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The Value of Reality
We have come to a turning point in this chapter. Up to now, our primary focus in considering the play of simulation has been on how simulations operate: the mechanisms that generate procedural representation, the abstraction necessary when game designers simulate a particular subject, the selection of case-based and generalized strategies for structuring simulations. But there is a very different aspect of simulations for us to consider. Recall our definition: a simulation is a procedural representation of aspects of "reality." So far, our emphasis has been on the procedural component of simulations. But now we turn to the equally important and immensely complicated set of questions regarding simulations and "reality."
What is the relationship between the simulated content of a game and its real-world or imagined referent? At the 1998 Game Developers Conference, game designer Steve Jackson shared a fascinating anecdote about creating a driving combat computer game based on his classic paper game Car Wars. Using real-world physics and car data, the development team created an unusually detailed driving simulation that incorporated minute details of driving physics and a detailed simulation of the car engine. They also created a track based precisely on the geometry of an existing speedway. But when they test-drove their simulated car, using a steering wheel and pedal interface, they weren't able to reach the top speeds of the car on which the simulation was based. One day a professional race car driver visited the company. He sat down at the game prototype and immediately drove the simulated car around the track at breakneck speed, completing it close to the real-world speed record.
The simulation was so "accurate" that it required expert manipulation in order to resemble the real-world phenomena it had been designed to replicate. What's the lesson? Don't forget the player. The designers of the game had assumed that simulation design meant only formally recreating a mathematical model of the car and the track. In fact, a game simulation not only includes the formal mechanisms of the system, but also the ways that those mechanisms engender and permit player action. The rules never solely determine the play of a game. The rules are always set into motion within an experiential context that includes particular players with their own levels of desire, skill, and expectation. The Car Wars designers had created a certain space of possibility with their design, but it took the right kind of player to navigate that space in the way it was meant to be explored.
The Car Wars anecdote reminds us that questions regarding the "reality" of a representation are never as simple as they seem at first glance. Was the car simulation "accurate"? Or was it only accurate in the hands of a professional race car driver? Is sitting in front of a computer monitor anything like driving a car? Would the race car driver have been able to reach top speeds playing with a standard console controller? Does the fact that the experience was "only a game" impact the answers to these questions?
When players interact with a simulation, they are never playing with the real thing. If they were, it couldn't be called a "simulation." At the same time, a simulation does reference its depicted subject through images, sound, and procedures. But how do these representations relate to their referents? In language, we know that the letters C-O-W don't resemble a cow in any way. But a photograph of a cow does bear some similarity to our own perception of a cow in the real world. How do games relate to their depicted subject matter? To answer these important questions, we return to the concept of metacommunication.
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