Theory

[icycalm]

Continued from here: http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?p=7773#7773

Therefore, I would suppose we must constrain the discussion only to the role of stories in games that are simulations.

ALL videgames are simulations. A poker videogame for example is a videogame that simulates poker.

[Recap]

What does Tetris simulate?

[icycalm]

lol, I knew I was going to be getting questions of this kind. Bring them on! I'll answer all of them!

In this case, what Tetris simulates is the falling of multicolored, distinctively shaped bricks within an enclosed space, and their arrangement by a player into specific patterns, all done in real-time and within strict time/space limits.

Note that simulation does not have to be about something that has ALREADY occurred in reality. One can just as easily simulate things that might have occurred, or that will occur, or that could occur, or that one would LIKE to occur, etc. etc.

If anyone is having trouble visualizing the real-life version of Tetris which inspired the Tetris simulation, check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnjTYQnKFd8

Imagine that the screen did not exist and that the bricks fell from the air, etc, etc.

[Recap]

Note that simulation does not have to be about something that has ALREADY occurred in reality. One can just as easily simulate things that might have occurred, or that will occur, or that could occur, or that one would LIKE to occur, etc. etc.

Hum. Not sure if I agree with that (and here we are again discussing silly semantics stuff). Let me ask this -- what if the "things" can never occur in reality nor is there a representation of anything tangible? Would you call that "simulation"?

Thanks for the grammatical correction, by the way. Wow...

[icycalm]

Hum. Not sure if I agree with that (and here we are again discussing silly semantics stuff).

This thread is, indeed, about semantics. I mean look at the title -- "Videogames & Simulation". If all videogames are simulation, then why have two words to express the same thing? Or is it perhaps that all videogames are simulation, but that all simulation is not videogames? In the latter case there would be a point in having two words, since the first one would not be enough to describe all the things that fall under the jurisdiction of the second.

Now, I can see why a discussion such as this might seem silly at first. However, and I am speaking with hindsight here, it isn't. It is vitally important that we recognize that all videogames are simulation, if we are to understand their ultimate causes, aims and consequences.

Let me ask this -- what if the "things" can never occur in reality nor is there a representation of anything tangible? Would you call that "simulation"?

Who can determine whether something could occur in "reality"? Can you? I certainly can't. I would indeed go as far as to say that everything that can be depicted in a videogame, no matter how extraordinary or bizarre, could eventually occur in reality. -- Could eventually be orchestrated to occur in reality. -- In five, ten, a thousand or a million years.

[icycalm]

I think I need to explain something at this point. Recap has trouble with me calling Tetris a simulation, because at first sight it seems that Tetris is something new and original -- an activity which originated in the world of videogames, and not in reality. Simulation, after all, should always simulate something, and for that something to be simulated it must first exist -- right?

However, what we must understand is that, in videogames, there are no activities. From the point of view of reality, videogames are about nothing, and nothing actually happens in them. If people want to know what ACTUALLY occurs in videogames, here you go:

In a videogame, nothing is actually occurring apart from the player sitting in front of a screen wiggling around a joystick. And of course a game disc is spinning, electronic signals are passing between the computer and the screen, photons from the screen strike the player's eyes, sound waves emanating from speakers arrive at his ears etc. etc. But nothing depicted ON THE SCREEN is actually happening. No one is walking. No one is shooting. No one is talking. The player is simply, with the help of the machine and a code which is merely a collection of 1s and 0s, tricking his own brain into believing that these things are happening, and that he takes part in them through the wiggling of the joystick or any other type of controller. That is all that's actually happening.

So, to sum up, it is absurd to claim that a new activity can arise out of the world of videogames. Activities are always defined at the level of reality, after all. Tetris is not an activity, distinct from the activity of Contra, for example, or M1 Tank Platoon or Metal Gear Solid. All these videogames (and all videogames ever, in the past or in the future) are about sitting in front of a screen wiggling a joystick around -- they all comprise a SINGLE activity, and this will never change.

[icycalm]

The same things I said, expressed in more eloquent language:

And is there really any possibility of discovering something in cyberspace? The Internet merely simulates a free mental space… it merely offers a multiple, but conventional, space, in which the operator interacts with known elements, pre-existent sites, established codes. Nothing exists beyond these search parameters. Every question has its anticipated response. You are the automatic questioner and, at the same time, the automatic answering device of the machine. Both coder and decoder -- in fact your own terminal, your own correspondent. That is the ecstasy of communication. There is no “Other” out there and no final destination. And so the system goes on, without end and without purpose.

Jean Baudrillard. “Screened Out”. Liberation, May 6, 1996 in Screened Out. New York: Verso, 2002:179.

[Afterburn]

Let me ask this -- what if the "things" can never occur in reality nor is there a representation of anything tangible? Would you call that "simulation"?

icy basically explained this already, but think of it this way if it's still giving you trouble: we can only imagine things that are possible in some way of occurring/existing. icy made the point that anything in a videogame could conceivably eventually take place at some point in time, however distant. This doesn't apply just to videogames, but to anything at all that we depict/imagine. We are not able to talk about something that isn't possible (however unlikely or minuscule the chance of it occurring is). (Wittgenstein cleared this up in the early 1900s.) Everything that we can imagine has some basis in reality (i.e. it is possible for these things to happen someday); is based on something that preexists it. We can't dream up something brand new that has never been imagined before out of thin air. Hence all videogames are simulation.

I think that's right, at least.

[icycalm]

To put it yet another way, in videogames the actual activity performed by the player is "joystick wiggling". Sometimes it's joystick wiggling that simulates racing. Other times it's joystick wiggling that simulates a shootout. Yet other times it's joystick wiggling simulating managing a history-spanning empire. Et cetera, et cetera.

[ganheddo]

Or is it perhaps that all videogames are simulation, but that all simulation is not videogames? In the latter case there would be a point in having two words, since the first one would not be enough to describe all the things that fall under the jurisdiction of the second.

Of course not all simulations are videogames? I can (inaccurately) simulate the driving of a real Ferrari by toying around with a red matchbox car, while making weird noises.

everything that can be depicted in a videogame, no matter how extraordinary or bizarre, could eventually occur in reality. -- Could eventually be orchestrated to occur in reality. -- In five, ten, a thousand or a million years.

So this goes the other way 'round too? I.e. everything that can occur in reality could eventually be simulated in a videogame?

However, what we must understand is that, in videogames, there are no activities. From the point of view of reality, videogames are about nothing, and nothing actually happens in them.

Is this true for all simulations (if there are ones that aren't videogames)?

[Worm]

I can (inaccurately) simulate the driving of a real Ferrari by toying around with a red matchbox car, while making weird noises.

The question "What is a simulation simulating?" is ultimately answered by its mechanics, not things like sound effects and models. For example, you could surround Tetris with all sorts of gunfire and explosions and corpses, but it will never become a simulation of warfare. Once you take games that are mechanically identical, perhaps then you can say that their respective themes make one, say, a shooting aliens simulation vs. a shooting Nazis simulation, but it would be an extremely shallow distinction, since the difference is not modeled in the game world.

EDIT: Just to be clear, what I'm trying to say is that your proposed activity is so mechanically different from driving a real Ferrari that to call it a simulation of the latter is ridiculous. You might as well say that pushing a Matchbox car simulates eating a real banana.

[Kuzdu]

I think the point that Ganheddo is making is really one about the word 'simulation', which is commonly used to mean 'representing behavior'. In other words, one could represent driving a Ferrari by playing with a matchbox car just as one could represent the spread of contagious disease on a computer. Just because one is more accurate than the other doesn't mean that the latter is a simulation and the former is not.

Another example would be my simulating that I was choking in order to help someone practice the Heimlich Maneuver. In this case nothing is mechanically happening, I'm just making noises and swinging my arms (sound effects and graphics). My performance however is still a simulation by the common definition.

[To The East]

Icy you've made it clear to me that all video games are simulation. So I'm ready for the next question. Are all simulations videogames? If you already know the answer and a better way of arriving at it, I am very excited to learn it.

The only way I can think of is to compare the characteristics of the two, if they are exactly the same then all videogames are simulation and vice-versa. If they are not exactly the same, then videogames are simply a type of simulation.

In a videogame, nothing is actually occurring apart from the player sitting in front of a screen wiggling around a joystick. And of course a game disc is spinning, electronic signals are passing between the computer and the screen, photons from the screen strike the player's eyes, sound waves emanating from speakers arrive at his ears etc. etc. But nothing depicted ON THE SCREEN is actually happening.

For something to be a videogame it must have 3 things: an input so that we can interact with the games, visual output (otherwise they wouldn't be called video games), and a game to play. Is it possible for a simulation to lack one of those characteristics?

[Worm]

I think I'm muddling things by comparing real-life activities to video games.

Kuzdu, with your choking example, you are indeed pretending to be incapacitated, and are moving in a way that mimics how a person actually choking would move. You are simulating the "mechanics" of choking that are relevant to the situation--part of which are certain visual and aural cues.

Maybe this will illustrate why Ganheddo's example is poor: Playing a real-time strategy game is a simulation of commanding an army, not a simulation of holding a gun and shooting another soldier.

Are all simulations videogames?

I think Kuzdu has already answered your question with his example of a computer program that models the spread of a contagious disease. We can think of countless examples of such simulations that are non-interactive, and are therefore not videogames.

[Kuzdu]

I take your point, Worm, but I'm afraid I still don't understand it completely.

When I simulate choking by waving my arms and making noises I'm engaging in only the visual and aural cues. In this display what exactly is the mechanical portion? It seems to me that there is a direct analogy to my 'display' and the graphics and audio of a video game, but I'm not sure what the analogy is I could draw with the game's mechanics.

Would it be fair to say that perhaps the graphics and audio of a game are part of its simulation, if not the only part because games can also simulate using their mechanics?

Also, I stand by my assertion that Ganheddo's example of simulating a Ferrari with a matchbox car is simply an example of an inaccurate simulation, but its inaccuracy doesn't negate that it is a simulation. Your example of a real-time strategy game being a simulation of commanding an army and not of holding a gun is well taken, but to my mind an RTS is simply a very inaccurate simulation of holding a gun and a more accurate simulation of commanding an army.

If I were to take the definition you're operating with I suppose my question would be this: what is the threshold at which a simulation is inaccurate but still a simulation? In other words, how badly could an RTS simulate commanding an army before it is no longer a simulation of commanding an army?

[icycalm]

Haha, great stuff. I am sitting here in a hostel in Florence, alone, checking my email and stuff while doing laundry, and wondering whether I should just give you guys all the answers or let you sweat it out for a little longer.

[Worm]

Alright. It was a mistake to try and use videogame terminology to describe real-life activities. I'll start over. Simulating is not just pretending. Simulations reproduce--crudely, inaccurately, or whatever--characteristics of what they are simulating.

So, pushing a toy car is not just an "inaccurate" simulation of driving an automobile. It is absolutely nothing like driving an automobile. This is what I meant by "mechanically" different. It was a poor choice of words, perhaps, but I hope this is now clear.

Back to your choking example: you are actually producing some of the symptoms of choking. From the perspective of a random passerby, those "cues" are what choking is; he cannot tell the difference until closer inspection. From your perspective, nothing is being simulated; you are only pretending.

So, yeah, forget the mechanics/graphics/whatever terminology.

As for this:

"...to my mind an RTS is simply a very inaccurate simulation of holding a gun..."

Well, then, anything can be a very inaccurate simulation of anything. Because those two things have nothing in common other than that we might occasionally use the word "gun" when talking about them.

Would it be fair to say that perhaps the graphics and audio of a game are part of its simulation, if not the only part because games can also simulate using their mechanics?

The distinction is not between "mechanics" and "graphics/sound/etc." but "mechanics" and "atmosphere." This is obvious when you think about the ways that graphics are tied into mechanics, such as being able to visually distinguish one object from another. Anyway, yes, they are part of the simulation, of course. What I was pointing out is that they can be very misleading. Take a contemporary racing game, one that tries to very closely simulate the performance of real-life cars. Now, you can take the first car available to the player (I don't know, some cheap Toyota) and replace the in-game model with a Ferrari model, and someone might look at the game and say, "Oh, this game simulates driving a Ferrari." But surely you can see how mistaken (and disappointed) they would be! Any useful attempt at describing or classifying the game (and what it simulates) would deal primarily with the mechanics, as with Icycalm's description of Tetris.

[ganheddo]

So, pushing a toy car is not just an "inaccurate" simulation of driving an automobile. It is absolutely nothing like driving an automobile. This is what I meant by "mechanically" different.

I didn't explain myself clearly enough, but what I would simulate isn't me driving the little matchbox car, but more the movement of the car itself (actually when I played with 'em back then, I didn't ever pretend/imagine myself to be sitting in 'em).

Like if I place the car on top of a ramp and let it go, I simulate a car rolling down a hill and can see acceleration at work.

If I would've simulated me driving a car, I would've probably used a frisbee as a steering wheel, stuffed some stick in a flowerpot as a gear shift and stomped on some pillows doubling as pedals.

Anyway, I probably made it harder for myself than it actually is, because not every simulation needs to use a screen for outputting informaton, and a rigid enough definition of videogame would take care of that (but of course, the usefulness of such strictness is debatable and can get tireseome, as you'd have to exclude many more stuff from the field of videogames, e.g. Audiogames or take a look at the Spacewar article).
Maybe it would be more interesting to circumvent this by asking if all simulations are games?

I think Kuzdu has already answered your question with his example of a computer program that models the spread of a contagious disease. We can think of countless examples of such simulations that are non-interactive, and are therefore not videogames.

While it supports the same point like my argument (not all simulations are videogames) I actually think that this one is weaker, as I see simulations and videogames lying on the same scale between interactivity and noninteractivity.

Also you're just concentrating on the amount of input (i.e. how often you're inputting) which is kinda akin to the differentiation between real-time and turn-based systems in videogames.
I mean the contagious disease spread simulator just happens to have only one interaction cycle (one 'round' or 'turn' of input-processing-output), but which can be repeated endlessly (with varying input parameters from the user to simulate different outcomes).
If you see the repeated use of the simulator as one continuous interaction, then it should become clearer that it can be a highly interactive process.

A more meaningful differentiation is how much your input influences the outcome.
I mean there are these 'on-rail' games, that basically play themselves (some JRPGs) and we have stuff like Civilization, where nearely every decision impacts and influences the outcome.

[icycalm]

A more meaningful differentiation is how much your input influences the outcome. I mean there are these 'on-rail' games, that basically play themselves (some JRPGs) and we have stuff like Civilization, where nearely every decision impacts and influences the outcome.

QFT

You also just foreshadowed part of my upcoming Civilization review.

[Kuzdu]

So all video games are simulations, but are all games simulations?

It's easy to argue that Chess is a simulation of war, or a certain conception of war, but what is a game like Go simulating, or Football?

[ganheddo]

I'd intuitively assume that not all games are simulations (and the ones that are, simulate games), but the more I think about it.. I mean, many games are invented through playful simulation i.e. tag simulating the chase of hunter and prey.

Furthermore, the rules that need to be explictily stated by games, only have meaning in play; only here are they assumed to be of an uncontestable appearance. And indeed: to obey them, means simulating a false appearance (restriction). E.g. there is no physical necessity for a ball not to be carried instead of dribbled in bball, just the rule stating that you do so. You're simulating the necessity, to only being able to move by dribbling. That you aren't allowed to fly around the court, isn't written down, as it's farily obvious to anyone familar with gravity and such.

So only the behavior governed by the explicitly stated rules of a game, are simulation. (Which would fit 'all videogames are simulations', as all rules of a videogame are explicitly stated in its code.)


The other way 'round, I'd assume that all simulations can be seen as games? A Game is a set of rules and a Simulation is the imitation or assumption of a false appearance, that also follows a selected set of rules, which are needed to achieve the goal of imitating/assuming what is to be simulated

[Kuzdu]

Let me make sure that I understand you correctly, Ganheddo.

You're saying that all play is the simulation of a world where the constraints of the rules are performed (making a false appearance) as if they were the laws of nature? In other words, when I play Poker I'm simulating a world in which 'four of a kind' always beats 'three of a kind'?

Games then are just simulations with 'actors' (players) that have a specific goals and can influence its (the simulation's) execution? The rules of the simulation here being the rules of the game?

Tell me if I'm over-simplifying what you're saying.

[icycalm]

Ganheddo, format your posts in paragraphs -- it's in the forum guidelines. I won't say it again.

The other thing I want to say is that it would be a good idea for you guys to read this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=9Z9biH ... frontcover

Even just the first few pages from the preview should open your mind a bit, at least to realize that, for the purpose of analysis, simulation in videogames should be seen as a different thing than simulation outside of it -- even if ultimately it can be shown to be the same thing and stemming from similar impulses. You have to break a thing down in order to analyze it; and it is only much much later, when analysis of the individual parts has been driven to the extremes, that you can put it back together again and achieve a real, a profound understanding of the whole.

Now as regards simulation in videogames, I have already analyzed how it works. As regards simulation OUTSIDE of videogames, it is an extremely complex subject which not even philosophers know how it works. Only Baudrillard did, to a great extent, and most of his thoughts on the subject are in that book. If you don't read it, you might eventually be able to reinvent his ideas on your own, but the chances are, to say the least, very slim...

[icycalm]

Another example of videogames simulating things which do not even exist yet is mecha games.

I understand that you may be talking about a specific genre here, but note that "mecha games" is as much a genre as "ninja games" -- i.e. not at all.

You could easily replace the mecha in Border Break with pink pandas and the game would still belong in the same genre it does.

You're entirely right that you could replace the mecha in Border Break though and the game would be the same (as someone did exactly that with Virtual On back in the day).

However, it's important to understand the initial rule set inspiration was from a mecha anime/manga background. As that's what the gaming functionality is trying map effectively.

http://forums.insertcredit.com/viewtopi ... 355#288355

Anything with a sci-fi theme, basically. Fantasy-type stuff also falls in the same category. Fantasy is basically sci-fi squared.

[icycalm]

Stupid, shallow version:

Proper computer games are the ones that let you do things you can’t actually do.

Intelligent version:

Proper computer games are the ones that let you fool yourself into thinking that you are doing things you can’t actually do.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 774171.ece

And people wonder why journalists never manage to get to the bottom of anything. If you handle language like a peasant handles a sack of potatoes, of course you won't.