Game vs. Simulation

[Feltan]

This issue has cropped up tangentially in a couple of threads, and I thought it deserved some attention all by itself.

I argue that SR2010, and SR2020, are both a game and a simulation.

First, and most importantly, a simulation does not have to accurately portray every nuance 100% accurately. A number of items can be handled notionally, or not at all, and you can still have an accurate simulation. Even the big U.S. Army simulaitons do not attempt to model everything -- so don't get hung up on the term "simulation" to the extent that if one tiny thing is in error that the simulation is wrong.

It is a game becuase it is fun and challenging. Just because it is a game does not mean that it ventures into fantasy. You can have a game without Godzilla being let loose on your cities, or the Starship enterprise entering low earth orbit and launching photon torpedoes on your navy.

A good war movie is a simulation too. Albeit not an interactive one, but a simulation none the less -- it is trying to portray real, or past, or future, life events through a different media. Sometimes these are great, like Saving Private Ryan, where a lot of attention was payed to detail. Sometimes a war movie sucks, like the latest Pearl Harbor movie of a few years ago, where the production tries to intertwine a romance between bombing runs. We have all seen good war flicks, and we've seen sucky ones too.

Similarly, we have all seen good wargames on the computer, and sucky ones too. I, with horror, recall the History Channel's Civil War game: which has my vote for the worst wargame ever made. Why did it suck? Because it had very little to do with history, the Civil War or anything of that time period. It was a game, but totally failed as a simulation. You might as well have been playing Yhatzee.

Understanding that Supreme Ruler is a game is necessary, but I believe it also has to succeed at some level as a simulation -- or it simply isn't going to differentiate the product from the vast array of software titles out there. The Goats have gone to great lengths to portray unit capabilities and characteristics in a realistic manner -- which appeals to the simulation side; and have packaged it in a format that is playable as a game.

When contemplating SR2020, I think it is a false assumption to assume either or -- either a game or a simulation. Rather, it has to work as both. Just because the game does not track battery usage for Night Vision Goggles in the logistics model does not mean it fails as a simulation, and just because it portrays political/military things in a largely accurate manner does not mean it fails as a game.

Get too simplistic or complex and you will fail as a game. Get too unrealistic and you will fail as a simulation. Both of these need to be taken into account, and one should not shy away from calling the product a game, or a simulation, because it needs to be both.

Regards,
Feltan

[Balthagor]

There has already been some discussion about this in another thread;

http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... simulation

but for the most part we classify it as a game. If it works as a simulation for many of our users, that is a bonus, but we are thinking game first.