Simulation video games are a diverse super-category of
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...
s, generally designed to closely simulate real world activities. A simulation game attempts to copy various activities from real life in the form of a game for various purposes such as
training
Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance. I ...
, analysis, prediction, or entertainment. Usually there are no strictly defined goals in the game, and the player is allowed to control a character or environment freely. Well-known examples are
war games
A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a realistic simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to s ...
,
business games, and
role play simulation. From three basic types of strategic, planning, and learning exercises: games, simulations, and case studies, a number of hybrids may be considered, including simulation games that are used as case studies. Comparisons of the merits of simulation games versus other teaching techniques have been carried out by many researchers and a number of comprehensive reviews have been published.
Subgenres
Construction and management simulation
Construction and management simulation (CMS)
[
] is a type of simulation game in which players build, expand or manage fictional communities or projects with limited resources.
Strategy games sometimes incorporate CMS aspects into their game economy, as players must manage resources while expanding their projects. Pure CMS games differ from strategy games in that "the player's goal is not to defeat an enemy, but to build something within the context of an ongoing process."
Games in this category are sometimes also called "management games".
Life simulation
Life simulation games (or artificial life games)
[
] are a subgenre of simulation video games in which the player lives or controls one or more artificial lifeforms. A life simulation game can revolve around "individuals and relationships, or it could be a simulation of an ecosystem".
Social simulation
Social simulation is a research field that applies computational methods to study issues in the social sciences. The issues explored include problems in computational law, psychology, organizational behavior, sociology, political science, e ...
games are one of its subgenres.
Sports
Some video games simulate the playing of
sport
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...
s. Most sports have been recreated by video games, including
team sport
A team sport includes any sport where individuals are organized into opposing teams which compete to win or cooperate to entertain their audience. Team members act together towards a shared objective. This can be done in a number of ways s ...
s,
athletics
Athletics may refer to:
Sports
* Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking
** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport
* Athletics (physical culture), competi ...
and
extreme sports. Some games emphasize playing the sport (such as the
''Madden NFL'' series), whilst others emphasize strategy and organization (such as ''
Football Manager''). Some, such as ''
Arch Rivals'', satirize the sport for comic effect. This genre has been popular throughout the history of video games, and is competitive, just like real-world sports. A number of game series feature the names and characteristics of real teams and players, and are updated continuously to reflect real-world changes.
Other types
![FlightGear 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/FlightGear_3.0_Boeing_777-200_cockpit.png)
* In
medical simulation games, the player takes the role of a
surgeon
In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...
. Examples include the ''
Trauma Center
A trauma center (or trauma centre) is a hospital equipped and staffed to provide care for patients suffering from major traumatic injuries such as falls, motor vehicle collisions, or gunshot wounds. A trauma center may also refer to an emerge ...
'' and ''
LifeSigns'' series.
* In photography simulation games, players take photographs of animals or people. This includes games such as ''
Pokémon Snap
is a 1999 first-person photography game with rail shooter style gameplay mechanics developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was first released in Japan in March 1999 and was later released in July 1999 i ...
'' and ''
Afrika''.
* Military simulation games are
wargames with higher degrees of realism than other wargames set in a fantasy or science fiction environment. These attempt to simulate real warfare at either a tactical or strategic level.
** Some simulators, like ''GeoCommander'' by Intelligence Gaming, are designed for the US military to help new officers learn how to handle situations in a game setting before taking command in the field.
** Certain
tactical shooters
A tactical shooter is a subgenre of shooter games that cover both the first-person shooter and third-person shooter genres. These games aim to simulate realistic combat through slower-paced and punishing gameplay. This makes tactics, planning, ...
have higher degrees of realism than other shooters. Sometimes called "soldier sims", these games try to
simulate the feeling of being in combat. This includes games such as ''
Arma''.
*
Vehicle simulation game
**
Flight simulator
A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they re ...
s, including
amateur flight simulators,
combat flight simulators and
space flight simulators
**
Racing video game
Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic rac ...
s, including
sim racing
**
Submarine simulator games
**
Train simulator games
**
Truck simulator games
*
Immersive sim
An immersive sim (simulation) is a video game genre that emphasizes player choice. Its core, defining trait is the use of simulated systems that respond to a variety of player actions which, combined with a comparatively broad array of player ...
s are typically played from the
first-person perspective in a simulates a consistent lived-in world, and include elements of numerous gameplay systems that the player can use to complete objectives in many different manners, creating a sense of player agency and
emergent gameplay.
* "Blue collar" games that include both realistic and hyper-realistic presentation of
blue collar jobs in a game setting. These can include some of the vehicle simulation games including the flight, train and truck simulator titles, hunting games like ''
TheHunter
''theHunter'' is a series of simulation video games developed by Expansive Worlds and published by its parent company, Avalanche Studios. The first game in the series, known as ''theHunter'', was developed and published by Emote Games, in as ...
'' series, other job simulation games like ''
House Flipper'' or ''
PowerWash Simulator
''PowerWash Simulator'' is a simulation video game developed by FuturLab and published by Square Enix Collective. The game was first made available in early access through Steam on 19 May 2021, and was fully released for Microsoft Windows, Xbo ...
'', and games themed around these types of jobs like ''
Overcooked''.
* Digital card games simulating
blackjack
Blackjack (formerly Black Jack and Vingt-Un) is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This fam ...
and
poker
Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game wa ...
(including video poker)
* Video games designed to simulate mechanical or other real-world games. These may include simulations of
pinball games and casino games such as
slot machines
A slot machine (American English), fruit machine (British English) or poker machine (Australian English and New Zealand English) is a gambling machine that creates a game of chance for its customers. Slot machines are also known pejoratively a ...
,
pachinko, and
roulette
Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning ''little wheel'' which was likely developed from the Italian game Biribi''.'' In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the ...
.
Simulation games in education
Because Simulation games make learning a matter of direct experience, they may relieve the tedium associated with more conventional modes of instruction, as they demand increased participation rather than merely reading about or discussing concepts and ideas (like discrimination, culture, stratification, and norms). Students will experience them by actually
''living" the experiences. Therefore, the use of simulation games may increase students' motivation and interest in learning.
Simulation games can provide increased insights into how the world is seen, like the moral and intellectual idiosyncrasies of others. They may also increase empathy for others and help develop awareness of personal and interpersonal values by allowing players to see moral and ethical implications of the choices they make. As such, they can be used to change and improve students attitudes toward self, environment, and classroom learning.
Many games are designed to change and develop specific skills of
decision making
In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either ra ...
,
problem solving
Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles, a frequent part of most activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks (e.g. how to turn on an appliance) to complex issues in business an ...
and
critical thinking
Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgement. The subject is complex; several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, and unbiased ana ...
(such as those involved in
survey sampling,
perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...
and
communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...
).
History
''
The Sumerian Game
''The Sumerian Game'' is a text-based strategy video game of land and resource management. It was developed as part of a joint research project between the Board of Cooperative Educational Services of Westchester County, New York and IBM in 19 ...
'' (1964), a text-based
early mainframe game designed by
Mabel Addis
Mabel Addis Mergardt (21 May 1912 – 13 August 2004) was an American writer, teacher and the first female video game designer. She designed ''The Sumerian Game'', programmed by William McKay, for the IBM 7090 in 1964. It inspired similarly-styl ...
, based on the ancient
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of ...
ian city-state of
Lagash
Lagash (cuneiform: LAGAŠKI; Sumerian: ''Lagaš''), was an ancient city state located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, about east of the modern town of Ash Shatrah, Iraq. Lagash (modern Al-Hiba) w ...
, was the first
game.
Another early economic sim by
Danielle Bunten Berry, ''
M.U.L.E.
''M.U.L.E.'' is a 1983 multiplayer video game written for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers by Ozark Softscape. Designer Danielle Bunten Berry (credited as Dan Bunten) took advantage of the four joystick ports of the Atari 400 and 800 to ...
'', released in
1983.
In the 1980s, it became a trend for
arcade video games to use hydraulic
motion simulator arcade cabinet
An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade machine or a coin-op cabinet or coin-op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement Mac ...
s.
The trend was sparked by
Sega
is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, respectively. Its division ...
's "taikan" games, with "taikan" meaning "body sensation" in Japanese.
Sega's first game to use a motion simulator cabinet was ''Space Tactics'' (1981), a
space combat simulator
A space flight simulation is a genre of flight simulator video games that lets players experience space flight to varying degrees of realism. Common mechanics include space exploration, space trade and space combat.
Overview
Some games in ...
that had a cockpit cabinet where the screen moved in sync with the on-screen action.
The "taikan" trend later began when
Yu Suzuki
is a Japanese game designer, producer, programmer, and engineer, who headed Sega's AM2 team for 18 years. Considered one of the first auteurs of video games, he has been responsible for a number of Sega's arcade hits, including three-dimen ...
's team at Sega (later known as
Sega AM2) developed ''
Hang-On'' (1985), a
racing video game
Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic rac ...
where the player sits on and moves a
motorbike
A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruisin ...
replica to control the in-game actions. Suzuki's team at Sega followed it with hydraulic motion simulator cockpit cabinets for
rail shooters
Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs
) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charact ...
such as ''
Space Harrier'' (1985), racing games such as ''
Out Run
(also stylized as ''OutRun'') is an arcade driving video game released by Sega in September 1986. It is known for its pioneering hardware and graphics, nonlinear gameplay, a selectable soundtrack with music composed by Hiroshi Kawaguchi (comp ...
'' (1986), and
combat flight simulators such as ''
After Burner'' (1987) and ''
G-LOC: Air Battle'' (1990). One of the most sophisticated motion simulator cabinets in arcades was Sega's
R360
The R360 is a motion simulator arcade cabinet produced by Sega. It was first released in Japan in 1990, and internationally a year later. Being short for "Rotate 360", the R360 is noteworthy for its ability to spin 360 degrees in any direction on ...
(1990), which simulated the full 360-degree rotation of an aircraft.
Sega have since continued to manufacture motion simulator cabinets for arcade games through to the 2010s.
In the mid-1980s,
Codemasters and the
Oliver Twins
Andrew Nicholas Oliver and Philip Edward Oliver, together known as the Oliver Twins, are British twin brothers and video game designers.
They began to professionally develop computer games while they were still at school, contributing their fir ...
released a number of games with "Simulator" in the title, including ''
BMX Simulator'' (1986), ''
Grand Prix Simulator'' (1986), and ''
Pro Boxing Simulator
''By Fair Means or Foul'' (later also released as ''Pro Boxing Simulator'') is a boxing video game first published for a range of 8-bit home computers in 1988 by Superior Software. It was later reissued with the new title by Codemasters who also ...
'' (1988). Richard and
David Darling of Codemasters were inspired by
Concertmaster's best-selling games, which were based on real sports such as football and
BMX racing
BMX racing is a type of off-road bicycle racing. The format of BMX was derived from motocross racing. BMX bicycle races are sprint races on purpose-built off-road single-lap race tracks. The track usually consists of a starting gate for up to ei ...
, which had a pre-existing popularity. In a parody of the established "simulator" cliche, ''
Your Sinclair
''Your Sinclair'', or ''YS'' as it was commonly abbreviated, was a commercially published and printed British computer magazine for the Sinclair range of computers, mainly the ZX Spectrum. It was in circulation between 1984 and 1993.
History
Th ...
'' released a game titled ''
Advanced Lawnmower Simulator'' in 1988.
While many credit simulation games beginning with
Will Wright and ''
SimCity'' in 1989, the true progenitor of the genre was ''Fortune Builder'', released in 1984 for
ColecoVision.
Games such as ''
SimLife
''SimLife: The Genetic Playground'' is a video game produced by Maxis in 1992. The concept of the game is to simulate an ecosystem; players may modify the genetics of the plants and animals that inhabit the virtual world. The point of this gam ...
'' and ''
SimEarth'' were subsequently created and are capable of teaching players the basics of
genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar work ...
and
global ecosystems.
A study of adolescents who played ''
SimCity 2000
''SimCity 2000'' is a City-building game, city-building Simulation game, simulation video game jointly developed by Will Wright (game designer), Will Wright and Fred Haslam (game designer), Fred Haslam of Maxis. It is the successor to ''SimCity ( ...
'' found that those players had a greater appreciation and expectation of their government officials after playing.
See also
*
Game classification
Game classification is the classification of games, forming a game taxonomy. Many different methods of classifying games exist.
Physical education
There are four basic approaches to classifying the games used in physical education:
;Game cate ...
*
List of simulation games
This is a list of notable simulation games for all video game platforms.
Biological simulation
*''Catlateral Damage''
* ''Creatures'' series
** ''Creatures (artificial life program), Creatures''
** ''Creatures 2''
** ''Creatures 3''
* ''Dra ...
*
Serious game
A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to video games used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, he ...
*
Simming
A play-by-post role-playing game (or sim) is an online text-based role-playing game in which players interact with each other and a predefined environment via text. It is a subset of the online role-playing community which caters to both gamer ...
*
Simulated reality
The simulation theory is the hypothesis that reality could be simulated—for example by quantum computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds that may or may not know that they live i ...
*
Simulation
A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...
*
Tabletop game
Tabletop games or tabletops are games that are normally played on a table or other flat surface, such as board games, card games, dice games, miniature wargames, or tile-based games.
Classification according to equipment used
Tabletop games c ...
References
Further reading
* BALDRIC, Clark (2009): The Complete Guide to Simulations & Serious Games, John Wiley & Sons
* BANKS, Jerry (ed.) (1998): Handbook of Simulation, John Wiley & Sons
* BAUDRILLARD, Jean (1995): Simulacra and Simulation, University of Michigan Press; 17th Printing edition (February 15, 1995)
* BOX, George E. P.; DRAPER, Norman R. (1987). Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces, p. 424, Wiley. .
* FERNANDEZ-LIQUIDIZER, Maria Angeles, MUNOZ-TORRES, Maria Jesus, LEON, Raul (Eds.)(2013): Modeling and Simulation in Engineering, Economics and Management, in: Proceedings of the International Conference, MS 2013, Castellated DE la Plans, Spain, June 6–7, 2013, Sp-ringer Heidelberg Rerecord London New York.
* HÖHL, Wolfgang (2009): Interactive Environments with Open-Source Software, 3-Walk-Through and Augmented Reality for Architects using Blender, DART and Ar-toolkit, SpringerWienNewYork sex
* MORALES, Peter and ANDERSON, Dennis (2013): Process Simulation and Parametric Modeling for Strategic Project Management, Springer New York
* KLABBERS, Jan H. G. (2001): The Emerging Field of Simulation & Gaming: Meaning of a Retrospect, University of Bergin
* ZIEGLER, Bern hard P. (2000): Theory of Modeling and Simulation, Elsevier Academic Press
External links
Simulation & Gaming – An Interdisciplinary Journal of Theory, Practice and Research, SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320scienceviz.com – Scientific Vizualisation, Simulation and CG Animation for Universities, Architects and Engineers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Simulation Video Game
Game terminology
Video game genres