Saints Row: The Third

Understanding Videogame Cities

"Understanding Videogame Cities" argues that fictional game cities can be analyzed with the same rigor applied to physical cities, using Saints Row: The Third's Steelport as its central case.

• The report argues that fictional videogame cities can be analyzed with the same rigor as physical cities, using a three-part framework of constitutional, representational, and experiential orders that blends Lefebvre's spatial triad with Douglas Allen's criteria.
• Its central thesis is that a city's character emerges from the interplay between its built structure, its visual and symbolic representation, and the embodied experience of moving through it.
• Using Saints Row: The Third's Steelport (2011) as the central case, the analysis finds that territory control and monuments, such as the Magarac Island statue destroyed late in the game, visibly express the city's power dynamics.