The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0
SIMULATION AND GAMES IN FUTURING AND OTHER USES
by
Erwin Rausch with additions from Frank Catanzaro
I. Introduction II. Definitions Futuring and Forecasting Models, scenarios, outcomes simulations, and games Distinctions between simulations and games III. History of Simulations and Games IV. Uses of Simulations and Games V. Brief Descriptions of Simulations and Game Examples Simulation Examples Game Examples Virtual World Examples VI. Constructing Simulations and Games for Futuring and Other Purposes VII. Establishing Objectives, Scope, and Resource Demands VIII. Selecting Design Features IX. Characteristics of the Simulators/Game Players and Facilitators, and Their Arrangement X. Communications Systems and Ease of Access to the Designers XI. Facilities and Equipment for Working the Simulation or Game XII. Simulation Design, Reviews, and Piloting XIII. Strengths and Weaknesses of Simulation-Gaming XIV. Alternative Uses and Use in Combination with Other Methods XV. Frontiers of Simulations and Games The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0
Appendices Appendix A: Resource Organizations Appendix B: Individuals prominent in simulations Appendix C: Software and programming tools Appendix D: Brief Descriptions of Several Selected Simulations and Games Appendix E: Journals, Books and Conference Resources References Bibliography
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Acknowledgments
Frank Catanzaro has made updates on games and simulation to this Version 3.0 of the chapter. Valuable comments and suggestions were received from Dennis Meadows of the University of New Hampshire; Theodore Gordon, Senior Fellow, the Millennium Project; Herman Stekler of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces; and Daniel Yalowitz, Lesley College for previous versions of this chapter. Special thanks are due Barbara Steinwachs, International Consultant, who went out of her way to help.
In addition, all of the organizations listed in Appendix A and most of the individuals in Appendix B provided information on their activities and many submitted descriptions of simulations and games from which the summaries in Appendix C were abstracted. Special thanks to Elizabeth Florescu, Neda Zawahri, and Kawthar Nakayima for excellent project support, Sheila Harty for editing, and John Young for proof reading. The Editor is grateful for all this help.
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I. INTRODUCTION
An early example of a simulation was the airplane cockpit with a television monitor instead of a window and all the controls and instruments connected to a computer. The computer was programmed to simulate the instruments‘ response to the pilot's manipulations of the controls as if it were a real plane. The monitor showed what a pilot would see during takeoff, flight, and landing and would present the ―pilot‖ with weather and traffic problems or even emergencies.
When a record is kept of what a pilot does so that ―performance‖ can be evaluated, or when more than one simulation is in progress at the same time, the simulation can become a game. To be a game, some objective or standard must be met. The objective could simply be to achieve the destination on time, or a standard could specify ways to overcome obstacles during flight. For the simulation to be a game, some way to determine a winner must be included. When ―playing‖ against standards, a participant wins when the standards are met or when performance is exceeded. In the most common form of game, players are in competition with each other to do a ―better‖ job instead of against a specific time, quantity, or quality standards. The simulation would also be a game if the "pilots" had make-believe weapons and "enemies" who try to destroy them.
Simulations can thus provide the opportunity to explore various options for dealing with situations that may come up in the future. The future is new territory for the simulator to explore now. The simulation itself does not provide guidelines for meeting that future. It does, however, allow the participants (in this case, pilots) to decide how to react to many ―what-ifs.‖ What to do if the signal is given to take off, what to do if turbulence is encountered, what to do if this or that happens while the plane takes flight, etc.. In effect, the "pilot" can try, learn, and experiment, gaining many hours of experience in just minutes, all without risking the potentially enormous consequences of mistakes.
Other kinds of simulations—like those that use scenarios of situations from business, demographics, ecology, economics, ethics, psychology, and other fields—permit participants to explore what would happen if... different resources were devoted to various business functions, or birth control instruction were provided, or interest rates were changed, or laws were passed to restrict toxic emissions, etc..
Gaming and Simulation entered a new era with the introduction of several new technologies over the last few years. A practical powerful and portable hand-held terminal epitomized by Apple‘s iPhone, and the sudden exponential growth of the MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games) such as Sony‘s Everquest, World of Warcraft and non-game-like ―social‖ worlds such as Second Life, CyWorld in Korea and the latest and most ambitious effort to date, China‘s HiPiHi world. Based on the Entropia CryENGINE, China‘s goal (not necessarily through HiPiHi) is to host more than 9 million simultaneous users; for comparison, most current virtual worlds host 100,000 simultaneous users.
Virtual worlds are growing rapidly. Gartner, the market research firm, projects that 80% of
Simulation and Games 1 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 active Internet users and enterprises will be in virtual worlds by 2011.1 While most will be taking advantage of collaboration tools in virtual worlds2, the fact remains that virtual worlds themselves are large simulations housing yet other simulations.3 A case could be made that virtual worlds are also creating ―artificial economies.‖ Many virtual worlds have a thriving currency exchange with daily fluctuations of the exchange rate with other ―real‖ currencies 4 5. These virtual economies are, in some cases helping developing economies.4
Parallel to this development was the introduction of the cell processor by IBM, described by some as a supercomputer on a chip. It was adopted by Sony‘s Playstation game platform and shortly after its commercial introduction; articles came out on how to use the Playstation as the core of a home-brew supercomputer for application to gaming simulation and other compute- intensive research subjects.5
During the late twentieth century, most drivers of simulation and gaming were commercial, academic, business, and military interests. They tended to be proprietary, expensive, and time and resource consuming. With the advent of the open source model of software development in the latter part of the last century a new approach to gaming and simulation emerged.6 Open source development is being applied to many fields of research from robotics to bioinformatics, and has created an ―open grid‖7 8approach to gaming and simulation that could grow into a ―metaverse‖ of simulations within simulations, a kind of massive Petri dish of growing and learning organisms interacting with real-life people and other simulations. 9
II. DEFINITIONS
Future and Forecasting The word futuring is used in the title and throughout this paper, rather than forecasting, to clarify the role of simulation and gaming in looking at potential futures. Simulation-gaming can help bring to attention a rich and varied range of possible specific changes that may occur in an existing or imaginary scenario, and explore what repercussions might result. Simulation-gaming does not offer predictions nor even provide probabilities of occurrence without the use of other techniques.
For the purposes of this paper, the word forecasting goes beyond futuring. Forecasting specifies a
1 Gartner Says 80 Percent of Active Internet Users Will Have A "Second Life" in the Virtual World by the End of 2011 2 Second Life to beat web as collaboration platform, says report | 11 Jan 2008 | ComputerWeekly.com 3 Desktop Simulation and Virtual Worlds - Simulation Modalities - What is ISL? - Center for Immersive and Simulation based Learning - Stanford University School of Medicine 4 Virtual world economy drives developing world economy | The Industry Standard 5 Scientists use PlayStations to create supercomputer, Scientists Write Guide to Build Supercomputer from Sony Playstation 3 6 The Multiverse According to Ben: Open-Source Robots + Robot Simulators + Virtual Worlds + AI = ??? 7 Welcome to OSGrid 8 Academia.edu | People | The Virtual World Game Simulation Reality Continuum Gradual Steps Of Added Reality/Imagination 9 Metaverse 08 - European Virtual Worlds Conference And Expo - Karlsruhe, May, 27-28
Simulation and Games 2 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 likely or most likely occurrence based on the assumptions. Sometimes forecasts assign probabilities to specific possible results from a change or the passage of time. In weather forecasts, for instance, the probability of rain is frequently assigned. Based on these probabilities, forecasting may predict which of the possible results is likely to occur as time passes. Simulation/gaming can describe possible futures; other techniques designate the probable ones.
A liberal interpretation is used to discuss simulations and games within the context of futuring. For planning purposes, simulations and games clearly deal with matters pertaining to the future, even though they paint aspects of a future that are strongly affected by the subsequent actions of the simulators. Similarly, the use of simulations and games for education and training also impacts the future, especially if they are used to train people in developing and manipulating scenarios of the future. Even training and development for other functions has an influence on the future by better preparing people in various skills.
Like all other techniques used to look into the future, simulations sometimes take a very near- term perspective, as in the flight simulator, when simulating the possible outcomes of a hostage situation, or when developing weather scenarios. Other simulations look at the intermediate future, such as some business simulations, individual industry economic and ecological impact simulations, and international trade and policy simulations. Finally, some look further ahead than 20 years, into what can be considered the distant future. These are likely to be simulations on major world trends, providing glimpses of the likely results of demographic, ecological, economic, political, social, and resource availability developments.
Models, Scenarios, Outcomes, Simulations, and Games
A model is a simplified or reduced-scale version of reality, depicting the elements of the reality needed for the purposes of the model. For instance, a terrain and/or road map is a model that depicts the information needed by a traveler about a geographic area. Examples of physical models are the flight trainer cockpit or a test engine in a laboratory. Mathematical models express, in equations, physical phenomena like moving stars or the relationship of atoms in a molecule. Equations can also show the forces at work in an economy or any other complex system with definable relationships among its components.
A scenario is an account of ―what happens‖ during some period of time in the course of an action, development, or situation – past, present, or future, real or imagined. It is essentially a narrative of events. It should be noted that each of those events may embody a scenario of its own.. In a cross-country flight simulation, the pre-flight is the first activity of the main scenario, and implies a sub-scenario of, say, {file flight plan}{sign out plane rental}{inspect plane} … and so on Many sub-scenarios may occur in flight, since any action by the pilot or the co-pilot moves the simulation to the next phase; finally the ending scenario (or outcome) is when the plane has crashed or arrived safely or damaged at the gate, and the pilot has shut down the engines. The outcome(s) of the simulation or game is (are) the ending scenario(s).
A simulation is any activity that projects a different situation in time and/or place, usually extrapolating from the real/actual world to a hypothetical situation. A simulation, though not necessarily a game, is based on a scenario that is often in the form of a model. A scenario does
Simulation and Games 3 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 not have to be a model but can be a simple description of a situation. Either statement—"Let us assume that you are a salesperson who will make a presentation on Product X," or "Imagine that you are planning to run for office in next year's election"—creates scenarios. Both statements immediately project someone into a vague scenario, a different place and/or time.
Any question beginning with ―What if..." creates a simple simulation, because the answer requires some activity that changes the anticipated scenario. In the Product X salesperson scenario, the simulation could start from the question, "What would you do if the customer greeted you with...?"
When planning a trip, a map becomes the model and the simulation projects the planner into the future when s/he will take the trip. The map allows estimates of distances and durations, as well as stops and other features of the trip.
In a fire or disaster drill, the physical environment for the drill is the model and the drill is the simulation. For predicting the likely trajectory of a rocket, a set of equations defines the model and the creation of the path for a specific rocket is the simulation. A simulation for exploring what changes in a riverbed will result from a new culvert or dam would be based on some theoretical or physical model of the river. In a simulation for estimating the impact on food demands of various possible population changes, equations are most likely to define the model.
Whether based on a model or just on a bare-bones description of a situation, a simulation creates a dynamic potential that brings life to the model or the scenario.
Grey areas exist where some people call activities simulations that do not fully fit the definitions used in this paper. They result from the question "What do you think will be...?" That question is similar to "What if...?" but it does not project the person into the situation. Making such a distinction may seem like splitting hairs, especially since both questions may ask about the same scenario. However, the "What do you think will be..." question somehow asks for a fairly definitive answer, a prediction, rather than setting the stage for the exploration of various possible changes in the scenario, as the "What if..." question implies. The difference can be significant.
Games are related to simulations in many ways. Simulations can be foundations for games, and they often are. A game is any activity with an objective that places a player — whether that player is a device, a person, several individuals, a group, or several groups — into competition against other players or against standards. If achievement standards are posited (like, "Let's see whether the task can be finished in x minutes... " or "Anyone who can build a tower more than two feet high with these building blocks, wins."), then the simulations or several parallel ones also become games.
In the case of standards, when the competition is against "nature," it is possible for every participant to win (non-zero-sum games). In many other games, only one, or only a limited number of participants, can win (win-lose). What some lose can exactly match what others win (zero-sum), or the losses and winnings may not be equal (non-zero-sum games). Games have rules that bring constraints in addition to those that an underlying simulation model may impose.
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For instance even in a game based on a simulation, time limits may have to be observed, or the number of people in any one role may be prescribed.
Distinctions between Simulations and Games
In a simulation, the consequences of any relevant idea, no matter how absurd, can be explored. When several people participate in a simulation, they may even build on unorthodox ideas to generate unique, imaginative results. To some extent, this range of options is also true of games, but sometimes the time pressures of competition have a dampening effect on the exhaustive exploration of unusual ideas.
For the purposes of developing possible scenarios for some aspect of the future, simulations are also, in some ways, more useful than games. The competition of a game can be a distorting influence in the dispassionate construction and analysis of scenarios. This distorting influence may exist even when the competition is against "nature," as it usually is when standards are used to evaluate "wins." However, games can expose shortcomings in models as well as educate. When applied with techniques—such as decision modeling, the Systems Method, and even the Delphi Method—games can help make those techniques more effective. Sometimes games can even make significant contributions by helping people gain greater awareness of future options, and thus make more informed judgments and decisions today.
Games can be more useful than dry simulations to determine the adequacy of existing structures, policies, or procedures for future possibilities, to bring about more effective communications, to enhance learning, and thus to prepare people for coping with events that may occur in the near future. Games can also help explore the reactions of people to scenarios, eliciting a wide range of creative ideas and a lot of data for improving the model and simulation which would otherwise not be available.
Games often are more challenging to the participants than the more intellectual exploration of a scenario that occurs in a simulation without serious competitive challenge. Games reach people's feelings and, therefore, lead to ideas that may not arise in the dryer environment of a simulation. By deeply involving participants, games stimulate totally new approaches to the real world. For issues pertaining to the future, games more than simulations can project much of the variety and dimensions of uncertainty that are characteristic of the future's rich panorama. Repeated playing of games pertaining to futuring leads to detailed insights into possibilities for the future, at least those aspects on which the game is based.
The distinction between games and simulations in virtual worlds is less clear. With large open- ended social worlds such as Second Life, games can be a component of the larger simulation and in more game-oriented simulations such as Sony‘s Everquest, while the game aspect is in the forefront the overall social aspects of the simulation are ever present.
Simulations and games have a major benefit in common. They allow users to search for the best approaches to exploiting an opportunity, facing a challenge, or solving a problem, without the risk or price of costly mistakes in the real world.
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III. HISTORY OF SIMULATIONS AND GAMES
Simulation-gaming has a venerable history that goes back to antiquity. As long as organized armies existed, war games helped train soldiers to meet various possible situations they might encounter. Creative designers and engineers have always used simulations to explore whether a design could accomplish its goal or whether a specific change could improve the design. Leonardo da Vinci‘s work with wings attached to a person is an early recorded instance of a simulation.
In more recent times, specifically since the Industrial Revolution, complete and partial physical models of preliminary equipment and product designs have been used widely to simulate the reaction of the design to various conditions that the final designs will have to meet. Computers have expanded simulations exponentially, since they eliminate the need for costly physical models, at least during the early phases of designing shapes, evaluating feasibility and cost of manufacturing, and exploring the reaction of the models to environmental conditions.
Continual work with a model and an initial set of data, e.g. with computer programs, improves the model and adds data that can make the programs, models, and simulation more and more realistic and accurate.
Even before computers were available, management experts used Operations Research concepts and financial data to construct models of business enterprises, public facilities, and their components. These models were then used in simulations to explore the impact of system design features, such as various possible numbers and locations of tollbooths on highways, fire stations in an area, or changes in resources within research, finance, operations, marketing, and distribution. The initial analysis of voting patterns to simulate the effect of election strategies is another example of the early use of nonphysical models in simulations.
Imaginative teachers and instructors in many fields have used simple simulations and games for a long time. Though exceedingly cumbersome, manually scored and operated business models were occasionally used decades ago. These simulation-games by educational institutions, business associations, and large business enterprises allowed users to gain the vicarious experience compression that simulations permit and created opportunities for meaningful debriefing.
Computers have brought even greater change in the types of models and simulations that are used for purposes other than product design. Simulations are now used to explore the impact of changes in variables affecting all types of systems, in physical and nonphysical sciences and other disciplines including, though not limited to, astronomy, biology, cinematography, demography, ecology, economy, ethics, finance, medicine, politics, sociology, and urban studies. See section XV of this chapter for more insight into the impact computers and communications will have on gaming and simulation.
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IV. USES OF SIMULATIONS AND GAMES
Simulations are used widely by designers, researchers, planners, and business specialists to explore models. These applications in the form of games for education, human resource development, and fun are equally widespread. The world-famous Monopoly game is a simulation-game that is fun but also teaches some basic economic principles.
The uses of simulations and games fall into six major categories: futuring, other research, planning, design, education/training (including virtual reality), and entertainment. In all these uses they can and often do expose shortcomings in the structures that they simulate. Thus, simulations and games extend their benefits beyond what comes directly from primary use, especially in developing plans for the future.
Futuring
Futuring is a vague term. Sometimes researchers use possible or probable end-of-simulation scenarios to look at the future and to help make decisions about what direction to take. Some government agencies, private research foundations, and other organizations involved in futures research construct scenarios of the future, with and without simulation, as a foundation for advocating specific policies or preventing passage of legislation designed to foster policies that they consider undesirable. In exploring and evaluating scenarios, simulations can provide an exceptionally useful tool, whether they are used alone or in combination with other research techniques.
Recently there has been a movement toward large ―wisdom of crowds‖ type games and simulations in the futures field. The futures predictions marketplace pioneered by the Institute for the Future has become a free-for-all, with prediction markets spread across a wide range of interests. There was even an attempt to apply prediction markets to terrorist events, a perhaps ill conceived or badly marketed idea by DARPA to predict future terrorist activity.
Other Research
In addition to gaining knowledge of the future, simulations can help to improve knowledge for the future and are used widely in research for that purpose. Astronomers and physicists use simulations to determine relationships between masses in the universe and between subatomic particles. Medical researchers build physical and computer models of biochemical substances and of human organs to simulate the impact of various new techniques and substances that they are investigating. Researchers in the social and behavioral sciences experiment with simulations of interactions between individuals and groups, using simulations and games involving starting scenarios similar to those encountered in real life.
Hardly any discipline today does not use simulation techniques for exploring the unknown.
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Planning
Probably more common than simulations for research purposes are specific or vague scenarios of the future for planning purposes. Even when not explicitly spelled out, all planning makes assumptions about the future or relies on predictions. Planning either assumes continuation of present conditions into the future or makes assumptions about changes that the future will bring.
Though their structure is not rigorous in permitting flexibility and spontaneity, simulations are often used to organize the planning process and to guide the way in which people will be involved. By using the same starting scenario, participants have a common base from which to build. Simulations help to assemble the combined talents and experiences of participants within the process and to focus them sharply on the task.
Games elicit more intense personal and emotional involvement from participants, which often leads to stronger stimulation of creative ideas and the benefits of more diverse points of view for considering possibilities. Participants often have greater motivation for stepping into the unknown and the untried because, as with all simulations and games, the cost of errors is minimal.
Design
When the underlying model of a simulation is a reasonably accurate depiction of a real situation, the simulations can help in the design process itself, both to analyze critically the adequacy of a design, a structure, or a procedure and to test the organizational integrity of the real situation.
Simulation models are used increasingly to design equipment, buildings, and other structures. For instance, simulated assembly of components in aircraft design permits much easier actual assembly with far better alignment of the segments than was possible before. Aircraft and even cars are subjected to simulated operating conditions in wind tunnels, on test stands, and on especially constructed road segments. Computers are used to simulate various possible shapes of aircraft and automotive skins, so that the appearance of the vehicles can be seen in three dimensions from all desired angles, and to conduct preliminary tests of the design's likely reaction to adverse conditions.
Even plastic surgeons design facial features in computer simulations so that patients can see what they would look like after surgery, and so they can choose from different alternatives (end-of- simulation scenarios) without a single cut having been made in their skins.
Obviously every design task, from architectural design to the development of organizational operating procedures, could benefit from computer simulation, provided the task warrants the cost of the simulation program design and operation.
Entertainment
The role of simulation-games for entertainment in developed countries is growing and is probably already the widest use of the technique. Many children of all ages have parents who
Simulation and Games 8 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 buy them hand-held machines and/or a television set and its additional apparatus. In amusement arcades, these simulations — games whether they simulate driving, flying, navigating a labyrinth, or fighting — have taken over pinball machines and other entertainment. Little connection exists between these games and futuring, except that they may help to sharpen eye- hand coordination. Some are even educational and thus help the players gain broader perspective and judgment for dealing with issues pertaining to the future.
Education and Training, Including Virtual Reality
Human resource development, whether in educational institutions or elsewhere, is the second most widespread use of simulations and games. This application is likely to expand further when virtual reality applications become less expensive (see Strengths and Weaknesses of Simulation- Gaming for a brief discussion of virtual reality simulation). Competent teachers know that, although learning styles and retention rates are unique for each individual in general, students easily forget what they what are told, remember much of what they are shown, but will most rapidly understand what they have experienced. Competent teachers, therefore, have learned to use the power of games to involve students, even in the lowest grades, to acquire knowledge and skills in language, communications, mathematics, economics, social studies, and geography; later, even science courses and safety instruction are often enriched with games. Special temporary and permanent simulation/game fairs add stimulating variety and motivation for learning other topics, most notably economics and business.
In undergraduate and graduate education, simulations provide vicarious experience in classes of all types, including education, engineering, the behavioral/mathematical/physical sciences, medicine, law, and, even more extensively, business. Another prominent use of simulations is in continuing professional development where simulations, including role plays, enjoy considerable popularity in private and public organizational learning centers and in post-graduate education for practitioners in various social service and psychology-related professions.
For learning purposes, whether in an educational institution or in post-graduate training, simulations and their debriefings serve many valuable purposes. Simulations are a laboratory for involvement, for stimulating motivation to learn, for practical application and involvement, and for interpretation of newly acquired knowledge. In professional education, a participant can make several years‘ worth of relevant decisions in a matter of hours and receive feedback on the "quality" of the decisions based on the criteria and assumptions built into the simulation model. Best of all, mistakes or poor judgment do not bring the negative consequences that usually accompany them in real life.
For futuring purposes, considerable learning is necessary to develop professionals in the many fields that involve scenario development, forecasting, and planning. In addition, people involved temporarily in activities related to futuring, such as professionals in a Delphi research project or in focus groups, might benefit from training that uses a game or a simulation to sharpen perceptions and awareness of the many dimensions of an issue.
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Virtual World as Extension of Real World
China is pioneering the use of virtual worlds as an adjunct to their real world economy. Using the very realistic virtual reality engine CryENGINE, China plans to have the ability to have nine million simultaneous participants in their virtual world. China is not alone in this migration to virtual worlds as other countries race to the same goal. Korea, Brazil and Sweden are at the cutting edge of building such worlds into their economy.
V. BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS OF SIMULATION AND GAME EXAMPLES
Synopses of seven different types of simulations and of five gaming applications will provide a clearer picture of the use of this technique.
SIMULATION EXAMPLES
The following examples of simulations were selected to show a variety of formats and topics.
1. Economic Impact of the Fishing Industry
This simulation is built on an economic input/output model of the type frequently used to estimate impacts of resource changes or to calculate contributions of an industry to the total economy. The model shows the goods and services that each industry sector (fishing, manufacturing, services, etc.) purchases from itself and from other sectors, as well as what it sells to itself and to other sectors.
Using this model as the foundation for a simulation permits exploration of impacts on various other industries and on the entire economy covered by the model as well as of actions designed to stimulate or otherwise affect the fishing industry. Conversely, this model also permits evaluation of impacts on the fishing industry when developments bring changes in other segments of the economy.
Like most simulations, this type of simulation is easily turned into a game: Just specify an objective and let individual players or teams modify the variables. For example, instruct the players to apportion limited funds to stimulating industry sectors to achieve the greatest economic improvement overall.
2. Weather
The most commonly known and widely used model-based simulation into the future is weather forecasting. Data on temperature, wind velocities and directions, moisture content, cloud formations, etc., are collected at ground stations and by balloons all over the world and at various elevations. These data are fed into a vast computer network, which in the United States is coordinated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The NOAA
Simulation and Games 10 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 network uses highly sophisticated programs with formulae that represent a dynamic, continuously changing model of weather conditions all over the globe.
A weather simulation starts with a picture of the weather in specific geographical areas at the moment and then permits development of scenarios that consider various possibilities of changes. Since so much is known about relationships between weather in one location and its probable impact on weather in other locations, the computer goes almost directly from the existing weather to the most probable scenarios of future weather. This instance is one of the few where simulations lead to forecasts, without separate evaluation of the probabilities of alternate outcomes (ending scenarios). The forecast often provides the probabilities of precipitation, showing that some evaluation of probabilities does occur in the program.
3. Crude Oil Production
The model for a simulation of crude oil production is based on proven, known, and undiscovered oil reserves in eleven regions, as estimated in reports by the Department of Energy and U.S. Geological Survey. The model then considers oil production techniques and their respective production ratios in various types of conditions and oil-field depletion levels.
A simulation based on this model can vary the assumed reserves and production ratios in each of the regions to develop alternate possible outcomes. The figures for the respective alternatives can come from different experts or from some combination of expert opinions. The alternatives can then be evaluated, again by experts, to determine which one should be considered the best forecast.
4. Business Simulations
The business field more than any other has developed simulations other than entertainment. Two types of business simulations emerged, as did many combinations of the two types; one is based on a numerical/mathematical model; the other is nonmathematical. The mathematical models are more often computer-based than the others. The numerical models typically provide balance sheet and income statement information for the entire company, division, or unit, like a department or sales outlet. Participants make decisions that apply to the upcoming period. These decisions can concern resource allocations to research, marketing, sales, equipment, facility investments, etc.
The nonnumerical models are, in essence, programmed simulations that present events requiring decisions and then provide feedback on the simulated environment's reaction to participants' decisions.
Business simulations of actual and hypothetical businesses are often used as games in college courses and in developing operating managers. When used by organizations for developing their own managers based on real situations, simulations and games can help uncover shortcomings in existing procedures and develop organizational changes that would be desirable. For example, a
Simulation and Games 11 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 simulation designed to analyze policies, procedures, opportunities, and challenges in a large manufacturing enterprise may start with an imaginary crash of a plane into one of the buildings. This dramatic start was meant to initiate a review of safety rules but resulted in much more. It brought awareness of the inadequacy of the internal road system and of access for speedy evacuation and entry of emergency vehicles.
5. International Conflict Resolution
This simulation's purpose was to provide a forum for serious consideration of alternatives to achieve world peace. It is based on the model for a "disarmed world" that was developed by Arthur Waskow at the Institute for Policy Studies. An international crisis emerges when one nation violates a disarmament agreement, and the World Court issues a "Cease and Desist" order. Participants who represent imaginary countries are also members of three councils: a disarmament council, a boundary council, and a special situations council. In various negotiation patterns, which follow a procedure required by the simulation, participants attempt to formulate common policy that will respect their own national interests and, at the same time, prevent the incident from exploding into a devastating confrontation.
This type of simulation, if it were used by groups of experienced foreign policy officers, members of foreign policy institutions and think tanks, and experts from academia, could conceivably generate valuable models for consideration by multinational panels. For educational purposes this type of simulation can easily be used as a sophisticated game.
6. Conflict in Business
The model behind this programmed-type simulation is not detailed, but merely describes an environment in which the participant is asked to assume that s/he is a supervisor in a factory. As the simulation progresses, participants are presented with a series of events that come up in the course of a supervisor's work. These situations involve conflict with a quality control supervisor and, in each one, the participant has to make decisions. Some of the decisions involve selection of the best alternative from several that the simulation presents. Others require identifying steps that could be taken in prioritizing and categorizing possible reactions of the quality control supervisor. Still other decisions require planning a meeting with the quality control supervisor in a role play.
In helping to develop conflict prevention and resolution skills, the simulation can contribute to future competence in the work lives and private lives of participants. The simulation is transformed into a game if evaluation criteria assess the quality of the decisions at each event and a team or several teams in competition work toward a specified objective.
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7. A Hostage Crisis
The model in this simulation describes a situation in which an armed man was caught in a burglary. He barricades himself in the apartment and is holding a woman and her child hostage. At first, no communications with him transpires but, after some initial attempts to speak with him through the door, he agrees to accept telephone calls.
The participant has to establish options for dealing with the situation at several stages in the negotiations and evaluate the impact of these options on the people who are involved and/or affected. Beyond sharpening skills for handling people in crises, the simulation can enhance general decision-making skills by demonstrating the need to look at obvious and less apparent options when making decisions in the future. This simulation can be turned into a game using the same procedures as in example 6.
GAME EXAMPLES
The following examples of games are primarily educational, and geared to help participants better prepare for future activities.
1. Scarcity and Allocation
Scarcity and Allocation is a game for grade-school children, built on a simple mathematical model that demonstrates how devoting time to tool building will lead to time savings that can be used to accumulate wealth and improve quality of life. The model is presented to the students in the form of a table and decisions are entered in a worksheet.
Players are shipwrecked sailors who have reached shore with only their clothing and, of course, their skills. Players simulate life on the island by allocating 120 hours (12 hours per day for a 10-day period). In the beginning, almost all the time goes toward obtaining the daily food supply. At first, they eat only what they can collect; later, they also hunt, fish, and ultimately farm. Fewer hours are required to gain a day's food supply with the more advanced food- generating techniques that do, however, require tools. Any hours they do not need for the food supply can be used for building tools or for resting.
The game thus helps to develop some economic literacy at an early age and some decision- making skills that will help children carry their weight as grown-up contributors in the economy at some future time.
2. Time Management
This game uses a tightly timed series of events to interrupt a team that is designing and building a tower with building blocks or toy construction pieces. The goal of the game is to dispose of the simulated time-wasting interruptions in a sensible way, while continuing on the main task of building the highest possible tower. The game can be used to draw conclusions about teamwork,
Simulation and Games 13 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 about decision making, and, of course, about time management. It thus helps participants become more effective in the future.
3. Ghetto
This game is intended to help students from middle and higher socio-economic backgrounds gain greater appreciation of the obstacles that the poor encounter as they struggle to survive and succeed in life. Players are assigned various roles of poor people. They receive chips representing time, which they can use for various activities. Some of the activities, such as hustling, are potentially detrimental; some, such as gaining an education, are potentially beneficial; and others, such as recreation, are essentially neutral. An opportunity also allows players to spend time on community improvement.
A chance device is used to determine which of the activities are successful or unsuccessful. As the game progresses, the players come to see how difficult it is for people to rise above their environmental conditions.
4. Tic-Tac-Toe
This game uses a commercial three-dimensional tic-tac-toe game with four levels and 16 places for chips on each level, arranged in four rows of four. Teams of players receive different color chips and try to 'win' by being first to have four chips in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row.
In a high-tension version of the game, the moves of the other team or teams are hidden from view and only one player from each team is allowed to see the board after each move. The game can be used for a variety of skill development purposes, including planning, communications, decision making, team leadership, and team followership, etc.
5. Civil Disorder Game
A general structure for civil disorder games was developed by the Research Analysis Corporation for the International Association of Chiefs of Police as a foundation for adapting to local situations. The purpose of the game is to assist the police in developing a better capability to handle riots and insurrections. The games use starting scenario descriptions, maps, building layouts, and human and equipment resources to create simulations similar to war games. If taken seriously by a police department, such a game can uncover many shortcomings in the department's procedures and resource availability for handling this type of emergency.
6. Serious Games
While arguably most of the games discussed in this paper are serious in intent, the serious game movement highlights the awakening of the games industry to the possibility that not all games
Simulation and Games 14 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 need a violent adversarial basis. Now, in addition to universities, management consultants, and the military, the game industry is actively participating in the search for serious games that can have a positive impact on the marketplace.
VIRTUAL WORLD EXAMPLES
Examples of the early virtual worlds produced in the 1990s are Alpha Worlds, Blaxx Sun, and Habitat. The next phase in social worlds was led by pioneer Linden Labs and its Second Life. This marked the start of the virtual land rush, with near-exponential growth in population, and the entry of major corporate users such as IBM. Virtual worlds continue to grow and diversify. Countries such as China, Brazil and Sweden are leading the way towards integration of the virtual and the real worlds.
Figure 1. Virtual World map (2008)
There is a certain amount of recursive paradox in thinking about these virtual worlds, since people use systems like Second Life to plan other simulations and games, all the while ―virtually‖ surrounded by other simulations, which are in most cases free to interact. The environment of Second Life is sufficiently close to everyday reality so that one can quickly get beyond this conundrum. It is, after all, a simulation of reality, some might say a new version of real estate, with rather loose constraints on the physics involved, e.g. gravity, solidity and distance need not be limiting factors in design.
Each individual who chooses to participate in these virtual resources is represented ―in world‖ as an avatar or representation of themselves. Most avatars or participants choose to look like themselves; e.g., with similar characteristics such as color of hair and overall height; however you are not limited to such conventional portrayals and unusual non-humanoid avatars can be seen.
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There are currently hundreds of universities, educational institutions, non-profits and foundations moving parts of their real-life activities into the virtual world. Because virtual land and other resources are relatively cheap, it is a great place to test concepts, build simulations, and otherwise kick the tires on new ideas before committing them to the expenses of real world development. It is an inexpensive way to bring your organization‘s resources to a global audience, whether it‘s curriculum or philanthropy or customer service. For-profit organizations such as IBM have found it to be a very productive and cost-effective tool to link their offices and clients worldwide. Offering 24/7 meeting, collaboration and customer support has more than paid for their initial investment. For example, the Millennium Project‗s current work in Second Life can be seen at: http://mpcollab.org/MPbeta1/node/1694.
Figure 2. Second Life used for virtual learning facilities and conferences
Figure 3. The Millennium Project Headquarters in Second Life
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One can consider virtual simulations such as Second Life simply as a new form of real estate. Also one can consider it as a simulator within a simulator surrounded by other simulators, all interacting in a social web. Sound associated with the location of the source of the sound helps people quickly adapt to holding meetings and seminars in cyberspace, regardless of their geographical location, using video, PowerPoint, and other resources typical of any meeting, as if in the same physical location.
VI. CONSTRUCTING SIMULATIONS AND GAMES FOR FUTURING AND OTHER PURPOSES
Simulation and game design is more of an art than a science. When starting to design such activities, speak with people who have designed and facilitated various types of simulations and games. If that is not practical, read about simulation and game design. Even more useful is participating in different simulations and games and reading descriptions about others. This paper provides a brief description of the steps in design and a number of examples in Appendix C.
Though simulation and game designers use many different techniques, some groups of tasks are common:
1. Setting objectives, defining scope, and determining resource demands
2. Selecting design features of the model to express and communicate the fixed and variable conditions and their relationships, including the assumptions on which they are based
3. Adapting the design to the characteristics and arrangement of participants (simulators/players) and coordinators (facilitators/managers)
4. Selecting a communications system to support participants (simulators/players) and coordinator (facilitator/manager) in the simulation/game and to provide instructions/guidelines
5. Considering ease of access to designers during simulation and game activities for clarification of questions not answered in the instructions or guidelines
6. Selecting facilities and equipment for delivery of the model and for working the simulation and/or the game
7. Constructing, reviewing, and piloting simulations
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VII. ESTABLISHING OBJECTIVES, SCOPES, RESOURCE DEMANDS
Simulations for looking into the future are complex designs. Considerable preparatory work should be done before the decision is made to proceed with development.
The objectives (what the simulation should accomplish) determine the scope of the design work; the scope provides a basis for estimating resource demands.
For example, a simulation could assist in estimating what land should be acquired for a new road to connect two growing cities. In its simplest form, the scope could consider only the expected demographic changes. In more sophisticated forms, the scope could also include some or many additional variables, such as various possible future forms, locations, and designs of people movers; stations along their routes; possible ecology-based restrictions on vehicular traffic; vehicle design changes that reduce toxic exhaust; alternative location of industry and shopping centers; changes in the cost of fuel, transportation equipment and land; etc.. Correct scoping (establishing which variables should be considered in the simulation) is essential for estimating how many work hours of each professional/occupational skill will be needed to complete the simulation.
This example highlights the process that can be used to build and improve on a complex simulation. Decisions pertaining to a road are not likely to require ongoing adjustment or more than one or two revisions of the model on which the simulation is based. Other simulations, however, such as those used for predicting weather or economic relationships, can be increasingly realistic and accurate by regularly applying new data and/or additional variables in a continuing adjustment process.
VIII. SELECTING DESIGN FEATURES
The first choice to be made, which has great influence on all other design elements, concerns the use of computers. For all but the simplest models, computers can add immeasurably to the ease of working the simulation, to the permissible limits of realism and complexity, and to the evaluation of results.
Once the computer decision has been made, design features that have to be selected include format, fixed elements of the underlying situation, dependent and independent variables, assumptions about the variables and their relationships, random events and chance elements, the extent of decision inertia, and whether the simulation is to be used as a game. These design features are briefly discussed below.
Format Choices
1. One type of format concerns depicting the situation and expressing participant decisions, which can be any combination of mathematical models, nonmathematical models, physical simulation elements, role-plays, psychodramas, in-basket exercises, programmed
Simulation and Games 18 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 simulation decisions, and game formats.
A mathematical model is a set of numerical data, with or without equations, which define connections between data subsets. The model can even be just a set of equations. The data can be provided as a matrix, as a matrix with equations defining the relationship between matrix segments (a spreadsheet), or even in graphs. Some mathematical models are very complex, especially system dynamics models, which depict the dynamic relationships between variables in a multi-dimensional model, such as one that relates demographic characteristics with economic and ecological resources.
A nonmathematical model can be a map, a design drawing, a picture or schematic, an audio or videotape, or any combination of these.
Physical simulation elements can be three-dimensional models of devices, such as a car or a building for a fire drill, the locale for a war game, building blocks for creating structures, puzzle segments, etc.
Role-plays take many forms, from two roles to many, from one person per role to many people in a role. They can be designed with rigid specifications for each role with a written script or as loosely defined roles. Each role can require the player to make many types of complex decisions or to act out only a single event, like a sales presentation or a confrontation in a minor conflict. The role play can be supported with observers whose functions allow a great deal of freedom or impose fairly tight constraints.
Psychodrama is a special form of role play used primarily in group psychology and it has its own set of rules. Its primary distinction from role plays is being far more emotionally intense because it deals with the personal problems of the players.
In-basket exercises simulate an in-basket on the desk of the professional depicted by the simulation. Participants are asked to dispose of the opportunities, challenges, and problems that the memos, letters, and input material present.
Programmed simulations require participants to make a series of decisions in a partially or fully pre-determined sequence. These decisions may involve a selection from several alternatives, describing in speech or writing the actions participants would take in a certain situation, role-playing an event, performing some task, such as placing a call to someone outside the team, building a structure, reaching agreement on some issue, making decisions on papers that the participant found in the in-basket upon return from a simulated vacation, etc.
Games include all simulation formats, since working on any of them to accomplish a goal, meet standards, or compete against other people or groups turns a simulation into a game. In addition, games can be pure games, such as tic-tac-toe, or adapted tests, such as popular game shows, and even free-form games, such as The World Game, the Achievement Game, and children's hide-and-seek. (For descriptions of the World and Achievement Games, see Appendix C.)
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Fred Goodman (see Appendix B) distinguishes one more category of metaphorical games that are usually free-form. Metaphorical games depict situations that have the same characteristics as the real world but are completely hypothetical. In one such game, The End of the Line, participants experience the frustrations of aging when they are loosely tethered to chairs with a rope to simulate limitations on mobility, and then try to participate in 'regular life' activities as their physical, social, and financial resources shrink, including the length of the rope.
Games can be zero-sum (what some players win exactly matches what all other players lose) or nonzero-sum (all players can win and no one necessarily has to lose).
All types of games can be useful as ice-breakers at meetings or learning programs and as help for participants learning skills needed to participate in an activity connected with futuring, but none are directly useful for developing scenarios on the future.
2. The second type of format choice more specifically concerns the way in which features of the model, situation, or game will be communicated to the participants. Here the choices include any combination of different types of computer programs, booklets, or other handouts, questionnaires, audio or videotapes, pictures and oral descriptions.
Selecting fixed elements of the underlying situation
Selecting fixed elements of the underlying situation requires defining those elements that are beyond the control of the participants and, therefore, may not be altered. They usually include all or most of the initial conditions for the simulation and some givens. Examples of fixed elements include the geography underlying a weather simulation, the characteristics of market segments for a marketing simulation, background and role-player descriptions for a conflict resolution scenario, and the definitions of various types of costs in a budgeting simulation.
Dependent and independent variables
The most complex and detailed part of a simulation design concerns the dependent and independent variables and the assumptions that connect them to each other and to the fixed elements. The relationships of the variables and fixed elements have to be identified, clarified, and numerically defined in mathematical models, so they are as accurate and as consistent with reality and/or with the assumptions as possible and/or as needed. A few examples will help to clarify:
For a weather simulation, the influence of winds on air temperature at different elevations has to be expressed in equations or computer animation inputs. Wind directions and velocities have to be considered in these equations. At the same time, other influences—such as the effect of moisture content of the air and cloud formations, time of day and underlying terrain—also have to be taken into account
For a hostage simulation, all affected individuals and groups on all sides of the situation—law enforcement, hostage takers, hostages, relatives of all of them, neighbors, etc.—have to be identified as well as all nonaffected groups that may project themselves into the situation. The
Simulation and Games 20 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 simulation should include as much information as possible on the players' respective backgrounds, on what is known about their current status and views, the impact that various alternative solutions to the crisis might have on them, and the alternatives open to them as participants in the scenario to implement decisions.
For an international trade simulation, variables should include most, if not all, of the following factors (and possibly additional ones) for each of the countries included in the simulation, as well as collectively for the rest of the world: productivity data by industry, currency exchange rates and influences affecting those rates, business cycles, worker skill levels, capital formation rates, stocks of critical natural resources, and their respective new discovery and depletion rates, etc. In addition, the design has to translate assumptions about the relationships of these variables into equations that can be fed into the model.
Chance elements and sometimes random events
Chance elements add a measure of realism if they reflect the real probabilities of specific events. Chance elements can be introduced with coin flips, spinning a wheel, or even rolling a cubical die or one with more faces whether dots, numbers, or relevant symbols.
Random events are unpredictable and have a significant effect on a simulation environment. They are usually outside any model that may be part of the simulation. Exceptions are some business simulations that include major events affecting the business, such as major new competitors entering the field or a strike affecting suppliers or the business' own operations. Random events can add a worthwhile dimension to simulations used in developing managers and certainly add excitement to simulations used as games. How these events can be helpful in simulations exploring conditions in the future is less clear. Deliberately checking the response of a model to major and extremely disturbing events is certainly worthwhile. To introduce these events on a random basis, however, will enhance a simulation's usefulness as a tool for futuring only if statistically significant numbers of repeat uses of the simulation and data on participant reactions are carefully analyzed for insights into expectations for the future and the reactions of people to them.
One limitation to achieving realism
One limitation to achieving realism in some simulations and games lies in the extent of inertia that can be given to decisions made by participants. In computerized mathematical models, no such limitation exists since there are no obstacles to tracking a series of "And then, what if...?" questions, which continue to modify the results of the preceding questions including the first "What if...?" question. However, even in a computer-based simulation, considerable program sophistication is needed to keep track of the sequence and impact of the decisions that a simulator makes.
Decision inertia
In other types of simulations and games, such as collective bargaining or international conflict where no organized model exists, full decision inertia would demand that the design trace out
Simulation and Games 21 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 and evaluate the infinite number of possible decision sequences in the simulation. To make this evaluation accurate and fully realistic, the final agreement would have to be evaluated against all other possible simulation outcomes.
Simulation as a game
Use of a simulation as a game is another design consideration. Though decisions in a simulation should be carefully debriefed and comparisons of participant/team decisions be provided during the debriefing, they often do not have to be evaluated. In a game, such an evaluation is always essential to determine either the players' performance when compared with standards or to determine which player/players are "winning." The design of a simulation that is to be used as a game must include ways to evaluate player performance. There also may be special game rules that have to be clarified, such as time allowances for some decisions or restrictions on the activities of players. In the Tic-Tac-Toe game, restrictions may apply to the number of players who see the moves of the other teams.
IX. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SIMULATOR/ GAME PLAYERS AND FACILITATORS AND THEIR ARRANGEMENT
When designing a simulation or game, the knowledge and skill levels of the participants, facilitators, and the instructor, or other professionals in charge must be considered. Complexity of concepts that need to be understood must be within the range of comprehension by participants. The language of instructions and prompts should be appropriate, and calculations should be presented in an appropriate form and at a suitable level of complexity. The time, knowledge, and experience of facilitators and the multiple demands on their attention have to be considered when their number is determined and when they are selected. Complex model-based simulations and games, and other games such as ―End of the Line,‖ require several facilitators.
Most designers find that, almost invariably, the initial pilot and its debriefing shows the instructions or concepts to be too difficult for many users. Adjusting a simulation or game for its users is a major reason for piloting the simulation first. The design also has to take into consideration the locations where the simulation will take place, what the purposes of the simulation will be at each location, and how many people will participate.
Simulations whose sole purpose is research will usually be run by only one person, or a very small number, at one or several locations. Simulations and games with educational purposes may have to be designed for many teams working simultaneously in large groups in several locations.
When several teams work on the simulation or game simultaneously, whether in one large group or in different locations, additional factors have to be considered. These factors include: the number of participants who will be in each team; whether each team should have a leader or be leaderless; the number and qualifications of facilitators; and participant competence/background considerations. For learning purposes, teams of five are likely to work out best because they bring sufficient variety of ideas, allow maximum participation by each individual, discourage
Simulation and Games 22 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 domination by one person, and do not easily deadlock on a decision.
X. COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS AND EASE OF ACCESS TO THE DESIGNERS
The use of a simulation or game and the characteristics of the simulators and their arrangement have implications for the detail in which instructions have to be prepared and how they will be delivered. Only in situations where the designers themselves work a simulation are notes sufficient. In all other cases, coordinators or meeting leaders are needed, and separate manuals should be prepared for participants and coordinators.
The participant manual should be as simple and short as possible, containing only a basic explanation of purpose and rationale and detailed instructions for working the simulation or game. Written material is the only cost-effective way to provide information about the scenario and the instructions to a small number of simulators. When many people are involved, the addition of audio or videotapes can be useful.
The coordinator's manual will be used by senior researchers, instructors, or meeting leaders. This manual, therefore, must contain detailed discussions of the design, the underlying assumptions, the formulae that relate variables, and possibly explanations of validity where subject to challenge, etc.
The more complicated a model or situation, the greater the need for access to the designer. Presence of the designer during the pilots and initial runs of a simulation or game, especially if computerized, is almost essential and prevents severe and possibly complete disruption of the simulation when an unforeseen occurrence baffles the simulators or raises questions about the model's validity.
XI. FACILITIES AND EQUIPMENT FOR WORKING THE SIMULATION OR GAME
The arrangement of users and the design elements determine the facilities and equipment needed.
For some simulations and games, only a single table and chairs, the manuals, paper, and pencils are needed, especially with programmed simulations. When the simulation uses a computer program, program discs and sufficient terminals or PCs are needed to accommodate the simulators. For audio-taped elements, an appropriate number of tape-players are needed. For video elements, the video medium player and sufficient monitors are needed so everyone in the room can follow the action and read any captions that may be displayed. In some instances, projectors may be needed to display pictures and other information that may be on slides or transparencies.
Hundreds of thousands of people are now involved in multi-player on-line entertainment games on the Internet. With the growth of wireless Internet access, we can expect to see games and simulations as a ubiquitous practical resource accessible where and when needed. Further, with Gartner‘s projection that 80% of the active Web will have a presence in one virtual world or
Simulation and Games 23 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 another we can be sure that the role of online gaming and simulation cannot help but expand.
XII. SIMULATION DESIGN, REVIEWS, AND PILOTING
One advantage of simulations and games is that they can be developed in stages when the situation, including budget restraints and cost-effectiveness, demands gradual design.
In the example on whether to build a new road and where to place it (see Establishing Objectives, Scope and Resource Demands, page 22), the needs of professional planners who want to take a quick look at feasibility can probably be met with a simulation model that permits preliminary examination of a few route alternatives. The model for such a simulation can possibly be based solely on the expected changes in the population and its age/location distribution, a few maps, data on existing traffic, and relatively simple calculations.
If the simulation is to assist in gaining the views of community leaders on other factors to consider or to provide insight into political and social obstacles that might arise, much more input would be needed. The additional requirements for permitting the simulation to produce more precise alternatives might include more elaborate maps, statements of the assumptions used to link the variables, and fairly detailed calculations that can be submitted for critical scrutiny.
Beyond that, computer modeling becomes essential to provide options for viable specific and detailed designs. The complexity of the model and the program to manipulate it depend on the number of variables and their respective relationships. If all can be expressed mathematically, a spreadsheet may suffice. If nonmathematical inputs are involved, and/or the simulation has to perform successive iterations automatically until the output has satisfied a complex set of criteria, then a custom-designed program is needed.
To turn the simulation into a game also requires resources, which increase somewhat with the complexity of the game.
In the last few years, increasingly powerful programming tools have been developed that drastically cut the effort needed for computer simulation and game programs. Among these are: DYNAMO, for development and analysis of dynamic systems models; and STELLA and iTHINK, which generate equations from 'maps' of the simulation process that they also help to construct. Pugh-Roberts Associates and isee systems, the developers of these programming aids are listed in Appendix B; brief descriptions of DYNAMO, STELLA, and iTHINK are in Appendix D.
No matter what form the design takes, whether for a simple or highly complex simulation or game, reviews and piloting are essential. The more complex the project, the greater the need for several and increasingly more thorough reviews by experts, followed by pilots. The purpose of these steps is to identify problems in the designs and in communicating essential information. Besides helping to reduce problems to a minimum, these preliminary steps bring ideas for improvements and ensure that the instructions are intelligible to potential users.
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XIII. STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF SIMULATION-GAMING
Simulations as Decision-Making Aids In general, the most potent strength of simulations and games is probably the opportunity they provide for experimentation with a model without the cost of errors that would exist in real life.
As described in this paper, simulations and games are powerful devices for developing and sharpening detailed insights into different aspects of the future. The accuracy of the pictures they create, however, depends entirely on the quality of the data and on the realism of the way the relationships are expressed in the model.
Since the soundness of decisions depends on the evaluation of alternatives, simulations and games can be invaluable in helping to identify and analyze alternatives, in exploring various aspects of the future, in planning, and in any other type of decision. They can provide better organization, form, and finer detail than any other method of analysis.
In addition to their use in defining, refining, analyzing, and evaluating alternatives, simulations and games create multi-dimensional awareness of all aspects of decisions and their outcomes, which, in turn, bring broader perspectives to decision makers and often lead to the discovery of previously ignored or neglected factors that should have more serious consideration.
Lure of Creating Virtual Reality, and the Explosive Growth of Decision Trees
Even before the power of computers permitted the massaging of huge amounts of data, simulation and game designers attempted to build increasingly realistic models. Realism is a major goal of simulation design, and simulation models are accepted by users only when, even in management development environments, they are perceived to be sufficiently realistic to deserve serious consideration.
Mathematical models that meet the expectations of realism are difficult to construct. In 1958, the Harvard Business Review published a simulation-game developed by G. R. Andlinger, which was so complex that it required an entire staff of people to calculate the impact of team decisions for providing feedback to participants. Despite its complexity, many unrealistic assumptions and relationships existed, and the simulation apparently was used only a few times after its completion.
Shortly after computers began to be used for simulations, the federal government invested four successive allocations of $250,000 into a simulation-game for teaching purposes. The game was never used for an entirely different reason. This simulation-game was so complicated that users had to understand much of what the game was intended to teach them, before they could make the decisions it required. It had been refined and 'improved' until it had become inappropriate for the intended audience.
The restrictions imposed by the exponential growth of possible choices in real life are especially apparent in programmed simulations and simulation/games, such as Simulation Examples 6 and
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7 under Uses of Simulations and Games earlier in this paper. They can even be serious obstacles in model-based simulations and games. To be fully realistic, a simulation-game must leave participants free to choose any of the possible alternatives, regardless of the selection at the preceding decision point. If five or more choices are possible at every decision point, it does not take long before the branches of the decision tree number in the hundreds of thousands. To provide a fair evaluation of every path would clearly be a difficult task. In contrast, some immensely successful applications exist of highly realistic simulations. Outstanding examples for short-term needs are the simulations on which weather predictions are based which are very accurate, considering the continuously changing inputs. Similar examples are the flight or space simulators used to train pilots and astronauts. Still other examples, which look a little further into the future, are: the economic models and simulations used to guide the actions of the Federal Reserve Board on interest rates and money supply, which are highly accurate replications of the conditions in money markets the models on which the simulations supporting crop forecasts and commodity supply- demand predictions are based.
Extensive work in futuring is being done on many fronts, including demographics, economics, health, energy, agriculture, ocean foodstocks, natural resource adequacy, aquaculture, air/water/soil purity, space exploration, etc. Still for long-term future modeling, no comprehensive simulation models, not even limited ones, have been subjected to extensive scrutiny and validations over time. Some of the work being done by governments and futurist centers will likely lead to outstanding models which will permit simulations of possible future realities in many dimensions within the respective discipline.
Astronomy, medicine, the behavioral sciences, including psychology, ethics, and intercultural relationships as well as other sciences, generate increasingly sophisticated models that take advantage of the mushrooming data collection, storage, and capability of computers to manipulate data.
Finally, the actual use of virtual reality is still in its infancy but will certainly grow rapidly in the years ahead, as virtual worlds such as Second Life proliferate and their populations increase. Though still prohibitively expensive, total immersion virtual reality simulation is used not only in the pilot training simulator referred to earlier in this paper, but also to help patients with severe motor disabilities learn how to navigate difficult territory in wheelchairs. These programs depict the real situation on computer monitors or even on monitors built into helmet-and-eyeglass-type devices. In addition to training, they have also been used in design. For instance, they have uncovered obstacles for patients in movable beds, tied to life-sustaining equipment, trying to navigate corridors in hospitals, or limitations of fixtures, such as sinks whose faucets wheelchair- bound persons could not reach. Also, as will be described later in this report, virtual reality has been used successfully in modeling new pharmaceuticals.
Complexity of Psychological/Political Factors
Many future events, even seemingly technical ones, are strongly influenced by the actions of people—both inside and outside organizations—who make decisions on the factors that
Simulation and Games 26 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 influence events. That is as true in health care and astrophysics as in political and sociological arenas. Theories and data about human behavior are legion. Unfortunately, they are not matched by information about relationships between political and technical developments on the one hand, and the reactions of individuals and groups on the other hand.
Any simulation that includes possible behavior of people in reaction to events has to consider either an enormously large number of possibilities and combinations, or sacrifice considerable realism. The inputs to such a simulation have to be based on "soft" assumptions; the outputs, therefore, will be valid only to the extent that the assumptions were accurate. Even when reasonably accurate assumptions can be made, the possibility always exists that they will be distorted by value judgments of the simulation developers.
The advent of agent-based simulations ameliorates, to some degree, the problem with developers‘ bias. Agents can counteract these biases by interacting and learning from other agents and actors within the network as well as in Delphi-like polling of expertise networks to collaboratively author and modulate the ―soft assumptions‖.
One related set of distortions is unavoidable. The perspective, values, sense of humor, and attitudes of simulation designers and of simulators is contemporary, while the scenarios are being projected into the future, or presented as a learning tool for the future. It is difficult, and may be impossible, to develop a simulation intended to provide reasonably objective scenarios of the future without doing what is highly improbable—projecting the simulators into future mindsets so they will act the way people in the future will.
As virtual worlds populations soar, the requisite variety for exceedingly complex simulations will be present in even the mainstream worlds and games, and as virtual worlds are linked in what is being called the Metaverse, it will become easier to get a rich cross section of whatever demographic/psychographic is useful to a simulation.
XIV. ALTERNATIVE USES AND USE IN COMBINATION WITH OTHER METHODS
The basic use of simulations to obtain answers to "What-If" questions, including projections or extensions of scenarios either directly or in games, was discussed at length in the previous sections. A major use of simulations and games, by themselves, for education and training purposes was also discussed. However, related alternative uses of simulations and games have not yet been covered.
Simulations and even games are used fairly widely for testing and for selection to determine competence, including cultural awareness and/or other aspects about the suitability of applicants for specific positions. Some organizations build simple simulations right into the interviews as tests to determine applicant knowledge and skill levels in critical areas. They ask applicants to explain what they would do if they were in certain situations. Some organizations use elaborate "Assessment Centers" where applicants work on model-based or programmed simulations, participate in games, role plays, and in-basket exercises to measure their suitability for positions.
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When used in conjunction with Interactive Planning, a systems modeling technique, simulations can expand on the model or on a segment of the model to help clarify details or to show the implications of the model under varying conditions (changes in model variables). An especially useful input of simulations into interactive planning is in the resource planning stage where a model-based simulation can explore the advantages and disadvantages of alternative options.
The relationship of simulations with Decision Modeling is, in some ways, the opposite of the relationship with Interactive Planning. While simulation is a technique that can be used in some aspects of Interactive Planning, simulations may make use of Decision Modeling to ensure that all factors are considered and included, if appropriate, in the model on which the simulation is built.
The Delphi Method can be very useful in simulations by establishing the range of values that should be used for variables or possibly the formulae that would best depict relationships in the simulation model. The need for the Delphi Method is greatest when considerable uncertainty exists, as in futuring. Some simulations even incorporate simplified Delphi Method techniques directly into the simulation process. For an example, see Olaf Helmer's Simulating the Values of the Future, described briefly in Appendix D.
Systems Dynamics contributes techniques for analyzing the dynamics of systems, and the equations and diagrams that map the changing relationships between the elements of the system. Every Systems Dynamics model can be used as the foundation for a simulation or a game. The computer programs, DYNAMO, STELLA, and iTHINK, for simulation designers create Systems Dynamics equations for use in simulations and games.
In conjunction with other educational techniques and processes, especially storytelling, simulations and games reinforce, motivate, and provide practical application for learning. In fact, this application of simulations and games could well be a major new direction for the field in the coming years. Applied in this way, simulation and gaming can bring the traditional ―meeting‖, or ―event‖, be it sales incentive weekend or strategic planning retreat, to a whole new level of breakthrough performance.
Social Architecture and its eclectic range of tools drawn from human potential, leadership, motivation and learning models, can be brought to bear to augment the limited range of intelligence usually present in typical meetings and events. Taking for instance the insight from learning theorist, Howard Gardner of Harvard University, that individuals have more than one form of intelligence, social architecture simulations systematically introduce opportunities for multiple forms of intelligence to come into play.
A good example of this type of application can be found in Appendix D under the Arcturus Research Group‘s process called Adventure Theater.
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XV. FRONTIERS OF SIMULATIONS AND GAMES
Many factors will affect the use and improvement of simulation and game techniques in the future.
The impact of growth in data, data storage, and data sources; the sophistication of processing techniques and equipment; and the ubiquity of access will be continuing themes in the future
Not only do government agencies all over the world collect more and more data, but the number of private organizations and institutions that collect data is increasing at a rapid rate. At the same time, the emergence and maturation of various Internet, software, and computational technologies and trends has set the stage for a revolution in the use and application of modeling and simulation.
On the Internet, the development of the Semantic Web and the introduction of Web services protocols will allow for a new semi-automated approach to data discovery, syndication, and linking of appropriate data streams into models and simulations as needed.
Additionally, the Internet is evolving through the use of ―grid computing‖ architectures, turning the network itself into one vast publicly accessible reservoir of supercomputing power. As Sun‘s Bill Joy observed, ―the network is the computer‖ and through grid computing, modeling and simulation software need no longer be limited to the computing power available on one‘s desktop. The success of the two prototypical examples, SETI@home and FOLD@home, and the computational chemistry application to find a cure to cancer, in processing vast amounts of data has proven the technique.
In software, the successes of ―genetic algorithms‖ and communicating autonomous agents are providing whole new ways for thinking about programming games and simulations. For example, the development and widespread application of ―agent-based‖ simulations and models is leading the field in a new direction away from the hard-coded, semi-deterministic models and simulations of the recent past, and toward new more evolutionary metaphors of cooperating and evolving agent-based models and simulations.
These parallel developments can provide detailed retrospective data for research, which can be codified in simulation models so that the original data are available for comparisons with newly obtained data, through syndication, automatic discovery by Web services, and real-time feedback from expertise networks. For instance, the impact of a new drug on the progression of a disease can be projected, because so much retrospective health care data is to be entered into a simulation model. The simulation can be used to determine how well the new data matches the available data from recent studies with the drug; then the probable benefits of the drug can be projected.
A somewhat negative aspect arises, however, in the proliferation of data sources. While the ubiquity and ease of access to data will increase, the ability to verify and rely on the integrity of
Simulation and Games 29 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 that data may lag behind.
On the plus side is the rapid advance of technology, which brings decreasing costs and, at the same time, more powerful and varied equipment, programming aids, and communications techniques. The benefits of these developments will impact all current and potential uses of simulations, including research, virtual reality, and the simultaneous participation in a simulation or game by individuals in widely dispersed locations.
Impact of Increasing Access to Data
While in the past information had to be transcribed for use, most data in our information age can be copied electronically to the point of use. Since some simulation models require large amounts of data from many sources, easier access makes the benefits of the simulation and gaming techniques more readily available, and much wider use of model-based simulation is likely.
Emerging standards and protocols falling under the umbrella of the World Wide Web Consortium‘s ―Semantic Web‖ initiative, such as XML, topic maps, and subject ontologies, while vastly improving connections to relevant data, will prove to be another two-edged sword. While the standardization will allow for all manner of automatic data discovery and transfer without human intervention, there is a great challenge in harmonizing and ensuring compatibility between different subject ontologies and topic maps.
Meanwhile, new Internet communication protocols under the umbrella of ―Web services‖ such as RSS, XML-RPC, .NET and SOAP ensure the ability to publish and syndicate data in a completely automated and decentralized manner. These tools already allow one to subscribe to various types of published data and to utilize that data for one‘s own purposes, independent of its original context.
Impact of Increasing Sophistication of Modeling Techniques
Modern computers, with their enormous speed in processing data and their growing ability to include pictures, present new frontiers for simulation. Virtual reality techniques and the ability of machines to translate sound and pictures into impulses will lead to the capacity to abstract complex equations and have already resulted in remarkable gains in the modeling and synthesis of new pharmaceuticals, aerodynamic designs and architectural layouts. The use of ―haptic‖ feedback, especially, has broadened the bandwidth of man-machine interaction.
Haptic feedback refers to our sense of touch and movement, governed by our proprioceptive nervous system, which is an extensive neural net able to compute vastly complex ballistic equations independent of the brain. Such haptic feedback has proven especially productive in the simulation of chemical and molecular bonding; it seems it is far easier to build molecules by ―feel‖ than it is to solve complex chemical formulae. For example, in the search for new pharmaceuticals, researchers actually hold vastly magnified virtual molecules in their hands and are able to manipulate them like giant Legos. By ―feeling‖ the valences and bonding forces through haptic feedback they are able to quickly work through possible configurations in minutes that might otherwise have taken days or weeks.
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Impact of Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming
From the early days of computing, games have played a role in the development of online community, and in fact could be seen as one of the very first emergent qualities of computing. They seemed to have emerged spontaneously and unbidden from the free time of programmers. They evolved from the first Asteroids and Space Invaders arcade-style games to the much more thoughtful and social role playing games (RPG) such as Zork and rapidly morphed into all manner of variants from the freeform MUDS, MOOS and MUSHS such as Lambda Moo from the Xerox PARC labs, to the commercial online variants such as Ultima and Everquest.
One might be tempted to dismiss such online gaming as irrelevant to the pursuits of futurists, but we contend here that these games actually hold one of the keys to building successful large-scale social simulations. Recently economic studies of one popular online game have shown their efficacy in building completely artificial but thriving social economies.
At any given time of the day or night just one of these massively multiplayer games can have more than 80,000 people inhabiting a virtual world composed of hamlets, villages and cities on several virtual continents. What has captured the attention of economists around the world is the fact that, if these games were compared to countries, they would have competitively sized Gross National Products. That is, in real dollars exchanged in their virtual economy they would rank as a small sized country in terms of GNP.
With the growth and proliferation of Virtual Worlds comes the added factor of open source development. Virtual Worlds have an active open source development community building what it calls the metaverse to connect these worlds. In addition to commercial ventures such as Second Life, Entropia, or CyWorld, or the state-sponsored worlds such as are emerging in China, there is now a frontier not unlike the opening of a new continent being birthed by a self-organizing emergent community of people under the loose rubric of the metaverse.
Conclusions
The advances in sound and picture display will bring much greater dramatic effect and cosmetic realism. Such advances will also allow more intrinsically realistic simulations without the drawbacks that high fidelity reproduction of the real world can bring. The future should, however, see far lower costs of designing simulation models for sciences, such as anthropology, astronomy, and geology, for city and water project planning, possibly even for human interaction modeling, such as body language. Significantly, lower costs will make such simulations possible to create.
Recently a new state of the art game engines (CryENGINE) made its first public debut in the Swedish Virtual Game world of Entropia. It brings detail to the virtual word that has not existed before, outside of large supercomputer simulations. CryENGINE is able to render a world to such detail that if you were to just squint slightly at the screen you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between game and reality.
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Figure 4. Virtual Reality: CryENGINE 3
As the Internet and its many resources including virtual worlds becomes more convolved into the real world through ubiquitous computing, ambient information displays, and sophisticated handheld terminals enabling an explosion of augmented reality applications, gaming and simulation will be able to utilize a rich mixture of tools to implement even the most complex simulation or game. In fact the degree of granularity of tools and population of subjects available to participate in such games and simulations could be seen as a new level of simulating reality.
There are sophisticated ―Alternate Reality‖ games in which the game is inserted into the participants‘ consensual reality as if real. It does not take a very large leap of imagination to envision the possibility of games and simulations that actually become reality. Existing Virtual Worlds already have a very real synthetic economy which interacts with the real economy with exchange rates for real currencies and daily cash flows on the order of a small country.
Combining all factors discussed above, a tipping point can be imagined when virtual and real worlds are seen as one continuum. Mass adoption of HUD (heads up display) glasses enables people to have total immersion VR during much of their waking hours. Currently, in just about every system in the world, the main method of access is what is called in virtual reality terms 3rd person VR, e.g. you are looking at a representation of yourself through the glass screen of the computer monitor. The difference between 3rd person VR and total immersion is profound. While staring at a screen and your avatar you are inescapably separated and separate from the virtual world experience. In a total immersion experience, that separation disappears, and you are now seeing through the eyes of your avatar and experiencing the virtual world directly.
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The bulky apparatus needed for total immersion has prevented mass acceptance. Those wearing a VR headset look like some refugee from a science fiction movie set. However, these technologies are getting smaller all time. VR HUDs will be introduced soon that are indistinguishable from a normal pair of eyeglasses. An Israeli firm has made a breakthrough in optics that makes this possible: http://www.lumus-optical.com.
―Conversion Experience‖ is the term for suddenly experiencing VR as ―real.‖ Instead of ―looking‖ at something external, one experiences inhabiting or being ‗with‖ the simulation of reality. Binocular images, binaural sounds, and proprioceptive feedback tell your brain that you are experiencing the VR directly, as though it were real.
Additionally, with the continued development of interlinked simulations, agent-based models, and the growing ubiquity of computing and communications resources we can expect to see simulations and games develop that are ongoing environments, rather than discrete events played and then put back on the shelf. Such gaming environments will have the ability to learn and mature on their own through the interaction of indigenous agents with agents of other such relevant environments and databases, as well as from those individuals and groups that use these environments for their own purposes.
It is not hard to imagine the first such multi-user virtual environments dedicated to the gaming and simulation community, from online schools where young software agents are carefully instructed and trained in their respective roles before going out on their own to mediate games and simulations, to real-time mission-critical support spontaneously gathering experts from around the globe into a virtual situation room to address issues and urgent events. There, surrounded by virtual displays and communications consoles, commanding armies of software agents would run what-if scenarios, all the while participating remotely from their computers, PDAs, or cell phones.
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APPENDICES
Appendix A: Resource Organizations Appendix B: Individuals prominent in simulations Appendix C: Software and programming tools Appendix D: Brief Descriptions of Several Selected Simulations and Games in different Fields. Appendix E: Journals, Books and Conference Resources
Since some of the organizations are often closely identified with a professional who is prominent in his or her own right, the appendices provide cross-references.
Appendix A: Resource Organizations
The resources are of two types:
1. Organizations with emphasis on futures studies, which work with simulations
2. Organizations concentrating on the use of simulations and games
- The Futures Group, 80 Glastonbury Boulevard, Glastonbury, CT 06033-4409, USA; Tel: (860) 633-3501, Fax: (860) 657-9701; international consulting firm with emphasis on long-range planning, systems analysis and futures research; Ted Gordon, founder and senior consultant. http://futuresgroup.com
- Institute for the Future, 2744 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025-7020, USA, Tel: (650) 854-6322, Fax: (650) 854-7850; J. Ian Morrison, President; Robert Johansen, Director, New Technologies Program; a non-profit applied research and consulting firm, dedicated to understanding technological, environmental and societal changes and their long-range consequences; developers of futures scenarios for industries and public issues. The Institute offers the Futures Tool Kit, a collection of scenarios, forecasts and 'wild cards' (almost absurd possibilities). It also provides extensive information on and assistance for building scenarios that can be used for forecasting purposes. http://www.iftf.org
Institute for 21st Century Studies, see Millennium Institute Millennium Institute (formerly Institute for 21st Century Studies), 1117 North 19th Street, Suite 900, Arlington, VA 22209-1708, USA, Tel: (703) 841-0048, Fax: 703-841-0050); Gerald Barney, Executive Director; offers training and a tool kit which provide basic methodological and data resources necessary to begin a national 21st Century sustainable development study.
- World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA, Tel: (301) 656-8274; an association for the study of alternative futures, the society serves as a neutral clearing house about the future, including forecasts, recommendations and alternative scenarios. The society publishes three journals: The Futurist, for the general public, Futures
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Research Quarterly, for professionals, and Future Survey; books, videos and other products including planning tools and a catalog entitled The Futurist Bookstore; the society also holds various types of conferences and meetings. http://www.wfs.org
2. Organizations concentrating on the use of simulations and games
-ABSEL (Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning), ABSEL is a professional association whose purpose is to develop and promote the use of experiential techniques and simulations in the field of business education and development. http://www.absel.org/
ABSEL is dedicated to teaching business through innovative and effective methods. ABSEL is for both novices and experienced individuals who are interested in learning about and making contributions to: Business Simulations, Experiential Exercises, Effective Teaching, Assessment of Training Methods, Learning Theory, Simulation Research, and Multimedia and Advanced Technologies. Simulations published include: * AIRLINE: A Business Simulation * Alacrity Team Simulation Exercise * Micro Business Publications * Business Policy Game, The * Business-Sims.Com * BusSim: An Integrated Business Instruction System * Capstone: The Business and Financial Strategy Simulation * CEO: A Business Simulation for Policy and Strategic Management * Collective Bargaining Simulated * COMPETE: A Dynamic Marketing Simulation * The Global Business Game * Corporation: A Global Business Simulation * DEAL: An Entrepreneurship Gaming Simulation * Entrepreneur: A Business Simulation in Retailing * GEO: An International-Business Gaming Simulation * The Human Resources Management Simulation * INFOGAME: Game for Research and Education in Information Systems * INTOPIA: International Operations Simulation/Mark 2000 * MAGEUR: A General Business Game * MANAGEMENT 500: A Business Simulation for Production and Operations Management * Management Accounting Simulation, The * Manager: A Simulation Game * Marketer: A Simulation Game * Marketplace: a Web-based business simulation game with several levels of difficulty. * Multinational Management Game, The * Threshold Competitor: A Management Simulation see Georgia Southern University, J. Bernard Keys, http://www.towson.edu/~absel
- The American Forum for Global Education, publishers of books, studies, simulations of
Simulation and Games 35 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 the Moorhead Kennedy Institute and related materials on social issues; 45 John Street, Suite 908, New York, NY 10038, USA; Tel: (212)-732-8606, Fax: (212)-791-4132; Andrew F. Smith, President. http://www.globaled.org
- Didactic Systems Inc., P.O. Box 457, Cranford, NJ 07016, USA Tel: (908) 789-2194, Fax: (908) 789-0038, email: [email protected]; Erwin Rausch, President; designers and publishers of manual simulations and games, primarily for human resource development; simulation/game examples, Financial Analysis and Collective Bargaining are described in Appendix C
- Educational Simulations, P.O. Box 307, Oceanside, OR 97134 (503) 842-7247, developers of educational games, including The Commons Game and Zan-Tec; the latter is briefly described in Appendix C; Richard B. Bowers is principal
Georgia Southern University, Center for Business Simulation, College of Business, Department of Management and Marketing, Georgia Southern University, P. O. Box 8154, Statesboro, Georgia 30460-8154, Telephone: (912) 681-5655 Fax: (912) 871-1523 E-Mail: [email protected]; administers CABSEL; J. Bernard Keys, Director; one of the Center's games, The Multinational Management Game is described in Appendix C.
- HRD Press, 22 Amherst Road, Amherst, MA 01002 (800) 822-2801, (413) 253-3488, http://www.hrdpress.com/RTHRG Publishers of Training House manual simulations and games, primarily for human resource development; simulation/game examples, Negotiation Game and Achievement Game, are described in Appendix C.
- isee systems 45 Lyme Road, Suite 300, Hanover, N.H. 03755, USA; Tel: (603) 643- 9636, Fax: (603) 643-9502, Web: http://www.iseesystems.com/; developers of programming tools for simulations and games, including STELLA Version 7.0 and iTHINK, which they call 'visual thinking' software for understanding and improving the performance of complex corporate, social, biological and physical systems; demonstration disks for STELLA Version 7.0 and iTHINK are available; iTHINK is for business applications and STELLA Version 7.0 is for dynamic modeling across the curriculum in virtually all disciplines. Very complete demonstration discs for STELLA Version 7.0 and iTHINK are available from the company but they have very limited life; the programs on the discs self-destruct in 30 days. Brief descriptions of STELLA Version 7.0 and iTHINK, are in Appendix C.
ISAGA (International Simulation and Gaming Association); the primary international association for professionals working with simulations and games; Rei Shiratori - 2004 - President JASAG, The Institute for Political Studies in Japan, 1-35-15-304, Nishihara, Shibuya- ku, Tokyo 151-0066 – Japan,Tel +81 3, 3460 2392, Fax +81 3 3465 4942, [email protected], www2n.biglobe.ne.jp/~rei/
- Maxis, 2 Theatre Square, Orinda, CA 94563-3346, USA, Web: http://thesims.ea.com, developers and publishers of computerized simulation-games for general audiences; examples of simulation-games, SimCity and SimFarm, are in Appendix C.
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- Meridian International Center, 1630 Crescent Place, N.W., Washington DC, 20009 USA; Tel: (202) 667-6800, Fax: (202) 667-1475, Web: http://www.meridian.org, Walter L. Cutler is president of Meridian International Center. He was previously a career diplomat in the US Foreign Service. He served twice as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and as ambassador to Tunisia and Zaire. A not-for-profit educational and cultural institution that promotes international understanding through the exchange of people, ideas and the arts. Meridian creates role plays and simulations on political processes. Among them are Political Process which simulates the evolution of the political system in the US and Constitutional Convention which explores the origins of the US constitution.
- University of Michigan, Certificate Program in Games and Simulations, College of Architecture & Urban Planning, 2000 Bonisteel Boulevard, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-2069, USA; Tel: (313) 764-1298 or 2069, Fax: (313)-763-2322; Richard D. Duke, Chair; the only US graduate university program specializing in simulations and gaming; the certificate can be undertaken jointly with any graduate program. See also Allan G. Feldt; A. Feldt's Metropolitan Area Growth Game is described in Appendix C,
- University of Michigan, School of Education, Interactive Communications and Simulations, 810 East University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1259, USA, Tel:(313)-763-6717; see also Frederick L. Goodman; F. Goodman's The End of the Line game is described in Appendix C.
- Moorhead Kennedy Institute, affiliated with The American Forum for Global Education; a not-for-profit educational organization which has brought socially significant issues to life, internationally, through dramatic role play simulations; Moorhead Kennedy, President; Martha Keys, Executive Director; simulation/game examples, Death of a Dissident, and Fire in the Forest are described in Appendix C.
- National Institutes of Health, ETB/LHNCBC/NLM/NIH (Education Technology Branch, Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, National Library of Medicine, Public Health Services, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894, (301) 496-6280; Craig Locatis, Training Systems Specialist; The Learning Center for Interactive Technology; microcomputer patient management simulations; publication Designing Microcomputer Patient Management Simulations, Craig Locatis and Martin Lunin; brief descriptions of Combat Trauma and The Suicidal Adolescent are in Appendix C.
NASAGA (North American Simulation and Gaming Association); the primary North American association for professionals working with simulations and games, Web: http://www.nasaga.org ; NASAGA's primary mission is to facilitate the use of simulations and games and to spread the principles and procedures of interactive, experiential approaches to education, training, management, problem solving and decision making. E-mail to [email protected].
- Project Play! Inc., 16 Preston Road, Somerville, MA 02143, USA, Tel: (617) 776-1441; consulting organization utilizing icebreakers and community-building simulations and games for training and human resource development in private and public organizations
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- Sage Publications, Inc. 2455 Teller Road, Newbury Park, CA, 91320, USA; Tel: (805) 499-0721, Web: http://www.sagepub.com; publishers of the magazine Simulation & Gaming, and of many other simulation and gaming related materials
- SIETAR International, Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, 808 Seventh Street N.W., Suite 200, Washington, DC 20006, USA, Web: http://www.sietar.org; contact person for simulations and games is Daniel Yalowitz at Lesley College Tel: (800) 999- 1959, (see Yalowitz);
- Simulation & Gaming, the oldest and most comprehensive of the magazines on simulation and games is published by Sage Publications, Inc. 2455 Teller Road, Newbury Park, CA, 91320, USA; Tel: (805) 499-0721, Web: http://www.sagepub.com; David Crookall, editor
Simulation Systems Laboratory, 1916 NE 125th Terrace Road, Silver Springs, FL 34488, 352.502.2944 Cellular,352.625.7303 Telephone, email: [email protected]; Charles Plummer, Director; the official laboratory and archives of NASAGA; the laboratory conducts research, evaluation, design, development and instructional activities in the application of simulation technology to theoretical and practical challenges; the resources of the laboratory include over 850 relevant resource materials.
- Simulation Training Systems, P.O. Box 910, Del Mar, CA 92014, USA (619) 858-0272, (800) 942-2900, Web: http://www.stsintl.com, Garry Shirts, President, offers a catalog of the SIMILE II simulation-games including two of the best known free-form games used in schools, Star Power, a game which demonstrates the abuse of power, and Bafa Bafa, a cross-culture simulation. The catalog also lists Where Do We Draw the Line?, an ethics game.
-TerraCare Software, PO Box 65, Strafford, Vermont 05072, (802) 765 4652 Tel, (802) 765 4707, Fax, email: [email protected]. http://terracare.com/index.xml For the past fifteen years, TerraCare associates and strategic partners have developed twenty-five print- and software-based educational games and simulations for use in over thirty different countries on a variety of subjects, including the environment, health, and consumer education.
-Workshops by Thiagi, 4423 East Trailridge, Bloomington IN 47401, Tel: (812) 332- 1478, Fax: (812) 332-5701, Web: http://www.thiagi.com, e-mail: [email protected]; consulting organization offering workshops utilizing simulations and games, and consulting and training design programs.
-World Game Institute, Inc. Now osEarth, Inc. 50 Elm Street, New Haven, CT 06510, Tel: 203.787.9295, 800.220.4263, email: [email protected], Web: http://osearth.com; The World Game Institute was a non-profit organization which developed tools and information, and conducted workshops on world issues, on the environment and on diversity; the objective was to help individuals and organizations attempt to define and solve global problems and local problems in a global context. The programs and resources of the World Game Institute are now osEarth, Inc. This company was formed to turn these resources into a global enterprise that provides simulation and information tools for better understanding and managing our planet. The
Simulation and Games 38 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 company will build on the 30 years of work by the WGI and scale this work to have the global impact all those associated with the World Game® want. The World Game is described in Appendix C.
Appendix B: Resource Individuals
Gerald Barney, Executive Director, Millennium Institute (formerly Institute for 21st Century Studies); author of the Global 2000 Report to the President (President Carter), and headed the National Program for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. He has traveled and lectured widely and written numerous books on sustainable futures for the Earth. He conducted post-doctoral research in global modeling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds a doctoral degree in fusion energy physics from the University of Wisconsin. He lives in Arlington,Virginia, in the United States.
Peter Brecke … Sam Nunn School of International Affairs … Georgia Institute of Technology … Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0610 USA … Tel (404) 894-6599 … Fax (404) 894-1900 … E-mail: [email protected]. Web:www.inta.gatech.edu/peter/globmod.html . Global modeling research. The site contains brief descriptions of, and links to, 13 global models, plus additional links.
Pierre Corbeil, CEGEP de Drummondville, 690, 104e Avenue, Drummondville, Quebec, J2B 4P9, CANADA Tel: (819) 477-3983, Fax: (819) 474-6859, email: [email protected].; developer of many simulations and games, including co-authorship of Clues and Challenges; The Crossroads, a simulation on Cultures and Business; Not So Fast!, a game on centralized control; FOURALL, a game on the meaning of social justice. Translator of games into French
-David Crookall, Editor, Simulation & Gaming, Institut d'Études Politiques, Université de Lille II, 50 rue Gauthier de Chatillon, 5900 Lille, FRANCE, Tel: 011-33-20.57.95.15, Fax: 011-33- 20.30.69.32
-Richard D. Duke, Chair, Graduate Program in Games and Simulations, University of Michigan; very active in ISAGA; President for 1994/95 and Conference Host for the 1994 25th Anniversary Conference
-Allan G. Feldt, Professor of Urban Planning, Architecture & Urban Planning, 12488 Art & Arch, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2069, email: [email protected], (734) 764-6885 , Fax: (734) 763-2322; Web: http://myprofile.cos.com/feldta67 see University of Michigan; Metropolitan Area Growth Game is described in Appendix C.
-Sandra Mumford Fowler, 4020 Linnean Ave, NW. Washington, DC 2008, (202) 244-8337; co- authored Clues & Challenges with Barbara Steinwachs; the game is briefly described in Appendix C. Ms. Fowler has written extensively on intercultural simulation-games and is senior editor of the Intercultural Sourcebook: Cross-Cultural Training Methods which contains extensive discussions of simulation-games for cross-cultural training.
-Frederick L. Goodman, 4208 SEB, School of Education, University of Michigan, Interactive
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Communications and Simulations, 810 East University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1259, USA, Tel: (734)-763-6717, Email: [email protected], Web: http://sitemaker.soe.umich.edu/soe/faculty&mode=single&recordID=50789; Directs the Interactive Communications and Simulations Program, in which thousands of middle-school and high-school students around the world take part in computer-mediated exercises.
-Ted Gordon, founder and senior director, The Futures Group. Email: [email protected], is a futurist, having started the Futures Group, a consulting company located in Glastonbury Connecticut. Retired as CEO in 1990 and has been working with the Millennium Project since then with recent work on State of the Future Index and non- linear systems.
-Cathy Greenblatt, 40 East 19th Street, 8th floor, New York, NY, 10003, simulation and gaming pioneer, frequent editor and contributor to simulation and gaming books and magazines, and prominent member/officer of gaming associations
-Olaf Helmer, 300 Hot Springs Road #8, Montecito, CA 93108, Tel: (805) 969-8804; one of the founders of the Institute for the Future; designer of a Delphi simulation entitled Simulating the Values of the Future and of other future-related simulations, and author of A Guide to Futures Research (Sage Publications, 1983)
-Lane Jennings, editor of the Futures Research Directory: Individuals 1991-92, research director of THE FUTURIST and production editor of Future Survey. World Future Society, Web: http://www.wfs.org
-Bob Johansen, Institute for the Future, 2744 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, (650) 854-6322, Web: http://www.iftf.org, Bob has been president since 1996, but he continues to spend about half of his time on research, private client work, and writing. Recently, Bob has been exploring new models for leadership and the art of creating meaningful work environments.
-Moorhead Kennedy, Moorhead Kennedy Institute and The American Forum for Global Education, 45 John St., #1200, New York, NY 10038 Tel: (212) 732-8606
-J. Bernard Keys, College of Business, MBA Program, Lipscomb University, 3901 Granny White Pike, Nashville, TN, 37204. Tel: 800-333-4358 and ask for Dr. Keys or Tel: 615-279- 5951 Fax 615-269-1818 E-mail: [email protected] , CABSEL
-Harold Linstone, Portland State University, PO Box 751, Portland, OR 97207, USA Tel: (503) 725-4960 Ext. 5 E-mail: [email protected]
-Craig Locatis, National Library of Medicine, Building 38A, Room B1N-30F, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894, Phone: 301-435-3254, Fax: 301-402-4080, Email: [email protected], Craig Locatis joined the Office of High Performance Computing and Communication in 1999. He was formerly with the Library's Cognitive Science Branch, working on various education and training programs in The Learning Center for Interactive Technology. Dr. Locatis has developed interactive multimedia programs and has conducted research and
Simulation and Games 40 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 published reports on interactive multimedia technology for the NLM and professional journals. In addition to his work at The Learning Center, he has worked on NLM projects to develop help and documentation for online systems and to provide the national medical libraries of eight newly independent states of the former Soviet Union with Internet access to NLM's databases. Also see National Institutes of Health
-Dennis L. Meadows, former Director, The Institute for Policy and Social Science Research, University of New Hampshire, (now closed) Email: [email protected] ; developer with Donella Meadows and Jorgen Randers of the systems dynamic model of the world, entitled World 3. A brief description of the World 3 scenario is in Appendix C.
-Charles Plummer, Director, Simulation Systems Laboratory, 1916 NE 125th Terrace Road, Silver Springs, FL 34488, 352.502.2944 Cellular,352.625.7303 Telephone,, email: [email protected]; author of many games on issues affecting the future; originator of the Social Architecture Simulation; author of Futures Games and Simulations, An Evaluation, in The Guide to Simulations/Games for Education and Training, Robert E. Horn and Anne Cleaves, 4th Edition, Sage Publications, 1980. This article discusses and evaluates several public school and college simulations pertaining to modeling of the future. Social Architecture Simulation is described in Appendix C.
-Richard B. Powers, Professor Emeritus, University of Utah, has designed several games, including the New Commons Game and Zan-Tec, intended to introduce the 'feeling component' in education. He also conducts workshops with the Oregon Peace Institute. The New Commons Game is briefly described in Appendix C.
-Erwin Rausch, President, Didactic Systems Inc.
-Garry Shirts, President, Simulation Training Systems; simulation and gaming pioneer.
-Barbara Steinwachs, risingmoon at Keuka Lake, 1128 East Bluff Drive, Penn Yan, NY 14527, USA, Tel:(315) 536-7895, Fax: 315-536-7895 voice & fax, email: mailto:[email protected]; international consultant on development of simulations and games, and on organizational planning; resource contact for NASAGA; simulation and game review editor for Simulation and Gaming International Journal; Consensus Forum, a program that uses simulation for realistic planning, is described in Appendix C.
-Sivasailam Thiagarajan (Thiagi), President, Workshops by Thiagi, simulation and gaming pioneer
-Carol Watts, Exec. Director, Meridian International Center
Daniel Yalowitz, chair, SIETAR International Simulations and Games Committee; see also Project Play! Inc.
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Appendix C: Simulation Programming Tools
AScape : http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/4/1/5.html In Ascape, agent objects exist within scapes; collections of agents such as arrays and lattices. These scapes are themselves agents, so that typical Ascape models are made up of "collections of collections" of agents. Scapes provide a context for agent interaction and sets of rules that govern agent behavior. Ascape manages graphical views and collection of statistics for scapes and provides mechanisms for controlling and altering parameters for scape models. Ascape is written entirely in Java and should work on any Java-capable machine.
Eco Lab http://www.hpcoders.com.au/docs/ecolab4.pdf is both the name of a software package and a research project that is looking at the dynamics of evolution. Ecolab 4.0 is now available for general use. Eco Lab is an object oriented simulation environment that implements an experiment-oriented metaphor. It provides a series of instruments that can be coupled together with the user's model (written in C++) at runtime in order to visualize the model, as well as support for distributing the model on a space-like grid, and checkpoint/restart support. Eco Lab has been developed from a simulation system designed to simulate a particular model (the Eco Lab model) of an abstract ecology.
Evo http://www.agentland.com/cgi- bin/relocation.cgi?http://www.agentland.com/Download/Intelligent_Agent/468.html is a software development framework that allows developers to build complex ALife simulations. Using Evo, researchers can easily build systems of independent agents interacting with one another and with their environment. Evo implements biological operators such as genetic recombination and mutation to evolve the behavior of agents so that they are more adapted to their environment.
Evolver http://repast.sourceforge.net/#download is a rapid simulation development tool for creating RePast simulations. Using a drag-and-drop model, a simulation can be graphically composed out of various pieces (pre-defined models, agents, analysis components, etc.). Any desired behavior not included in the pre-defined components can be specified using NQPython (Not Quite Python), a Python-like language specifically designed to integrate well with RePast and much simpler than Java.
NetLogo http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/ a programmable modeling environment for simulating natural and social phenomena. It is particularly well suited for modeling complex systems developing over time. Modelers can give instructions to hundreds or thousands of independent "agents" all operating in parallel. This makes it possible to explore the connection between the micro-level behavior of individuals and the macro-level patterns that emerge from the interaction of many individuals.
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Repast http://repast.sourceforge.net/ The University of Chicago's Social Science Research Computing's RePast is a software framework for creating agent-based simulations using the Java language (requires version Java 1.3 or greater). It provides a library of classes for creating, running, displaying and collecting data from an agent-based simulation. In addition, RePast can take snapshots of running simulations, and create QuickTime movies of simulations. RePast borrows much from the Swarm simulation toolkit and can properly be termed "Swarm-like." In addition, RePast includes such features as run-time model manipulation via GUI widgets first found in the Ascape simulation toolkit.
StarLogo : http://education.mit.edu/starlogo/ "In decentralized systems, orderly patterns can arise without centralized control. Increasingly, researchers are choosing decentralized models for the organizations and technologies that they construct in the world, and for the theories that they construct about the world. But many people continue to resist these ideas, assuming centralized control where none exists -- for example, assuming (incorrectly) that bird flocks have leaders. StarLogo is designed to help students (as well as researchers) develop new ways of thinking about and understanding decentralized systems."
Swarm http://www.swarm.org/ is a software package for multi-agent simulation of complex systems, originally developed at the Santa Fe Institute. Swarm is intended to be a useful tool for researchers in a variety of disciplines. The basic architecture of Swarm is the simulation of collections of concurrently interacting agents: with this architecture, we can implement a large variety of agent-based models. The Swarm software is available to the general public under GNU licensing terms. Swarm is experimental software, which means that it's complete enough to be useful but will always be under development.
SWIEE http://swiee.econ.unito.it The SWIEE project lets you: use the Swarm Simulation Toolkit for experiments with human subjects, make "simulative experiments" with both human and artificial agents, thus integrating experiments and ABMs (agent-based models).
Appendix D: Selected Simulations and Games in Different Fields
1. Simulation Programming Tools
- DYNAMO is published by PA consulting; it is available for DOS and for Windows.
DYNAMO is a powerful modeling environment that helps simulation designers create
Simulation and Games 43 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 customized computer models which provide easy access and test specifications, result monitoring, and diagnostic aids to help the end-user understand the results
- iTHINK is published by isee systems., it is available for Windows and for Macintosh computers. iTHINK helps create simulations that provide opportunities to explore issues pertaining to many functions, including marketing, strategic planning, manufacturing, operations, finance, human resources and health care management. iTHINK allows the user to construct maps of processes in these functions using simple building block icons. As maps are constructed, the program automatically creates the equation for converting the map into a framework for simulation. A very complete demonstration disc for iTHINK is available from the company but it has very limited life; the program on the disc self-destructs in 30 days.
- STELLA II is published by isee systems., it is available for Windows and for Macintosh computers.
- STELLA II helps create simulations in academic settings, especially in the sciences. Like iTHINK it allows the user draw maps of the subject under study and then turns them into equations as basis for the simulation. A very complete demonstration discs for STELLA II is available from the company but it has very limited life; the program on the disc self-destructs in 30 days.
2. Selected Simulations and Games in Different Fields
-Adventure Theater –The modern classroom suffers from an impoverished spectrum. It is almost singularly a cerebral channel. As a learning environment, it is a poor substitute for modern day movie theaters or theme parks. It simply isn't rich enough. Also, because of modern sound systems and Internet journeys, the average person demands as much real experience as can be had.
The Arcturus group‘s Adventure Theater Process produces scripted but non-deterministic events with especially integrated learning situations, where the idea and the experience of life are inseparable. They can integrate very specific learning objectives into the mix, or can evoke very precise emotions and feelings.
The combinations are like real-life situations, so the learning can be tailored for crises or especially critical moments. This process has consistently brought leadership and teamwork to life for small- to medium- sized groups. Adventure Theaters have been produced for groups as large as 350 or for smaller groups of a dozen or less.
The journey itself is interactive. The participants are guided to specific story sets and challenge sites, but they decide how to negotiate the situation. Eventually the participants take over and continue the masquerade with their own fantasy elements, costumes, and theater. See the Web site for illustrated examples and a Web-based Introductory course in Social Architecture. http://arcturus.org
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- The Achievement Game is a free-form game available from HRD Press; the game is intended to help participants learn principles related to realistic goal setting while allowing for risk, challenge and success.
Two-person teams compete in stacking a column of wood blocks toward a goal that they have set in advance. There is no limit to the number of participants who can play the game at the same time. The exercise is repeated and timed, adding the variables of feedback, competition, and teamwork. There are several functions to be performed simultaneously to achieve success: stacking the blocks, lining them up, observing the progress of the other teams, and coaching and conferring within the team on how high the blocks can be piled safely. Materials for 20 participants and Instructor Guidelines are provided in the package. 90 to 120 minutes are needed for the game.
- Clues & Challenges, a free-form game was developed by Sandra Mumford Fowler and Barbara Steinwachs, with Pierre Corbeil for Youth For Understanding International Exchange, 6400 Goldboro Rd., Suite 100, Bethesda MD 20817, USA; Tel: (240) 235-2100.
The game helps participants understand the origins and meaning of culture and begin to recognize that people's actions, even when they seem strange, have roots in unseen values, customs and everyday experiences. Participants practice making the transition from one culture to another and the game challenges them to work together. It asks them to discuss what culture they might be part of, based on 'clues' they have received and then challenges them to create a ritual or an activity that uses their artifacts and demonstrates something about their new culture. They then form a 'macro' culture made up of representatives from each of the small group cultures.
The game can accommodate groups ranging from six participants to very large groups of several hundred.
- Collective Bargaining, a programmed simulation-game, is published by Didactic Systems. It dramatizes the political and economic forces at work in collective bargaining and it shows the need for careful wording of new clauses so that they will stand up to the test of use. The game is designed for teams of six participants. There is no limit to the number of teams who can play the game at the same time.
Each participant receives a small booklet which provides directions, available options, and scoring for each decision point. At the beginning of the game, all participants are members of management and decide on subcontracting and discipline situations. They then split into a 2- member management and a 4-member union negotiating subteam. Steps in the collective bargaining process are presented in the booklet and teams work toward resolving the differences in their positions and to write contract clauses. At the end of the game, the combined teams evaluate the quality of contract clauses they agreed on by testing them against various situations that arise.
90 to 120 minutes are needed for the game, but more time can be allowed to provide for more
Simulation and Games 45 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 thorough discussion. A leader's guide is available.
- The New Commons Game, is a metaphorical game by Richard B. Powers with Richard E. Duus and Richard S. Norton.
The purpose of the game is to demonstrate that trust, while important in maintaining relationships, needs the support of group-imposed sanctions if agreements are to be upheld. It is also intended to show that a difference in the power to exploit a common resource generates feelings of frustration and the desire for revolution among the disempowered.
Initially players have the option of playing a green card which represents maximum exploitation of the 'commons' (the environment) and has a high, but decreasing payoff as the quality of the commons declines; or they can play a red card which represents restrained concern for the commons and has a much smaller payoff which, however, becomes greater as more participants play red. Later on in the game, additional cards are provided to the players: a yellow card which represents complete abstention from the commons which carries a very small reward; a black card which represents the use of police power (punishment for exploitation) but costs the participant who uses it one point but metes out much heavier punishment to green card players; and an orange card which represents the use of incentives (rewards) for restrained cooperation (use of the red card); using the orange card also costs a participant one point but adds points to users of red cards.
The game requires about 90 minutes to play and to debrief; it can accommodate from 6 to 24 participants.
- Combat Trauma is a computer-based videodisc simulation that was developed by the National Institutes of Health, Educational Technology Branch, Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, National Library of Medicine. Simulators work on it alone though they can compete with each other on several computers or sequentially.
Combat Trauma is part of the U.S. Navy's Computer Assisted Medical Interactive Systems (CAMIS) and is used to teach Navy physicians combat trauma management procedures. Using a light pen and keyboard, the learner selects diagnostic and treatment options from menus presented on-screen and receives feedback regarding the efficacy of choices made. An interesting feature of the simulations is that five increasingly difficult cases are simulated on one videodisc side.
- Consensus Forum, developed by Barbara Steinwachs is an interactive group exercise which uses simulation for real world planning and for evaluating the plans. The exercise helps participants develop alternate strategies.
Participants join either one of several Focus Groups, a Decision Making Task Force, or one of the three review panels (a Resource Review Panel, an Organizational Maintenance Review Panel, and an Organizational Breakthrough Review Panel); they can also be synergizers who move around the room, looking for opportunities to encourage people to seek synergistic opportunities for discovering/developing imaginative, productive, and effective strategies.
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Focus Groups develop 'Vision Statements' and then prepare proposals which depict the situation and state the expected outcomes, action steps, and resources needed. The Focus Groups submit their proposals to the three review panels, one at a time. Based on feedback from the panels, the Focus Groups revise their proposals and then submit them to the Decision Making Task Force. When the proposals have been received, a General Meeting is called to evaluate the proposals of the different groups and to comment on the desirability of all features. After further revisions, a second General Meeting is called to develop a Consensus Decision. During the entire process, members of the review panels and the task force are encouraged to observe and participate in deliberations of other groups whenever there is time to do so.
The size of the group to participate in the exercise depends on the number of people who should be involved in planning for the organization or association, though approximately 60 participants is likely to be a realistic upper limit.
- Death of a Dissident is a role play simulation developed by the Moorhead Kennedy Institute. It concerns economic development, human rights, ethics, negotiation, and conflict resolution.
The setting for the role play is a Caribbean dictatorship where a new economic policy lowers tariff barriers and thereby deprives local industries of the protection they had long enjoyed. Roles are the Minister of State Security, the leader of the dissidents, the U.S. Ambassador and intermediaries from Amnesty International and the Vatican; a local broadcasting network also plays a critical role. In the role play, the negotiations over guarantees of future safety of the dissidents are interrupted by a brutal murder.
18 to 39 participants are needed. For groups larger than forty, more than one simulation can be conducted at the same time. In addition to role play booklets, a facilitator's manual is provided. Required time is three to four hours.
- The End of the Line game, a metaphorical game by Frederick L. Goodman, gives participants a feel for what it is like to grow old and what it is like to help people who are growing old. It was designed to enhance sensitivity to the challenges of aging in individuals who work with the elderly.
Participants are loosely tethered to trays on chairs with a rope, to simulate limitations on mobility; if they pull the tray off the chair, they lose the paper clips which represent their financial resources. They try to participate in 'regular life' activities where they can gain but are also at risk of losing, including some of the rope. Participants representing social agencies try to assist the 'aged and aging', while a 'grim reaper' walks around the room, asking them to draw cards, most of which result in the loss of some physical, social, or financial resources.
The game requires a large room with enough chairs for the players, four tables, and various materials including ropes, paper clips, scissors, etc. and takes about two hours. Three or four game directors are required and at least 16 participants. While 30 participants are considered optimum, a maximum of 60 can be accommodated.
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- Financial Analysis is another programmed simulation-game published by Didactic Systems. Its purposes are to help participants sharpen the ability to read financial statements, develop useful budgets, and to better understand the break-even-point concept and methods for allocating common costs among products.
Each of the participants in a four- or five-member team receives a small booklet which provides directions, available options, and scoring for each decision point. The booklet presents data and challenges on which each participant must first make a personal decision before the team arrives at a team consensus. Scores are provided for personal and team choices.
There is no limit to the number of teams who can work on the game at the same time. A leader's guide is available and total time, including debriefing is three to four hours.
- Fire in the Forest is a role play simulation developed by the Moorhead Kennedy Institute. It concerns decisions involving cross-cultural and ethnic sensitivity, respect for native peoples and related conflicts.
This simulation is set in the Amazon Rain Forest. A 'debt-for-nature' proposal threatens violence. Participants play roles of conservationists, settlers, native people, and government officials, each presenting their own demands for land use.
18 to 40 participants are needed. For groups larger than forty, more than one simulation can be conducted at the same time. In addition to role play booklets, a facilitator's manual is provided. Required time is three to four hours.
- Negotiation Game, by Training House, is a free-form game that dramatizes how assumptions influence strategies, and the effect of win-win versus zero-sum objectives in negotiations.
In this game each participant receives a 'bank' of five cents, an envelope containing colored sticks, and instructions. The objective is to collect sticks of the same color through timed negotiations (trades, deal making, purchasing) with five other participants. After the game, questions are provided to help analyze the effectiveness of the strategies used.
An Instructor's Guide is provided. The game requires 90 to 120 minutes and an unlimited number of groups can participate at the same time.
- SimCity and SimFarm are widely used commercial computer simulation-games developed by Maxis primarily for entertainment purposes. In these games the participants usually work alone, though they can compete with each other using different computers or sequentially on the same computer. SimCity 4 is now available for the Mac from Aspyr (www.aspyr.com, where information is available). SimCity 4 features new simulation and graphics engines, an all new regional game play, and the ability to track the lives of individual Sims as they go about their daily routine. The title requires Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) or higher.
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Participants manage the day-to-day challenges of either building a city or a farm. In SimCity they customize the terrain, build roads, commercial areas and residential neighborhoods, and decide on the city's infrastructure and financing. Meanwhile the newspaper keeps them informed of developments and in touch with the people. With SimCity, participants create cities or destroy them - they are as close to running a real city without getting elected the undisputed leader as anyone can get.
In SimFarm, participants have the same opportunity and power in creating a farm of their dreams. They are owners of a small plot of land where they can create a family farm or make as much money as possible. They plow fields, sow seeds, watch the weather, harvest crops and sell them in the market. They can borrow money and hedge in futures markets, but they also have to pay taxes. In short, they can experience all the joys, trials and tribulations of starting and running a farm.
- Simulating the Values of the Future, developed by Olaf Helmer, and designed for high school students, uses three groups: planners, social predictors and an evaluation committee. Planners allocate resources to raise probabilities of higher GNP and/or promote better values/freedom; predictors make social predictions based on the allocations and determine likely social consequences; evaluation committees determine preferences and desirability of alternative futures; final plenary assessment assigns probabilities for population sectors.
- Social Architecture Simulation, developed by Charles Plummer, is a planning type simulation process that can be worked by one person or several teams, up to about twenty participants. Its objective is to apply whole system principles and systematic procedures to developing an idea into a formal proposal or project design. During a Social Architecture Simulation, participants first learn the basic concept of a stimulating simulation. They then use what they have learned to design either a concept paper on an idea, a whole-system diagram picturing the major parts of a project and their relationships, an analysis of resources/activities/outcomes of the project, or a structure for planning.
- The Suicidal Adolescent is a computer-based videodisc simulation that was developed by the National Institutes of Health, Educational Technology Branch, Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, National Library of Medicine. Simulators work on it alone though they can compete with each other on several computers or sequentially.
The simulation provides a rare opportunity to develop the skills for successfully dealing with suicidal patients. It presents simulated patients with varying degrees of suicidal risk and permits participants to enhance their knowledge and interviewing skills for this demanding task, by letting them observe and control the interviews, diagnose the problem, and prescribe treatment. Feedback is provided.
- The World Game, offered by the World Game Institute, is a free form role-play simulation-game for school age children and for adults, which creates a simulation of the world with a map of the world on a large plastic sheet, or stenciled on the floor of a large space, at least 12'x26', but preferably much larger, up to 31'x65'. Participants play the roles of leaders and address current world issues with accurate, real world information, as representatives of the
Simulation and Games 49 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 populations of regions and of international organizations such as the United Nations, World Health Organization, banks, corporations, the media, and others. They use props representing resources, including food and money, as they negotiate to meet the needs of their constituents.
The game can accommodate from 30 to more than 100 participants and takes three to four hours, not counting the preparation and reproduction time.
- World 3 is a Systems Dynamics model of the world that was developed by Dennis L. Meadows, with Donella Meadows and Jorgen Randers, and is based on two books by the Meadows, Limits to Growth and Beyond the Limits. (Systems Dynamics, or Systems Modeling, is discussed in another booklet in this United Nations University series.) World 3 builds on World 1 (which was commissioned by the Club of Rome, a prestigious research foundation), and is an elaboration of World 2, an interim model. World 3 is a very elegant model, linking the population, and economic and ecological resources in their complex relationships. In a computerized version (available as a DYNAMO computer program), the user can view and compare all of the scenarios discussed in Beyond the Limits, and ask a wide range of "What if.." questions to create different scenarios in a simulation.
The computer program shows the user three windows. In one there are general instructions and decision screens in which the user can change various assumptions on which the model is based. The second window provides summary reports about each simulated scenario (as determined by the decisions in the first window). The third window shows summary charts (plots) which depict the key variables simulated by the model in one, two or three scenarios, as well as explanations of how the factors interrelate.
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Appendix E: Journals, Text Books, Tutorials, Courses, and Conferences .
Global Interdependence: Simulation and Gaming Perspectives
This book contains the proceedings of the 22nd International Conference of ISAGA, held in Kyoto, Japan, July 1991.
Contact:
Springer-Verlag, 37-3 Hongo 3-chome, Bunkyo-ku Tokyo 113, Japan3-3812-0331 ------GLOSAS News
A newsletter of the GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A. (GLOSAS/USA), which is a publicly supported, non-profit, educational service organization and is a consortium of organizations dedicated to the use of evolving telecommunications and information technologies to further advance world peace through global communications. GLOSAS fosters science- and technology-based economic development to improve the quality of life. GLOSAS NEWS (GN) was one of the early electronic newsletters, edited and published 1991-97 from McGill University's server by Anton Ljutic.
The newsletter has ceased but a complete backfile of all issues may be found on the Web. The Website has been archived at the University of Tennessee server directory of GLOSAS Chair Dr. Takeshi Utsumi: http://www.friends-partners.org/utsumi/glosas-news/cont.htm Subject: Multimedia Systems Subject: Systems Analysis Subject: Computer Simulation Subject: Computer-Assisted Instruction Start date: November 1991 End date: 1997 ------Society for Modeling and Simulation International http://www.scs.org/
This is an international organization of those professionally involved in computer simulation. It sponsors conferences and symposia on simulation and provides information on software to its members through a yearly Catalog of Simulation Software. It also produces proceedings from its major national and international conferences.
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Contact:
Chip Stockton Executive Director Society for Modeling and Simulation International P.O. Box 17900 San Diego, CA 92177 Ph 858.277.3888 Fx 858.277.3930 [email protected] ------Simulation & Gaming: An International Journal of Theory, Design and Research
This journal is devoted to academic and applied issues in the fast expanding fields of simulation, computerized simulation, gaming, modeling, role-play and active experiential learning, and related methodologies in education, training and research.
To subscribe, contact:
Sage Publications 2455 Teller Road Newbury Park, CA 91320 ------Simulation & Gaming: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Theory, Practice and Research.
This is the official periodical of ISAGA. The journal has a section called ISAGA News & Notes, containing recent information about ISAGA.
The journal is published by Sage Publications. For more details on the journal, please go to the journal web site: http://www.unice.fr/sg/ ------The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS) JASSS http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS.html is an electronic, refereed journal devoted to the exploration and understanding of social processes by means of computer simulation. It is published quarterly in January, March, June, and October, freely available, with no subscription.
Textbooks :
Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds , Michel Resnick, MIT Press (1994).
How Nature Works ,Per Bak , Copernicus Spriger-Verlag (1999).
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Reference Books:
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software . Steven Johnson, Scribner (2001)
Discovering Artificial Economics: How Agents Learn and Economies Evolve , David Batten, Westview Press (2000)
Emergence: From Chaos to Order . John H. Holland, Perseus Books (1998)
At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity , Stuart Kauffman, Oxford University Press (1996)
The Complexity of Cooperation. Robert M. Axelrod, Princeton University Press (1997).
A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram , Wolfram Media, 1,197 pp., $44.95: Is the Universe a Universal Computer? Wolfram argues that the best way to understand many systems in nature is to think in terms of simple programs instead of mathematical equations.
Rediscovering Computational Autopoiesis by Barry McMullin and Francisco J. Varela http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~alife/bmcm-ecal97/bmcm-ecal97.html Abstract: "This paper summarizes some initial empirical results from a new computer model (artificial chemistry) which exhibits spontaneous emergence and persistence of autopoietic organization. The model is based on a system originally presented by Varela, Maturana and Uribe [11]. In carrying out this re-implementation it was found that an additional interaction (chain-based bond inhibition), not documented in the original description by Varela et al., is critical to the realization of the autopoietic phenomena. This required interaction was re- discovered only following careful examination of (unpublished) source code for an early version of the original model. The purpose of the paper is thus twofold: firstly to identify and discuss this previously undocumented, but essential, interaction; and secondly to argue, on the basis of this particular case, for the importance of exploiting the emerging technologies which support publication of completely detailed software models (in addition, of course, to conventional publication of summary experimental results)."
Agent2002 Workshop on the Ecology, Exchange & Evolution of Social Agents, Univ of Chicago: Throughout the social sciences, the simulation of social agents has emerged as an innovative and powerful research methodology. The promise of this approach, however, is accompanied by numerous challenges. First, modeling complexity in agents, environments and interactions is non-trivial, and these complex representations must to be explored and assessed systematically. In addition, strategies used to represent such complexities will be differentially applicable to any particular problem space. Finally, in order to achieve sufficient generality, the design and experimentation inherent in agent simulation will need to be coupled with social and behavioral theory. To realize the potential of agent methodologies, researchers will need to find ways to resolve these challenges. Agent2002 will provide a forum in which to review the current state of
Simulation and Games 53 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 agent simulation scholarship, including research designed to address such outstanding issues. Workshop papers will be presented on Friday, October 11th and Saturday, October 12th.
Sponsored by the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory.
For more information, contact Victor Lofgreen, 773/834-0149, [email protected] , or Charles Macal, 630/252-5464, [email protected] .
Modeling Nature‘s Emergent Patterns with Multi-agent Languages , http://ccl.northwestern.edu/uri/public_html/papers/MEE/ by Uri Wilensky - Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern University.
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REFERENCES As a measure of the growth of Gaming and Simulation we have listed the schedule, attendees, and speakers at a recent gaming and virtual world conference in New York called Engage Expo. 10 Wagon BarkingFish Productions CKPcreative 10VOX Entertainment, Inc. BARKLEY ClickandBuy 1-800-Pharmacy, Inc. BASSETT Executive Search Cliffside Capital 2015, INC. Bayer Corporate & Business CMP Metaverse 38 Studios Services Code4Software LLC 3Di.jp Bebchick Law Columbia University 4Kids Productions behavebox.com Comparative Media Studies 500 Mirrors Berkeley College newsletter & blog Abandon Interactive Best Direction, Inc. Consulate General of Canada Entertainment Big Ride Consulting Consumer Reports Abbott BilltoMobile by Danal Cookie Jar Entertainment Abrahams & Sheppard LLP Bitcasters Inc. Cooley Godward Kronish LLP ActiveWorlds bloomberg Cornell University Activision Inc. BMC Group Cornucopia Entertainment Aimee Weber Studio, Inc BMI Covington & Burling LLP Aliquanta BMO Capital Markets Cox Newspapers All About Kids TV Boomer Esiason Foundation crayon All Star Buddies Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. CRD Allegorithmic Brackman + Brackman Creata Promotion AllianceBernstein BrainPOP Create or Die Alloy Media + Marketing Brainytoys Ltd Creative Artists Agency Almatropie Brandwise, Inc Crescendo Ventures AltSearchEngines Brash Entertainment Crisp Thinking Ambient Performance BronxTalk CrossComm, Inc. American Customer Care Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC Curious Sense Amertican Greetings Properties Build-A-Bear Workshop Cyber Adventure Co.,ltd ANC News Radio Bunnyhero Labs CyberExtruder Animation Lab BusinessWeek Daden Limited Animax Entertainment, LLC C Westerberg & Associates Dancing Ink Productions Animazoo C3L3B, Inc. Danya International, Inc. Aperio Insights Cambridge education @ islington Darleon Apprise Media Capella Univeristy Darwin Dimensions Inc Areae Cartoon Network DAZ 3D Aria Systems Cartoon Network New Media DC Comics Arkadium Games CBS Evening News De Tijd Artificial Mind and Movement CBS Television Deep Think Labs Astral Television Networks CCP Games Deitel & Associates, Inc. Asylum Entertainment Centers for Disease Control and Department of Justice Asynchrony Solutions Prevention Department of State Atlantic Media CGTI / MINEFE Digital Hollywood Graduate audree's world Charles River Ventures School Avatar Reality, Inc. Chatterchix, Inc. Digital PlaySpace, Inc. Avatrian, LLC Cheil Worldwide Dinokids / Avocado Avgi CIDC Entertainment, Inc. Avoacdo Entertainment Ciemaar Flintoff Productions Discover Magazine B*tween Productions, Inc. Cisco Systems Discovery Communications
Simulation and Games 55 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0
Disney Consumer Products GameMerchandise.com IBM Haifa Labs Disney Publishing Games2win Inaid Pvt Ltd. IBM Research Dolby Laboratories GDC-Media ibm.com Global Web 3D Internet Domus, Inc. Geek.com IBR News Doppelganger Genkii Icarus Studios Double Fusion GfM Nachrichten iClips Drakeford & Kane LLC GfM News.com IDC DreamWorks Animation GFX Review Ideaflood Inc DSCI Girl Ambition Ideal Innovations, Inc. Duke's Fuqua School of Business Gladwyne Partners IGN Entertainment Earth Rangers GlaxoSmithKline iLemon Virtual World Factory Educational Technology magazine GlobalCollect Implenia Global Solutions Egencie.com GNi IMVU, Inc. EggshellGames GoFish Networks Intel Capital Eivod Goha.ru Intel Corporation Electronic Arts, Inc. GoHaRu Interactive Art Services Electrotank GOLIVE2 / PLAYHUT InterActiveCorp eMarketer Goodwin Procter LLP interFUEL eMarketing and Commerce Google, Inc. ISID (eM+C) GoPets ISN Virtual Worlds enter the metaverse Graz University of Technology ITAAO Entertainment Software Green Phosphor LLC iToys Association Grid Middleware Spectra ITT Epitome Pictures Inc. GSA Jack Morton Worldwide EPM COMMUNICATIONS GSD&M's Idea City Jack Myers Media Business ETF Venture Funds Guppyworks Report ETH Zurich Hadassah Javien Digital Payment Solutions Everything Grandkids Hakuhodo Inc. Jersey Cow Software extralab Hallmark Cards Johnson & Johnson Faraway Friends Hangout Industries Joint Economic Committee, U.S. FastCompany Dot Com Hartford Advocate Congress Federal Government Harvard Business School KaaGaa Systems, Inc. FFI Hasbro, Inc. Kauffman Foundation Fidelity Investments Hawkpoint KAWG&F Fieldhouse Media Heartbeat Digital KAYENTA PRODUCTION FireSabre Consulting, LLC Heeb Magazine Kelley Drye & Warren Fisher-Price HiPiHi Kelly Services Fix8, Division of Mobinex, Inc. HIT Entertainment KICK Design Fleishman-Hillard Holton Media Kinetic Underground Florida Coastal School of Law HolyMeatballs.org virtual worlds Komazawa University FlowPlay and digital media. Konstruction Zone Frank N. Magid Associates Hoplon Infotainment S.A. KPG Ventures Freggers.com Horseland LLC KPMG Digital Insider Frima Studio Inc http://billaut.typepad.com Law Offices of Judith B. Bass Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, I C YOU AB Left Brain Games, Inc. P.C. i3D LEGO Company, Inc FutureMusic + FutureMusic IAC Search and Media L'espresso HDTV IAC/InterActiveCorp Levin Capital Strategies G Unit Records / Thisis50.com IBM Lifetime G2G Enterprises, Inc. IBM / Innovation and Technology Linda Rohrbaugh P.L. GAIA Interactive, Inc. IBM Canada Ltd. Linden Lab
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Live Gamer, Inc. Mygamer.com O2B Kids LLG, Inc. Mynd Studio Oddcast, Inc. Longtail Studios Namco Networks America, Inc. Ohio University Los Alamos National Laboratory National Geographic OMMA Magazine M. H. Segan & Company Inc. National Geographic Adventure On-line Card Technologies, Inc. MacArthur Foundation National Geographic Digital Orange Make The Web Better, llc Media - Kids Orange Labs Makena Technologies Inc. National Geographic Ventures OUAT Entertainment Malden Labs National University of Ireland, PAC Entertainment, Inc. MANHATTAN MOMENTS TV Galway Panther Express CDN SHOW NCFTA Paramount Pictures Market Truths Limited NDi Media Parature Marshall & Sterling Needham & Company Parks Associates Marvel Entertainment Group Neopets Past4Ward, LLC MASA Group Neoverse Technologies, Inc. Pattishall, McAuliffe, Newbury, Massive Incorporated Neustar Ultra DNS Hilliard & Geraldson Massive, Inc. New Tang Dynasty TV PayByCash Mattel, Inc. New York Life Insurance Paynova McDonald's Corporation Company PBS Media Berkman New York Times PC Magazine Media Week Nexon America Inc. PCCW Ltd. Mediaweek Nextage Pearson Education Meez NGI Capital Peer Review, Online Talk Show MEG Nice Tech PeerGroupz Meltingdots Inc. Nicholas Research Associates Phantom Compass Inc. Metabirds Co.,Ltd. International Philips Research Metaversatility, Inc. Nick At Nite.Com Pine Plains Central School Metaverse Mod Squad, Inc. Nick.Com District Metaversum GmbH Nickelodeon Pixel-Lab Method, Inc. Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Planet Cazmo Microsoft Family Group Playlore Gameworks Microsoft Games Studio NICTA - VRL PlaySpan, Inc. Millions of Us LLC Nikkei Business Publications in PLAYSTATION Home MindArk PE AB Japan Popcha! Mindark/Entropia Universe Nikkei Newspaper PowerU MindMatics, LLC Nixon Peabody LLP PRAIRIE VIEW A&M Minonline.com, PRNews.com Nomura Research Inst, Ltd. UNIVERSITY MJM Nomura Research Institute Precious Moments, Inc. mmochi.com America Prelusion Games AB Modo Sports Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. Primotech Mogobe LTD Nomura Securities Principal Analyst Montagu Square Development Norris, McLaughlin & Marcus ProtonMedia, LLC Movix Ltd. Northrop Grumman Corporation Puppyfish Entertainment, Inc MTV Networks Norwegian Defence Research Qualcomm MTV Networks - Nickelodeon Establishment qubo MTV Networks/Nickelodeon Kids Norwegian University of Science Qwaq & Family Digital and Technology R Lilly Tuckerwear Inc. multimedia strategies Novamente LLC Radica Muzzy Land Software Novartis Pharmaceuticals Radica - Mattel Mycosm NR2B Research Rambutan Media Myers Publishing, LLC Numedeon Inc / Whyville.net Rated T
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Rated T Magazine Sherpa Marketing SYSTEMS Reallusion Shizmoo Games, Inc. TCV RealNetworks SIKIDS.com Techno Source Realtime Arts SILVERTREE MEDIA Technology Crossover Ventures Realtime Worlds Sim Ops Studios Technology Review realXtend SimGame Exchange Telecom Italia Rebel Monkey Simuality TELEFONICA I+D Red Knight Learning Systems Simutronics TerraNova Red Tettemer SL NAME: Jet Control Terremark Redmond Developer News SLCN Terremark Worldwide Redpoint Ventures SLEngineer Magazine Texas Tech University School of Reed Smith LLP Slipgate Ironworks Law Reel FX Slippcat The Daily Transcript Reinvent Technology Inc SLNN.COM and Orient Lodge The Electric Sheep Company REPERES SLOG The Elisabeth Morrow School RES INTERACTIVE SmallWorlds The FutureWork Institute Research Alert / Marketing to SMDM The Illusion Factory Emerging Majorities sMeet Communications GmbH The Marketing Store Reuters Second Life News Center Sogeti Netherlands The Matter Group revolution health Sony Computer Entertainment The Multiverse Network Richard Gottlieb & Associates, America The N / MTV Networks LLC Sony Computer Entertainment the networking company RIDEMAKERZ Worldwide Studios The New Group RIMS Sony Online Entertainment The New Yorker Magazine Rival Industries Spider Advertising The NPD Group Rivers Run Red SPiN AG The Otherland Group Rixty Sports Illustrated Kids The Second Life Business Builder Rosner & Napierala, LLP SRI Consulting Business THE SECOND TIMES RTC Health Intelligence The Sine Wave Company Russ Berrie U.S. Gift, Inc. Star-Ledger The Virtual Worlds BusinessCast Samsung Electronics StarNet Interactive The Walt Disney Company Samsung Information Systems Steamboat Ventures Think Services America Story City Inc. Tidex systems Ltd. Samsung SDS Strategy Analytics, Inc. Time Magazine Sandylion Sticker Designs Stratigix Time Warner Sarbakan Studiocom Tokenzone SBCC Serious Game Design suct Tomorrow Will Be Televised Institute Sulake Corporation Ltd. TOTAL SceneCaster Sun Microsystems Tourism Vancouver Scholastic Inc. Sun Over Jupiter Tribal Nova Inc. Scientific American Sunny Multimedia Co., Ltd. TriplePoint Scientific American Online SuperSecret True North Inc. Second Interest AG SutherlandGold Group TT BROTHERS Second Life Documentary Swinburne University of Turbine, Inc. Second Thoughts Technology Turbo Squid Semper International Swisscom Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc Senario LLC Syncom Venture Partners Tween Brands Senken Shimbun TAATU Two Animators! LLP Serious Games Institute Tandem Learning Ty Inc Shenkar College & Metaverse Tangible Media U.S. Government Labs TATA INTERACTIVE U.S.G.
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Unilever Virtual Worlds Design Center at White & Case LLP University of California, Irvine Loyalist College White and Williams LLP University of Central Florida Virtual Worlds Management WhyWorld Spain University of Cincinnati VirtualWorldsNews.com Willow Brook Business University of South Australia Visionwurx Development, Inc. University of Southern California Visual Purple, LLC wired University of Tulsa College of Vivox WIRED Grant Law Viximo Inc. WiseHealth Upper Deck Company VML, inc. Worlds in Motion UPROAR! Advertising VPI.Net Worlds.com ,Inc. Urban Network Magazine VRWorkplace Worldwide Biggies Urbaniacs and Brandissimo Vyond www.digicult.it/en US Department of State Walt & Company Wyndstorm Corp. UsefulArts - Online Marketing Warner Bros. Animation xtranormal Inc. Law Warner Music Group Yale University USG Web and Circus YLE New Media Utherverse Digital weblin Yogurt Technologies VastPark Pty Ltd. WebMetricsGuru.com - Know Yomego VEconomy More Media YOUR SL GmbH Ventura Associates, Inc. WeeWorld Inc Youth Markets Alert Virtual Heroes Inc. Wellnutz YouWeb Virtual Italian Parks Wello Horld, Inc. Zula USA, LLC Virtual World Builders Wells Fargo Bank Virtual World Services G.m.b.H What's Next Blog
Engage Expo features world-class speakers knowledgeable in all aspects of 2D and 3D engagement in virtual worlds and on the web. Additional speakers are being added. Be sure you sign up for our email to stay updated
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North America & EVP Habbo Business, Sulake Corporation Ltd. Nabeel Hyatt, Founder and CEO, Conduit Labs; Joe Hyrkin, Vice President, Sales & Business Development, Gaia Online Dan Jansen, CEO and Co-Founder, Virtual Greats; Sean Kane, Attorney, Drakeford & Kane LLC; Marta Kagan, Vice President of Marketing, Viximo; Jouni Keranen, President, iLemon Thom Kidrin, President/CEO, Worlds.com Inc.; Albert Lai, CEO, Kontagent; Pierre Le Lann, Co-CEO, Tribal Nova; Dr. Andreas Lober, Partner, SchulteRiesenkampff; Kenneth Locker, SVP Digital Media, Cookie Jar Entertainment; David Luner, SVP Interactive & Consumer Products, FremantleMedia Enterprises, North America Jesse Manuel, Director of Marketing, Super Rewards; Jen Martel, Media Supervisor, Digital Communications, Universal McCann; Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, Hip hop artist and co-founder of Run-DMC; Sean McGowan, Managing Director, Equity Research Department, Needham & Company; Keith McCurdy, CEO and Co- Founder, Vivaty; Ravi Mehta, Vice President, Viximo; Nic Mitham, CEO, K Zero; Philippe Moitroux, CEO, TAATU; Sergio Monsalve, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners; Izzy Neis, Senior Community Manager, Six Degrees Games, Inc.; John L. Nicholson, Senior Associate, Pillsbury's Global Sourcing; Jason Oberfest, Vice President of Business Development, MySpace Jerry Paffendorf, Co-Founder and Creative Director, Wello Horld, Inc.; Matt Palmer, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Stardoll; Laurie Petersen, General Manager, Minyanville Family Media Inc.; Michael H. Pinkerton, COO, Metaverse Mod Squad; Joi Podgomy, VP, Interactive Development, Ludorum; Amy Pritchard, Chief Executive Officer, Metaverse Mod Squad; Lisa Rutherford, President, Twofish, Inc.; Sabri Sansoy, Chief Technology Officer, Animax Entertainment; Sally Schmidt, Executive Producer, Circle 1 Network; Andrew Schneider, Co-Founder and President, Live Gamer; Joey Seiler, Editor,VirtualWorldsNews.com, Virtual Worlds Weekly; Mike Sellers, CEO, Online Alchemy; Christopher V. Sherman, Executive Director, Founder, Virtual Worlds Management; Ted Sorom, CEO, Rixty, Inc. Reuben Steiger, CEO and Founder, Millions of Us; Thomas Swalla, President Online, Knowledge Adventure; Ian Swanson, Founder and CEO, Sometrics; Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company; Margaret Wallace, CEO, Rebel Monkey; Mark Wallace, CEO and Co- Founder, Wello Horld, Inc.; Regine Weiner, Service Game Director, NR2B Research, Inc.; Jeff Weiser, Head of Analytics, SGN (Social Gaming Network); Jeremy Zorn, Vice President of Product Development, myYearbook
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Simulation and Games 61 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0
Bargaining in the German Railway Industries. Martin Schilling - 2007 - 64 pages - Limited preview Seminar paper aus dem Jahr 2004 im Fachbereich Psychologie - Arbeit, Betrieb, Organisation und Wirtschaft, einseitig bedruckt, Note: 1,8, Freie Universität Berlin, 20 Quellen im Literaturverzeichnis, Sprache: Englisch
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Wise choices: decisions, games, and . Richard Zeckhauser, Ralph L. Keeney, James K. Sebenius - Business & Economics - 1996 - 478 pages - Limited preview In this book, leading scholars in economics, psychology, statistics, and decision theory grapple with the perennial question of how to make wise choices.
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Agent-Based Modeling Meets Gaming Simulation : Post-Proceedings of the Session Conference of the ISAGA (International Simulation and Gaming Association) 2003. Kiyoshi Arai, Hiroshi Deguchi, Hiroyuki Matsui, International Simulation and Gaming Association International Conference - Computers - 2006 - 151 pages - Limited preview "Most of the papers included here were presented in the special session titled Agent-based modeling meets gaming simulation at ISAGA 2003, the 34th annual conference of the International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA) at Kazusa.
Games And Simulations in Online Learning: Research and Development Frameworks [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover). David Gibson (Author), David Gibson; Clark Aldrich; Marc Prensky (Editor) IGI Global; illustrated edition (September 26, 2006)
Story and Simulations for Serious Games: Tales from the Trenches (Paperback). Nicholas Iuppa (Author), Terry Borst (Author). Focal Press; illustrated edition (November 29, 2006)
Barnga: A Simulation Game on Cultural Clashes (25th Anniversary Edition) (Paperback). Sivasailam Thiagarajan (Author), Raja Thiagarajan (Author). Intercultural Press; 25 Enh Rev edition (May 15, 2006)
Engaging Learning: Designing e-Learning Simulation Games (Pfeiffer Essential Resources for Training and HR Professionals) (Hardcover). Clark N. Quinn (Author). Pfeiffer; 1 edition (May 19, 2005)
Simulations and the Future of Learning: An Innovative (and Perhaps Revolutionary) Approach to e-Learning (Hardcover). Clark Aldrich (Author). Pfeiffer (September 19, 2003)
Digital Game-Based Learning (Paperback). by Marc Prensky (Author). Paragon House Publishers; Paragon House Ed edition (March 2007)
Simulation and Games 63 The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0
Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback). David Michael (Author), Sande Chen (Author) Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (October 10, 2005)
The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games: How the Most Valuable Content Will be Created in the Age Beyond Guttenberg to Google (Hardcover). Clark Aldrich (Author). Pfeiffer (July 14, 2009)
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