WHAT DOES LAS VEGAS TEACH VIDEO GAMES? : A STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF COMMERCIAL POSTMODERN ARCHITECTURE ON VIDEO GAMES

Architectural discourse influences many different artistic and technical disciplines as well as architectural practice. This article was conducted with the aim of examining the impact of architectural discourse on video games and creating an analysis of what video games have gained from architectural discourse in terms of concept, story, environmental designand atmosphere, which have become one of the largest entertainment sectors. In the article, the book Learning from LasVegas, written by Venturi, Brown and Izenour in 1972, and the effect of the symbolic commercial Las Vegas discourse which is the basic teaching of this book is examined in detail on video games. The reflections were emphasized for various issues in video games such as the authors' perspectives on Las Vegas, the terms and criteria they created to evaluate the buildings, the popular culture and consumption understanding of the period, the aesthetic, commercial and moral value. Through analysis of the content of the book, eight criteria that characterize the Las Vegas architectural discourse have been identified. These; diversity of symbols, evocative architectural elements, advertising message and propaganda, speed focus, positional system, façade, lighting and architectural inconsistency. Within the scope of the study, five video games with fictional worlds designed with a focus on consumer society and commercial architecture were examined based on the determined criteria. As a result of this research on the architectures of video games, the main hypothesis of the study is; video games have proven to be a field influenced by and learning from architectural discourse.