[geeks] Games...

[Mark]

Essay alert!

On 7 Aug 2007, at 08:44, Jon Gilbert wrote:

>> Game engine, simulation engine... no real difference.
>
> Huge difference.

OK Here I have to put down my 2 peneth. It's a bit long winded but I  
have to put it down in writing.

Simulation engines have some inherent level of realism. The problem  
is the line between a game and a sim is a bit blurred. Sports sims  
emulate games, making them games, and simulations. Flight Sims often  
have goals and activities, and are based on Military conflicts, hich  
have goals and targets, making them games and sims at the same time.

Here's one for you. Would you consider Microsoft Flight Simulator to  
be a game or a simulation of virtual flight? I consider it to be the  
latter as, like SL it has no specific goals or activities defined  
unless you specifically ask for one. If you like you can go into MSFS  
and just fly from one place to another the way you feel like.  
Critically here, for me at least, that makes MSFS a simulation, NOT a  
game, because it has a significant factor of realism.

Second Life does not have a general sense of realism. The fact that  
'anything is possible', despite being really cool and all is  
generally what ruins it for me, and a lot of other people. Then again  
it makes it what it is to those who enjoy it. Faced with the prospect  
of doing anything I do nothing because I can't make up my mind what  
to do, and I can't comprehend a world  without limits. I like to  
operate inside a set of defining rules and constraints, as do many  
human beings, which set me along a line. Real Life has that set of  
rules, as do racing or flight simulations (which I really enjoy) or  
many other MMOGs.

To me if it doesn't have a sense of reality it is just a weird play- 
thing (play = game). I'm not even saying that reality has to be our  
reality, just A reality, a Universe if you will. If the rules are too  
lapse, or loosely defined it makes an environment hard to comprehend  
for some people. People like me then dismiss it, wether consciously  
or sub-consciously, as not being tangible.

Refer to Agent Smith's speech in The Matrix (if you haven't seen it  
skip the paragraph, this is a spoiler! ). Smith, while interrogating  
Morpheus talks bout the first iteration of The Matrix. He states that  
it was a 'perfect human world'. He also states that it was a total  
failure, 'a dream that your primitive cerebrums kept trying to wake  
up from'. The point made here is avery good one. A perfect world,  
where everyone is happy and free, simply does not appeal to a lot of  
people. I'm not saying this is a reason to dismiss SL as nonsense, I  
appreciate it has a following and has captured some people's  
imaginations, that's fair enough, but to the mind of a lot of people  
it won't stick because it is 'too good to be true'.

Jean Baudrillard's theory of the world eventually becoming a  
simulation of itself relies on the simulation becoming so accurate  
that it replaces real life. Second Life goes against that because it  
is not realistic, and doesn't fall within the bounds of a defined  
reality with tangible limits and goals. Only a few people,  
comparatively, are capable of operating inside these unlimited  
contexts.However you look at it, that phrase, 'too good to be true'  
is very significant.

That is my theory, encompassing a bit of human psychology (courtesy  
of Jean Baudrillard via the Wachowski Bros), my own experience of  
games and simulations, as to why a lot of people, including myself,  
can't accept SL as a genuine prospect.


-- 
Mark Benson

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