Draft  
                                                                                      
Simulation, gaming, and the simulative
                                                                                     David Myers
                                                                                   Loyola University

I haven't been around all thirty years, but I can comment on the last half.

I first published fifteen years ago in the 1984 volume of Simulations & Games. That article quantitatively described player-game relationships. I'm less quantitatively inclined these days, but I know I'm interested in the same topic: how the human play process works, and the meaning of it all.

I remember being very enthused fifteen years ago (I still am) to find a journal and a group of editors/reviewers/writers acknowledging -- even promoting -- the study of play. With training in literary analysis and media studies, I had not been exposed to Simulations & Games on a regular basis prior to 1984. And I must confess that I felt at the time (I still do) a bit of an outsider -- or, more in the vernacular of new media, a "lurker." But, looking back over a long series of past issues of the journal -- first as Simulation & Games, and then, beginning in 1990, as Simulation & Gaming -- I find important parallels between the study of simulation and the study of mass communications. I'd like to share those in this essay.

***

The last exercise of this kind was stimulating.

I read closely volumes 25 and 26 of Simulation & Gaming: ruminations about and celebrations of the journal's first 25 years in print. There were lots of personal anecdotes and a patchwork of history concerning the journal's beginnings during the educational innovations and experimentations of the 1960's and 1970's. And there was more than one lament in those 25th anniversary articles that, since that first exhilarating decade, educational simulations still haven't caught on to the degree expected and hoped; they still haven't gone mainstream.

Though disappointing, this situation now provides the rationale for many of the studies published in Simulation & Gaming: to document the benefits of using simulations in education. And, quite rightfully, given this goal, much of the research in Simulation & Gaming has been effects-based: what are the effects of educational simulations and which variables correlate most strongly with those effects?

The situation has been similar, for an even longer period of time, in my own academic field. Theory and research in mass communications began in the 1930's and 1940's with core studies of the effects of wartime propangada. And research since that time has been primarily effects-based: what are the effects of mass media messages and which variables correlate most strongly with those effects?

For the most part, mass communications research has succeeded -- we know more than we ever have about demographics and psychographics and sociographics and their correlation with audience knowledge and attitude and behavior. Yet mass communications remains, at its core, a poorly understood process. And I'm sure criticisms directed at traditional mass communications effects studies will be familiar to Simulation & Gaming readers.

This research, many say, is more administrative than critical. This research may be specific and relevant to problems at hand but not meaningful and enduring within broader social contexts. This research is prescientific, more practical than theoretical, more formulaic than formative.

Some of these criticisms are very specific; for instance, Potter, Cooper, and Dupagne (1995) -- based on Potter, Cooper, & Dupagne (1993) -- conclude "mass media research ... coded as social scientific [is] best described as 'prescientific,' because only 4.3% of those studies [are] theory driven and generalizable" (1995, p. 280). Other criticisms are more general (Craig, 1999) -- and perhaps more telling; for instance, Gonzales (1988) describes the communications field as "confused. It does not know what it means when it talks about itself as a field or discipline" (p. 316). Gonzales's advice is that communications researchers should...

The communicative: I find that an evocative term.

I wonder about the simulative.

I looked for the simulative in past Simulation & Gaming articles.

Most articles in the journal, then and now, describe how to use simulations/games or study the effects of simulations/games -- but there have been important shifts in journal content over the past fifteen years. The journal has become more international in flavor and more interdisciplinary in tone -- two of the five "future directions" outlined by (then) new Editor Crookall in the 1990 volume heralding the journal's name change from Simulation & Games to Simulation & Gaming.

The journal's eclecticism is not always attractive, but I've found it engaging. Over the years, I've become increasingly less sure what the next issue of Simulation & Gaming will contain, and increasingly more pleased when I find something of interest. In fact, one of the more interesting discussions in the journal -- on the topic of experiential vs. algorithmic simulations -- prompted me to contribute a recent article (Myers, 1999). In that piece, I argue that simulating and gaming are most fundamentally processes of symbol manipulation, and best explained within the conceptual domain of semiotics or, put more broadly, representationalism.

No doubt, this stance reflects my bias toward textual analysis, but I must say I am moved to it only after a long series of studies of the game-playing process. And, as I look back, the continued emphasis on process in the studies published in Simulation & Gaming has been at the core of my interest in the journal. Because, in case anyone hasn't noticed, the study of the process of simulation is hot -- in philosophy of mind, in cognitive science, in literary studies, and in virtual realities of all sorts.

 

If, as Roman Jakobson suggests, a mark of literature is that it draws attention to its textuality, its constructedness, then literature may be said to be inherently closer to 'reality' than other forms of writing or discourse are, just when it seems to be furthest away, as our 'reality' is symbolic, signified, constructed.

Lye (1997, November 6)

The broad, cross-disciplinary convergence on the study of the process of simulation is very similar to what has been observed in the field of communications regarding the concept of information: Information and representation: the communicative and the simulative.

Scholarly convergence on these concepts is extremely exciting to me -- since my interest lies in both areas; and it would seem to offer a great opportunity for Simulation & Gaming to shape research agenda in a number of fields. But this opportunity has also presented itself, over the past decade, to journals in the field of mass communications. And, unfortunately, this opportunity has not been realized.

Most communications journals -- as documented by Beniger (1988, 1990) -- missed the convergence boat. By continuing to focus on theoretical concepts and research goals set in historical stone during early studies of propaganda, communications scholarship too often fails to provide fertile ground for ideas and approaches that then proliferate in academic fields elsewhere. I can only blame this on the continued and resolute focus on media effects -- a focus which remains in high demand among research funding agencies and within the communications industry.

Could something similar happen to the study of simulation?

If the study of simulation is kept within the confines of the study of education, it well might.

But what I've found in my review of the last half of the journal's thirty-year run is encouraging: the continued and resolute focus on the game-playing process. Perhaps this is more by luck than design. Many contributors seem to be either dedicated game designers or game players -- or both. It's natural and expected, then, that much of their analysis is based on either game design or play. But, if this is luck, then it's also serendipidity, for (once again) it is exactly the process of play -- aside from its effects -- that is at the center of the whirlpool of theory in other fields. Though effects remain an important topic, even moreso is the nature of the beast itself: the simulative.

After thirty years of publication, Simulation & Gaming sits in the middle of one of the great academic land rushes of the information age. And the journal's contributors are well positioned to stake theoretical claim within this new domain. Simulation/gaming industry professionals -- gifted aesthetically but increasingly cast in the greedy mold of the communications industry (and here I am thinking particularly of the shoddy state of the computer game industry) -- show little inclination to examine anything other than market conditions. And theoreticians in other fields have little of the phenomenological insight that lend authority to discussions in Simulation & Gaming.

So, how to take best advantage of this opportunity?

The path I've taken over the past fifteen years has led me toward the consideration of human play as a cognitive and symbolic act that is fundamental to the human representational process. And I have become increasingly less interested in describing the manner in which specific hardware and software (i.e., games and simulations) reflect human play and increasingly more interested in developing a generic semiotic model -- or models -- of that play. With personal biases intact, I would recommend a similar path for the journal: less emphasis on specific games and simulations, and more emphasis on generic gaming and simulating.

But perhaps more considered advice -- based not on what I currently think best but what I've enjoyed most about the journal's past fifteen years -- is for journal contributors to follow their noses (as they always have) and let the game-playing process, the simulative, be their guide. If that happens, here's what I expect to see:

* An ongoing summary of current educational simulation applications -- in practice and theory: Where and when are instructional simulations successfully used -- and where and when not?

Useful here -- in addition to the compilation of good studies already done (see Wolfe & Crookall, 1998; Muir, 1996) -- would be a catalog of simulations in current use (i.e. what simulation is used in what course at what university during what semester): nuts and bolts stuff. For instance, I know a lot about the content and design of simulations intended for popular use -- e.g., BALANCE OF POWER and SIMCITY/SIMEARTH/etc. and CIVILIZATION and the like (which have each been, at one time or another, topic for discussion within the journal). But I have little clue as to their past or current use (if any) in educational settings.

* A thorough comparative analysis of the cultural contexts of play: Who determines the value and meaning of play -- and why?

As articles in Simulation & Gaming (June, 1999) demonstrate, the process of simulation is intrinsically related to the process of play. Many of the same theoretical problems exist in the study of simulation and the study of play -- including those based on the elusive distinction between work and play. Most striking and relevant of all, perhaps, are parallels between the role of play in society and the role of simulation in education.

Admittedly, those methodologies -- critical and historical -- used by play researchers to address these issues are somewhat apart from those normally found in Simulation & Gaming. But prominent studies continue to bridge conceptual gaps between the two fields -- including Spariosu (1988), Handelman (1990), and, more recently, Sutton-Smith (1998).

* A biological theory of play: What is the evolutionary function of play in the human species, and what are its biological origins in the broader phenomenon of life?

This is a tough one -- creating what some communications theorists (McQuail, 1994, p. 4) label objective theory. Often, objective communications theory has been either deprioritized in favor of normative theory and goals more consonant with the study of social contexts or else narrowly confined within the prevailing assumptions of effects studies. However, I've come to believe that it's absolutely necessary -- for a complete understanding of communicating and simulating -- to establish a biological correlative for these related processes.

This will require structuring, mapping, and reproducing the process of simulation: difficult tasks. But preliminary work has already been done -- not only in the best of Simulation & Gaming but also in studies in other fields, particularly evolutionary biology and biosemiotics. Notable achievements include Csikszentmihalyi's (1990) description of "flow" within human cognition, and the recognition of a common (and playful) process within all self-organizing (living) systems: "autopoiesis" (Maturana & Varela, 1980).

***

A great deal of mass communications theory is based on an assumed causal relationship between receiving a mass communications message and buying a product promoted by that message. Historically, mass communications theory has been relatively less concerned about the more complex relationship between being communicative and being alive.

Having read Simulation & Gaming over the past fifteen years, I know some important things about the use of simulation and games in education. I know relatively less about the more complex relationship between being simulative and being alive.

Over the next fifteen years, I hope to learn more.

I'll be reading Simulation & Gaming.

References

Baudrillard, J. (1984). Symbolic exchange and death. In M. Poster (Ed.), Selected writings (pp. 119-149). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Beniger, J. R. (1988). Information and communication: The new convergence. Communication Research, 15(2), 198-218.

Beniger, J.R. (1990). Who are the most important theorists of communication? Communication Research, 17(5), 698-715.

Craig, R.T. (1999). Communication theory as a field. Communication Theory, 9(2), 119-161.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.

Gonzales, H. (1988). The evolution of communication as a field. Communication Research, 15(3), 302-308.

Handelman, D. (1990). Models and mirrors : towards an anthropology of public events. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lye, J. (1997, November 6). Deconstruction: Some assumptions. [WWW document]. URL: http://www.english.udel.edu/dean/621/deconstruction.html

Maturana, H. & Varela, F.J. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of the living. Dordrecht: Reidel.

McQuail, D. (1994). Mass communication theory (3rd ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Muir, S. P. (1996). Simulations for elementary and primary school social studies: An annotated bibliography. Simulation & Gaming: An International Journal, 27(1), 41-73.

Myers, D. (1999). Simulation as play: A semiotic analysis. Simulation & Gaming: An International Journal, 30(2), 147-162.

Potter, W. J., Cooper, R., & Dupagne, M. (1993). The three paradigms of mass media research in mainstream communication journals. Communication Theory, 3, 317-335.

Potter, W. J., Cooper, R., & Dupagne, M. (1995). Is media research prescientific? A reply to Sparks's critique. Communication Theory, 5, 280-286.

Spariosu, M. (1989). Dionysus reborn : play and the aesthetic dimension in modern philosophical and scientific. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

Sutton-Smith, B. (1998). The ambiguity of play. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Wolfe, J. & Crookall, D. (1998). Developing a scientific knowledge of simulation/gaming. Simulation & Gaming: An International Journal, 29(1), 7-19.