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Advantages
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Topics
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Model
Development Advantages
Many types of models and simulations built by game developers are fictional in nature. Whether it's a model of a medieval castle, an interstellar spaceship, or a Caribbean island dictatorship, many games are fanciful in their settings. These can be seen as a weakness or strength depending on how you look at it - we of course see potential strengths.
With
Capitalism 2 from UbiSoft (www.ubisoft.com)
players can explore a virtual world of business deals and marketing
decisions. A rich interface and detailed algorithms are packaged in
an easy to play game that simulates basic day-to-day economics of business.
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on image for larger view
Exploring the relationship
between relative accuracy and absolute accuracy is one of the defining
issues concerning application of game-based development techniques for
model and simulation building.
In place of absolute accuracy, most games attempt to focus on providing just enough detail to simulate the feeling or the key aspects of any model. For example, while providing key supplies and fuel for tanks is a critical element of warfare, the sheer monotony of such operations is almost never simulated, in even some of the most detailed consumer war games. Instead the refueling needs of slow-moving and short-range tanks may be integrated into an overall reduced amount of movement for a tank unit. This may imply the impact of the refueling process without actually requiring a player to deal with it in such detail.
The end result is that games always strive to use just enough absolute accuracy to keep the game's overall logic cohesive and the relative trends in the game inherently balanced. For example, in SimCity the game simulates the relative nature of crime levels in relation to lower property values. Whether the crime model in this aspect is perfectly accurate, or as accurate as more sophisticated models of urban crime that have been built, the game preserves the key issue that there is a discernable relationship between the cause and growth of crime levels within lower-property value areas.
At its core, the games industry is made up of many professionals who were influenced greatly by the notion of extensive and holistic world building, not from the fields of science but from the worlds of fiction and theater. Be it role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, the entire world of middle-earth created by author J.R.R. Tolkein, or the visual worlds of George Lucas, game developers are inspired by the idea of immersing themselves in worlds both real and imagined.
Coupled with their technical interest in simulations and programming this has spawned some of the most highly successful mass-market computer models ever created. This is in contrast to academic- and scientific-based motivations that dominate other model- and simulation-building communities. These communities are more rooted in the scientific method and principles -- to strive for complete understanding of a subject, prove a specific theory, or create an accurate prediction of existing systems. While the inspirations and guidelines for what constitutes a successfully produced simulation and model are somewhat different, it should be considered that neither has to be mutually exclusive -- both as a purpose and as a community.
Thus the advantage of game developers working on a model or simulation is not just in their technical ability to render them but also in their creative underpinnings. The creative force that drives most game developers is what makes them natural "out-of-box" thinkers, as well as excellent observers of the world around them. This sort of "world-building" motivation is especially useful for creating models of complex ecosystems.
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