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Game and Non-Game Simulations
The general concept of a simulation is certainly not restricted to games. For example, economists and sociologists use simulations to study mathematical relationships among variables, often as a set of equations that process data.The data might be information from the U.S. Census—demographic information about income, housing, and voting patterns, for example—and the equations might spell out sets of relationships among data. Using this kind of simulation, a researcher would be able to speculate on changes in some of the variables, such as income and housing, input these changes into the simulation, and see how voting patterns would change as a result. This kind of simulation doesn't seem like much fun to "play" (it certainly is not a game), but it does fulfill the requirements of a simulation. There are real-world referents represented in the simulation (economic and political realities) and the simulation functions by processing data through a set of procedures. The process might be merely a mathematical equation, but it is a process just the same. Economic simulations are rarely explicitly interactive. Usually, a researcher sets up data and then "runs" the simulation to process the data. However, some simulations are designed to be highly participatory, such as training simulations. These include computer-based simulations allowing airplane pilots to practice flying without leaving the ground, live role-playing simulations that allow salespeople to refine their social skills on difficult clients, underwater simulations where astronauts practice zero-G maneuvers in a swimming pool, and emergency simulations in which the residents of an apartment building hold fire drills. Each simulation takes its identity from a real-world situation: flying a real plane, pitching a real sale, attempting a real space walk, or escaping from a real fire. In every case, the representation the simulation creates is a process: the complex machinery and interactivity of a flight simulator, the social and conversational process of role-play-ing, the physical simulation of being in outer space, and the flow of bodies down stairwells and along fire escapes.
Well, what about them? Why did we alter Eddington, Addinall, and Percival's definition by putting the term "reality" in quotation marks? This adjustment was necessary because the relationship between so-called "reality" and representation is complex. Is reality a fixed and known quantity, or is it something constructed by our senses, cognition, or cultural understandings? Is reality something that exists outside of representation, or is it something that is constructed by the process of representation? Should representations themselves be included as part of "reality?" We don't have the space to tackle these long-debated philosophical questions here. But we ask that over the course of this chapter, you keep in mind the fact that the "reality" that simulations depict is not a simple given. Putting quotation marks around the word is just a little punctuational string-around-the-finger to remind us of this fact.
Clearly there are many simulations that are not games. But what about game simulations? In the digital game industry, there is a genre of games called simulations, or "sims" for short. Sim City, for example, is a complex depiction of the process of urban planning, city economics, and the evolution of a human community; it is a simulation game. Other game simulations depict historical processes, natural ecosystems, or military vehicles. Although sims, perhaps more than other games, explicitly fulfill both components of our definition (a procedural representation of aspects of "reality"), all games can in fact be considered simulations. Remember that a game design schema must be applicable to all games. Therefore in proposing the schema Games as the Play of Simulation, we are arguing that any game can be considered a simulation.
As abstract or fantastical as games may be, it is possible to see them as simulations of one kind or another. Chess and Tic-Tac-Toe, for example, can be framed as representations of territorial conflict, in which simulated units war for control of a stylized battlefield. Games that involve fantastic elements, such as Dungeons & Dragons, also simulate through their play. Detailed rules, for example, simulate the way that different weapons impact different kinds of armor. Even the spell-casting system in D&D is a simulation of sorts: it simulates an imaginative "reality," one rooted in myth, religion, and popular culture. As the example of extraterrestrial invasion in the quote from Eddington, Addinall, and Percival illustrates, aspects of "reality" can refer to things outside our lived experience. Some games, such as Tetris, present more ambiguous referents, but that does not mean that they are not a kind of simulation. Tetris simulates the way objects can fall down, stack up, and even make noises when they slide into place next to each other. In this way, Tetris is a simple simulation of the forces of gravity. Then there is the fact that falling Tetris objects are called "bricks," and these bricks form an interlocking brick wall grid. These aspects of the game point to a different kind of depiction, perhaps a simulation of construction. Tetris may not be a particularly accurate or instructive simulation of gravity or construction, but accuracy and instructiveness are not necessarily what a game simulation is about. A game simulation, as any kind of game representation, can be geometrically minimal, outrageously whimsical, or even intentionally misleading. Unlike a simulation designed for scientific research purposes, a game simulation is not beholden to a notion of representing empirical truth. Pong is not meaningful to players because it is a scientifically accurate representation of Table Tennis; it is meaningful because as a simulation it provides a context for deep and engaging play.
