I’m not sure I’m following the distinction you’re trying to draw. SimCity is a simulation — just a simplistic one with many simplifications and short cuts.
It’s a toy model.
There’s always simplifications made in any model — SimCity’s happened to be made with “fun” in mind.
It can be a straight up ruthless experience if you play it by the rules as written rather than adding shitty house rules. I love playing with other adults that know how to play.
What's fascinating is that some of those house rules seemed to have come up independently in places all around the world. For example, the stupid free parking jackpot. (I assume that Hasbro added it to the manual as a house rule at some point?)
And yeah, getting money and property is fun! But the game is supposed to be a 30-45 minute experience.
The reason is probably because Monopoly as written is short and brutal. Which isn't fun for families. So people add rules to make more fair. Which has result of making it last longer and turn into slog.
The solution is for families other games which are better suited especially for younger kids. But Monopoly has established itself as universal family board game.
> The point is SimCity is no more a simulation than Monopoly is.
Simulation or Game is a false dichotomy, there's plenty of opportunity for overlap.
Consider the original X-COM: obviously a game, yet also a simulation, not withstanding that the situation it was trying to simulate was not real. Units with individual statistics, status effects, individual gear with weights and placements that affected movement and actions, etc.
Another example to consider might be the Napoleonic warfare origins of Dungeons & Dragons.
Overlap is coincidental, yes people may be doing similar kinds of things in a game. But Microsoft flight ‘simulator’ doesn’t come with a bunch of built in systems for handling loss of hydraulic pressure the way actual training systems do. The general public doesn’t want to spend time memorizing checklists for minor systems issues etc.
The other kind of simulation where people are trying to understand how systems interact is even further removed in how they are used. Running the exact same hour plus simulation repeatedly while only changing initial conditions isn’t fun, but it can be informative.
MSFS can be used as a flight simulator but the default c172 is unrealistically easy to fly. That’s exactly the kind of thing you see in games which care more about fun than realism.
So people can argue around MSFS’s trim modeling, ground modeling etc, but the issue isn’t with the physics engine’s specific compromises it’s a more fundamental problem.
The funny thing about this is that Monopoly was designed to be a simulation of capitalism rather than a fun game. So it's arguably less of a simulation.
I think he is actually trying to say it IS a simulation and NOT emulating the real world.
At least in the hardware world, there are simulators (which are faux short cut versions that work reasonably like the real thing) and emulators (which are software versions that act exactly like the real thing, but usually are very slow)
That’s actually the point. SimCity was made to be fun, not to be a simulation.
To put the dissonance in clearer terms, imagine a book described as "Analyzing interpersonal relationships through the lens of The Sims". Would you take it seriously?
It doesn’t seem like a pedantic distinction to say that the goals of SimCity are different from the goals of simulating reality.
It’s a toy model.
There’s always simplifications made in any model — SimCity’s happened to be made with “fun” in mind.