife Aquarium, Liv mentioned how the team expected gaming mums with kids to visit Animal Crossing: New Horizons displays, due to its popular family-friendly genre. Instead, Liv was surprised by the increase in almost every age group; gamers are attracted by the game, not the age group. They also love to share things in their community, encouraging organic media coverage, from mainstream outlets to niche gaming blogs and fan communities.
This is where authenticity is key: “When fans see that care has been taken to authentically reflect their favourite game, whether it’s through character integration, design, or narrative, they engage emotionally. That emotional connection translates into ticket sales, repeat visitation, an abundance of user-generated content (UGC), and lasting brand loyalty.” Liv is quick to point out that when gamers travel, they tend to explore further afield, taking the ‘video game tourism’ back to its roots of simply ‘travel’. Game devs and publishers also win, because we tend to return to our favourite games to revisit the story with fresh new experiences from the real world.
Obvious Wins, But Still No Bites?
By the end of the panel, it was pretty clear there are plenty of wins for Video Game Tourism, with a few issues that continue to need attention (such as the impacts of colonisation). However, with all of these wins, why is Video Game Tourism still considered a niche thing? One member of the audience pointedly asked: How do we encourage more collaborations?
Unfortunately, it comes down to money and the misguided perception of gamers. Travel companies and tourism boards will follow the money, so the task is to show them how much money is in Video Game Tourism. Even if gamers do choose to travel, it is difficult to show the direct correlation between video games and tourism, unless you have a specific collaboration to work off. The fallacy of the stereotypical gamer still persists, decades beyond its use-by date, in both age and gender. And we still have companies that think gamers only buy video games, without realising we can have multiple interests to spend our money on.
For all the talk around cross-industry promotion, the challenge remains convincing the industry to invest in the partnership. Despite all the media, video games still aren’t yet ‘mainstream’ enough to make a big impact. And yet, with events like PAX Aus (and this panel), we are getting there. We still have a bit of work ahead: game devs need more support for research and representation; game reviewers need more support when highlighting travel inspiration. Panels like this keep the conversation going. That’s the first leg in the journey.
Thank you to our panellists: Chantel Eagle, Ambrin Hasnain, and Liv Wilson. Without their support and participation, we would not have gained such a well-rounded and detailed discussion.
For more video game travel inspiration, check out the following games (click on the images for links to their Steam pages):
