The Real World in a Geographical Imagery: World of Warcraft as Playful Cartography?

World of Warcraft (WoW) is an extremely well-known and wide-spread virtual universe, populated by millions of people living, as of 2014, in 244 different countries, and so coming from different cultures. The game can be considered the final result of a half-century of growing interest in fantasy and virtual worlds; starting from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. In the passage from book to videogame, fantasy has become an immersive experience that captures the player and forces him or her to revise their idea of how the world works. Everyone can read these worlds as simple games or, rather, through multifarious levels that show the connections between reality and virtuality. Our paper aims a…