The event, held in the Teatro Stabile di Potenza and promoted by the Basilicata Apt, saw videogame experts, designers, but also psychologists, philosophers and entrepreneurs
The promotion of the Lucanian territory opens up to the world of younger people through one of the major communication channels: video games. This is the spirit that moved the Basilicata tourist promotion company, the only one in Italy to have equipped itself with a section called ‘Comics and Games’, in joining the European project ‘Be-Cultour. Beyond Cultural Tourism’, financed by the EU, in which Basilicata is the pilot region and which ended this morning in Potenza. The ‘Giocare seriously’ event was an opportunity for discussion with video game experts, designers, psychologists, philosophers and entrepreneurs to analyze online and offline digital games and their use to promote the territory and its values. Specifically, the Apt “has chosen to adopt the language of video games to translate challenging concepts, such as the circular economy and sustainability, in a fun way”, explained director Antonio Nicoletti. “We thought of addressing the little ones – he added – who manage to involve families, through the story of an ancient Basilicata, rich in culture and which speaks with the language of today”. The protagonist is the Vulture-Alto Bradano area, in which the guide is the Latin poet Horace, in the environments of the Minecraft video games, one of the most used platforms, and with the Roblox video game, which is combined with “slow videos” that tell the story of the territory with immersive images. “The video game creates interest and ‘engages’, it brings back kids who can learn Lucanian history”, concluded Nicoletti who recalled that the company is not new to similar initiatives: “With ‘Metapontum’, we travel to the Ionian coast Lucania, among environmental beauties, history and culture of Magna Graecia and Pythagoras. In two years we obtained 425 thousand downloads all over the world, with a contact cost of less than five cents”. Regarding the estimates of the inter-institutional working group on tourism resulting from the agreement between Istat and MiTur, the Basilicata Apt “communicates that the data reported relating to tourist presences and arrivals in Basilicata 2023 do not correspond to those recorded by the statistical system official and regularly communicated to Istat as per current legislation”. “In this regard – it is written in the press release of the Lucanian tourist promotion agency – we inform you that the increase between 2023 and 2022 in tourist presences in Basilicata amounts to +14.36%, therefore a value higher than the average national reported by the press release (+9.5%) and, again according to this press release, third among the Italian regions. Compared to 2019 values, however, 7.2% of presences and 4.7% of arrivals remain to be recovered. These data are not estimates, like those released by Istat-MiTur, but result from the actual and definitive findings relating to 2023 in the Basilicata hospitality system”.
