Opportunities and risks of city building simulation and strategy games in spatial and urban planning Environmental and Infrastructure Planning Master Thesis P.F.M. Fouraschen (s2219522) Colophon Title Playing with the future Subtitle Opportunities and risks of city building simulation and strategy games in spatial and urban planning Author Pascal Franciscus Maria Fouraschen S2219522 [email protected] Study MSc Environmental and Infrastructure Planning Programme Faculty of Spatial Sciences (FRW) University of Groningen, the Netherlands Supervisors dr. F.M.G. Van Kann dr. T. Busscher Version Final Place and date Rotterdam, August 25th 2016 Cover Vorobev, 2016 ii Abstract City building simulation and strategy games have become more and more popular the last decades. At the same time, serious gaming is gaining momentum in various fields of study. Temporary spatial and urban planning issues are becoming more integrated and complex, while the public participation, and a representative one, becomes harder to achieve. In light of these developments, this research sets out to explore how city building simulation and strategy games can be used in spatial and urban planning. This has been done using an extensive game analysis and a game experiment. The game analysis covers a multitude of city building and strategy games from the past decades to determine the changes in game characteristics and mechanics these games have undergo. Overall, games have become more complex, realistic, more co-operative oriented, with improved monitoring tools, game customisation options and mobile features. A game experiment was conducted to find out how the participants reacted to playing a city building simulation and strategy game in a serious way. The lessons that emerge from the experiment are that games are fun to play, but should be of moderately complexity in order to provide insights in topics as complexity and decision-making processes. In addition, game simulations are able to provide useful insights and contributions to the (participatory) planning process. Three ways of using city building simulation and strategy games have been identified: an informative way, where information is provided to the citizens, an accessory way, where the games lower the participation threshold for possible participants and a hosting way, where the game invites (new) citizen groups to join the participatory planning process in a new way. However, the usage of game simulations is not without danger: there is a risk of a shift in focus from the problem or issue at hand to the game itself. If city building simulation and strategy games are to be used in planning processes, the primary function of these games should have been changed accordingly to suit their new role. Keywords: serious gaming, city building and simulation games, participatory planning, Transport Tycoon, experimental research. iii Table of contents Colophon ..................................................................................................................................................ii Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... iii Table of contents ..................................................................................................................................... iv List of figures ........................................................................................................................................... vi List of tables ........................................................................................................................................... vii Chapter 1 – Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The popularity of city building games ........................................................................................... 1 1.2. Research objective and research questions ................................................................................. 2 1.3. Structure of the thesis .................................................................................................................. 2 Chapter 2 – Theoretical framework ........................................................................................................ 3 2.1. Game theory ................................................................................................................................. 3 2.2. Why games and gaming works ..................................................................................................... 6 2.3. Technical advancements .............................................................................................................. 8 2.4. Game simulations in spatial and urban planning ......................................................................... 9 2.5. Game simulations and communicative planning, power and complexity ................................. 10 2.6. Conceptual framework ............................................................................................................... 13 Chapter 3 – Research design ................................................................................................................. 14 3.1. Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 14 3.2. Game analysis ............................................................................................................................. 14 3.2. Open TTD Experiment ................................................................................................................ 16 Chapter 4 – City building simulation and strategy games ..................................................................... 19 4.1. SimCity Classic ............................................................................................................................ 19 4.1.1. Game characteristics ........................................................................................................... 19 4.1.2. Game mechanics ................................................................................................................. 20 4.2. SimCity 2000 ............................................................................................................................... 21 4.2.1. Game characteristics ........................................................................................................... 21 4.2.2. Game mechanics ................................................................................................................. 22 4.3. SimCity 3000 ............................................................................................................................... 22 4.3.1. Game characteristics ........................................................................................................... 23 4.3.2. Game mechanics ................................................................................................................. 24 4.4. SimCity 4 ..................................................................................................................................... 25 4.4.1. Game characteristics ........................................................................................................... 25 iv 4.4.2. Game mechanics ................................................................................................................. 26 4.5. SimCity ........................................................................................................................................ 28 4.5.1. Game characteristics ........................................................................................................... 28 4.5.2. Game mechanics ................................................................................................................. 29 4.6. Cities XXL .................................................................................................................................... 30 4.6.1. Game characteristics ........................................................................................................... 30 4.6.2. Game mechanics ................................................................................................................. 31 4.7. Cities: Skylines ............................................................................................................................ 32 4.7.1. Game characteristics ........................................................................................................... 32 4.7.2. Game mechanics ................................................................................................................. 34 4.8. Transport Tycoon ....................................................................................................................... 35 4.8.1. Game characteristics ........................................................................................................... 35 4.8.2. Game mechanics ................................................................................................................. 36 4.9. Cities in Motion .......................................................................................................................... 37 4.9.1. Game characteristics ..........................................................................................................