Game theorist Gonzalo Frasca has long argued that simulation represents not only a defining characteristic of most games but represents an alternative experiential structure to that which is often seen as the central mediating perspective of human experience (at least in the West): representation [1]. The explicit concern in much of his work has been to challenge those game theorists who have employed narrative or dramatic models as a central category of analysis for games [2]. Despite his somewhat polemical approach, however, the attempt to think through simulation as a rhetorical structure makes his work valuable not simply for understanding electronic games but for thinking about the nature and purpose of our writing classrooms. In “Simulation versus Narrative” he offers this working definition: “to simulate is to model a (source) system through a different system which maintains (for somebody) some of the behaviors of the original system” (p. 223). His example focuses on comparing a flight simulation to a film of a plane:
A film about a plane landing is a narrative: an observer could interpret it in different ways (i.e., “it’s a normal landing” or “it’s an emergency landing”), but she cannot manipulate it and influence how the plane will land since film sequences are fixed and unalterable. By contrast, the flight simulator allows the player to perform actions that will modify the behavior of the system in a way that is similar to the behavior of the actual plane. . . .To an external observer, the sequence of signs produced by both the film and the simulation could look exactly the same. This is what many supporters of the narrative paradigm fail to understand. Their semiotic sequences might be identical, but simulation cannot be understood just through it’s output. (p. 224)
From the point of view of game design Frasca’s emphasis upon the behavior makes it clear that one of the most important characteristics of simulation is that representational realism becomes at best a secondary consideration for players. This explains why games that have relatively primitive or dated graphics are enthusiastically embraced by their fans; this is particularly true in genres that rely heavily on simulation, such as real-time and turn-based strategy games. Looking real is not as important as behaving (i.e. playing) real.
Bogost (2006) extends Frasca's definition by arguing that simulations are shaped by purpose, and also, more significantly, by interpretation. Frasca’s model, by contrast, assumes a level of transparency in the exchange between the developer and user. The fact that "[w]hat simulation games create are biased, nonobjective modes of expression" is, he argues, implicit in Frasca's notion that simulations are modelled for "somebody" but the concept needs to be taken further:
Videogames require critical interpretation to mediate our experience of the simulation, to ground it in a set of coherent and expressive values, responses, or understandings that constitute effects of the work. In this process, the unit operations of a simulation embody themselves in a player’s understanding. This is the place where rules can be grasped, where instantiated code enters the material world via human players’ faculty of reason. In my mind, it is the most important moment in the study of a videogame. (p. 99) [3]
Bogost builds on Sherry Turkle’s argument that there are two contrary responses to simulation: simulation resignation and simulation denial. "Simulation resignation acknowledges that sims are subjective, but refuses to interrogate the implications of that subjectivity. Simulation denial acknowledges that sims are subjective, and concludes that they are therefore useless, untrustworthy, or even dangerous tools" (Bogost, p. 107). These, Bogost argues, form the experiential core in understanding the workings of a simulation and lead to his revision of Frasca's definition: “A simulation is the gap between the rule-based representation of a source system and a user’s subjectivity” (107). Resignation and denial and the oscillation between them, results in what Bogost calls “simulation anxiety” or (acknowledging the debt to Derrida) “simulation fever.” We are driven toward simulation and repelled by it in equal measure [4].
While academics such as Frasca and Bogost have formulated sophisticated frameworks for considering the workings of simulations, as far as electronic games are concerned most gamers, designers, and game critics confine simulation to a discrete genre, usually associated with games that involve the manipulation of complex machinery (airplanes, cars, tanks, etc.); these kinds of simulations have, furthermore, tended to attract a relatively small gaming audience and therefore could legitimately be dismissed as below the regard of anyone wanting to explore (or exploit) the most influential trends in game development. From the publishing point of view game “genres” are, of course, often little more than marketing categories. But from a critical and design point of view, you have to wonder at the reluctance to admit that a wide variety of games might be classified as simulations. After all, if we understand the defining component of simulation to be the modeling and manipulation not simply of complex machinery, but of the parent category of complex systems, we’ve seen a lot of these kinds of games achieve widespread popularity: The Sims, obviously (and Frasca discusses this game at length), but also classic games such as the Civilization series. But no, these are not, we are told, simulations. The Sims designer, Will Wright has in fact gone to great lengths to distance The Sims, its title notwithstanding, from the category of simulation; he has variously referred to this and the other games in his oeuvre as as a “dollhouse” (Kelly, 1994), “software toy” (Rouse, 2005, p. 412) and a “storytelling platform” (Rouse, p. 434). Civilization by the same token is usually classified as a “strategy” game [5,6].
Wright’s hesitancy to label his complex systems as simulations may in part reflect his interest in appealing to a broad-based gaming demographic and his suspicion that such an appeal would be compromised by an association with what has, when viewed conventionally in terms of content, been a genre associated with war and/or high levels of testosterone. Some critics, however, are more impatient with the simulation games in general, and it is in these kinds of dismissals I think that we come close to locating the real problem that simulation represents for many gamers, designers and critics. Perhaps the strongest denunciation is offered by Steven Poole (2000):
Simulation, distinct from the role-playing game, is arguably not a genre in itself; rather it promotes in certain genres (driving, flight games) the primacy of supposed "realism" over instant fun. A true videogame deliberately simplifies any given situation (imaginary or real) down to its essential, kinetic parts; a simulation is loath to simplify and only does so when available CPU power is already maxed out. The problem is, as we shall see, that videogame "realism" is always a fix anyway. Furthermore, simulations stomp roughshod over one raison d'etre of certain types of videogame, which is to let the player perform amusingly dangerous and unlikely maneuvers in perfect safety. (p. 27) [7]
The idea that simulations don’t simplify situations, or enable the player to “perform amusingly dangerous and unlikely maneuvers in perfect safety” is decidedly at odds with the experience of most sim players. I considered it highly unlikely that I will ever in real life be afforded the opportunity to split-ess a Mark IX RAF Spitfire to escape a Luftwaffe BF109G-6 closing fast on my six, for example (although I have not given up hope entirely) [8]. What is notable in Poole's claim, however, is the fact that simulations trouble game designers, game critics, and even some gamers, precisely because the obsession with “realism” threatens to disrupt what for Poole (and many others) constitutes the defining characteristic of games: a level of unreality, of escape from reality. Simulations, by contrast, with their pesky insistence on modeling reality keep pushing their complexity in our faces and robbing us of. . .what, exactly? Fun? I think it would come as news to most simulation players that they are enjoying these games because they are not, in fact, either games, or fun.
There is one other point of interest in Poole’s denunciation. He starts by emphasizing a sharp distinction between role-playing games and simulations. Interestingly, however, the same characteristic of consoles (the limited controller) that makes them unsuitable for more complex simulation games is the same characteristic that renders consoles unsuitable for massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). MMORPGs are often criticized on the same grounds as simulations and in terms that are not too dissimilar to those offered by Poole: their learning curves are steep, their interfaces extremely complicated (especially for a new player) and at their most extreme they offer insufficient separation between game and reality (it is a standing joke—albeit a joke treated as a lighthearted announcement of a truth universally acknowledged—that playing any kind of merchant or trading character in an MMORPG is like compensating for your boring, dead-end job, with another boring dead-end job). Yet MMORPGs are not traditionally labeled simulations. Poole's argument suggests, however, that they in fact do constitute vital simulation spaces, a point that can be explored further by visiting Arpeggia.
1. Frasca, G. (2003). Simulation vs. narrative: Introduction to ludology." In M. J. P. Wolf and B. Perron (Eds.), The video game theory reader (pp. 221-235). New York: Routledge.
2. In subsequent articles Frasca has sought to distance himself from the resulting academic flame war; see for example Ludologists love stories, too: notes from a debate that never took place. Level Up: International digital games research conference. Utrecht, Nov. 4-6, 2003. Retrieved March 30, 2008.
3. Bogost, I. (2006). Unit operations: An approach to videogame criticism. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
4. For a more detailed application of Bogost's ideas to videogames see his recent (2008) book Persuasive games: The expressive power of videogames. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press.
5. Kelly, K. (1994) Will Wright: the mayor of Sim City." Wired 2.01 Retrieved March 25, 2008.
6. Rouse III, R. (2005) Game design: Theory and practice (2nd ed.). Plano: Worldware Publishing.
7. Poole, S. (2000). Trigger happy: Videogames and the entertainment revolution. New York: Arcade Publishing.
8. We can forgive Poole his apparent ignorance of simulation games; Trigger Happy is a book that is mostly concerned with console games, and consoles, with their simplistic control devices, are not the platform of choice for hard-core simulations (Ubisoft’s World War II dogfighting sim Forgotten Battles, for example, uses almost every key on a standard PC keyboard, many of them twice).
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