Simulation and Games in Futuring and Other Uses

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 Simulation and Games ii The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 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. Simulation and Games iii The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0 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

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