What is a sim, what is not...
 

What is a sim...

Is Call of Duty a simulation ?

Is Battlefield 3 ?

Is Gears of War ?

Is SimHQ becoming FpsHQ ?

its all simulation at varying levels. although it is fair to attach different titles, one ethos that remains is that alongside other titles the title sim has more character and explanation.

so to sim or not to sim for me depends on a comparative idea or notion of balancing one title against another to come to a conclusion of which is "more" sim in that comparison.

TBH its a very open ended discussion discussing this as it will mean many things for many people but i think at the core the title sim is derived from a want to replicate or duplicate real world events where physics and visuals are concerned.

Arma2 is a sim....
DCSA10/blackshark is a sim...
ROF is a sim..

Arma2 infantry could be considered a sim, more when you compare it with others fps, but Arma2 vehicles otherwise can not. I really would like Arma vehicles being full or realistically simulated even if no everybody could handle it.

I'm with you there (realistic vehicles) and they exist. Just not in the commercial version of ArmA 2. It is in the FULL military sim that BIS sells to governments to train their troops. At a nice price tag extending into the thousands of dollars.:cool:

Key word: Attempts.

Any software that attempts to simulate an experience is a sim. Some of course do a better job than others.


simulation definition
simulation, system
Attempting to predict aspects of the behaviour of some system by creating an approximate (mathematical) model of it. This can be done by physical modelling, by writing a special-purpose computer program or using a more general simulation package, probably still aimed at a particular kind of simulation (e.g. structural engineering, fluid flow). Typical examples are aircraft flight simlators or electronic circuit simulators. A great many simulation languages exist, e.g. Simula.
See also emulation, Markov chain.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.simulation.
(1995-02-23)

A simulator is a tool to make a person get used to execute specific sequences for critical situations.

In this forum I'd guess pilots is a good example of such persons but they are far from the only ones needing this tool to "learn reflexes".

Simulator games, such as Falcon4 or IL-2, could more precisely be labled "Study simulators" but are still games as the "tool" isn't really intended to make the user act in a specific way in a specific situation.

Removing "game" from "Simulator game" is probably to make it sound more adult as in the early days of the 80's and 90's computer graphics could never present anything that wouldn't be intepreted as a game for children and of course a good way to separate these products from those that do not require the user to read a considerable user-manual.

Still, they are no simulators.

First Person Shooters such as BF2 and COD will never ever be labled "sim" in any way by me but rather a fast paced game with exaggerated combinations of light and colors for the still growing instant gratification generation and the big ritalin-crowd that needs high-frequent impulses en masse.


Edit: Also please note that simulator and reality not necessary runs hand-in-hand as many loud-voicers in some forums seems to think.

In fact the first question its what are we talking about. Are we talking about the meaning of the word "simulation" itself, so almost every program running in a computer could be considered as a simulation, or are we talking about the gaming genre called simulation as opposite to arcade?

If we are talking about the gaming genre we call simulation then I consider a simulation all that programs that try to recreate every aspect of reality the better it can be accomplished and where matching the reality its always the first consideration and even more important that gameplay or game balancing, so if that plane was a crap in reality, then it should be a crap in the simulation because it was that way, even if that decision makes the plane unplayable from a game balancing point of view. That´s the reason I doub if simulation genre should be considered really a game genre even if a lot of times it is used like one.

If a game or program left reality for gameplay then I don´t consider it a sim, but and arcade game.

So even if Call of Duty, Battlefield or Gears of War can be considered simulations from the word meaning I don´t consider them as simulations as game genre but arcade games because in all them gameplay it´s over simulation and reality depict.

Basically if it's a port from, or the PC version of, a console title it is not a sim.

Simple as that.

None of the FPS big name titles are sims.

World of Tanks and all it's coming offspring are not sims.

WoP is not a sim either.

Sadly sims are a dying genre.

simulation - the act of imitating the behavior of some situation or some process by means of something suitably analogous (especially for the purpose of study or personnel training)

computer simulation - (computer science) the technique of representing the real world by a computer program; "a simulation should imitate the internal processes and not merely the results of the thing being simulated"