Smart Urban Planning and Videogames: The Value of Virtualization as Prognosis of Urban Scenes

ABSTRACT

Urban planning and architecture have always played a fundamental role in videogames, directly or indirectly. Together with the characters and the historical plot of the game, they have made it possible to create attractive virtual worlds in which to enjoy experiences that go beyond fiction. Today, we are at a turning point. New technologies applied to the development of videogames provide a great opportunity to rethink new smart ways of planning and managing the city that are more participatory and inclusive in the post-Covid world. Within this context, the main objective of this paper is to explore and highlight the experimental possibilities that virtual space can offer to urban planning and architecture of a smart city. In this sense, it is proposed the integration in the urban planning process of a methodology that seeks to speculate on the possibilities that virtual models can offer, merging virtual space and real space in a collaborative work. As a result, the existence of a symbiotic relationship between reality and virtuality is confirmed, making possible new resilient ways of understanding space, as well as testing new strategies, systems and complex social, political and/or economic organizations in virtual urban environments very close to reality. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.