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Comment by abnry | Hacker News Reader

This essay is just one giant complaint that "The map is not the territory." No way. It is further annoying because it laments that modern progressive political concerns are not appropriately modeled in the game.

Maybe people who play games for enjoyment don't want the weight of modern problems bearing down on them during their escapist recreation. Maybe people who play games don't want to be preached to.

In fact, this essay is nothing but one of the many deconstructionist essays, one which prefers to tear down instead of build up. To highlight problems instead of celebrate what is good.

I will say this: the style of the essay was quite enjoyable, with equal emphasis on images and paragraphs.

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basically my thoughts exactly. almost all military shooters don't even try to accurately portray the horrors of war. most driving games don't accurately simulate driving at all. GTA doesn't model just how much it sucks to have your car stolen. Age of Empires and Civilization don't accurately model empire-building. Monopoly isn't anything like real-life property trading. Titanfall doesn't model the economic ramifications of building and deploying dozens of giant robots—which are often destroyed within a couple minutes of landing—per 10-minute conflict.

it's like... yeah, duh. games are and have always been simplifications of complex systems, allowing for interesting decisions and fun for the player. presenting the idea that SimCity doesn't holistically simulate everything in a real city down to social justice issues like race/class stratification and tensions between the populace and the police, is far from a novel observation, and every time someone makes such an observation it makes me wonder what the intended audience for such an observation is.

that said, yes, the layout and presentation of the ideas expressed here is quite nice.

> Monopoly isn't anything like real-life property trading.

Yeah, but how many people enjoy playing "Pit" ??

I will say that Acquire is a good "more realistic" take on stock trading. Its got some gamey / non-realistic rules... but those aspects make the game more fun (For example: __always__ 2:1 trades, no matter what the value of the stocks are. A $200 stock can 2:1 trade for a $1000 stock, which provides an obvious point of conflict for the various players)

Monopoly is a bad game at its core. You sit around and watch your money disappear due to shear random chance, especially if your table has memorized the probability of each property being landed upon (Orange properties have the highest probability btw, and therefore are the hottest commodity among players who know how to play the game)

Acquire is awesome! some friends and I stumbled across it while studying game design at school and we played the crap out of it. I've been meaning to pick up a copy for myself, thanks for reminding me!

E: do you know if the Hasbro version (newer, with far uglier box) has any rule changes compared to the WotC (/Avalon Hill) original?

> E: do you know if the Hasbro version (newer, with far uglier box) has any rule changes compared to the WotC original?

Yes. There's "Primary", "Secondary" and "Tertiary" bonuses (instead of the previous "Major" and "Minor" bonuses) on Acquires.

So while the rules and overall gameplay is different, the subtle strategies have changed.

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WotC wasn't the original btw. 3M made the original in the 1960s, back when 3M tried to make board games.

The Hasbro 2013 version is probably the best recent version. Its all cardboard instead of 3d plastic, but its printed clearly and feels nice. The newest, ugly printing has very hard to read tiles, and many players suggest spending a few minutes with a silver-permanent marker recoloring the tiles to actually have enough contrast to see.

thanks so much for the info! gonna try and get one of the older versions soon now

Woops, I got my dates confused. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/23828/avalon-hill...

Avalon Hill / Hasbro made the 2008 edition.

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The most recent 2016 edition by Hasbro isn't all bad (despite rule changes and terrible fonts and terrible designs). The core rules still exist and it still feels like a game of Acquire.

Since its like $30 to $50 (depending on retailer), that's just the cheapest way of getting into the game. Finding an old version for $200+ used is for the dedicated fans.

> Monopoly isn't anything like real-life property trading.

Monopoly is derived from the most political of board games: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord's_Game , written as an act of political activism by a Georgist in 1904.

You can pick at everything even if the game is realistic, if you have some kind of views. For example, lets attack a realistic game/simulator, like rFactor:

- They fail to simulate the difficult path from a low class kid to end up driving a F1. Much easier is your father is Lawrence Stroll, e.g.

- They fail to simulate the pernicious effects of CO2.

- Doesn't take into account the resources wasted to the frivolous and improductive activity of car racing.

- Doesn't allow you to drive a bike, a solar powered car, etc. It promotes dirty cars.

- Add displays on the tracks exploits the players silently.

and so on. The main problem here is that "X game doesn't align with MY agenda, so it's inherently wrong designed".

The article is critique of SimCity, because it claims to be realistic and even educational, but actually has some serious biases. It's not a lament that's it not perfect. Indeed, the article goes on to explain how games shouldn't try to be perfect.

> Maybe people who play games for enjoyment don't want the weight of modern problems bearing down on them during their escapist recreation. Maybe people who play games don't want to be preached to.

SimCity represents some modern problems anyway, and plenty of people don't like it for that reason. Also, why is this any reason to not critique a game? No one has to read the article if they don't want to be preached to.

> In fact, this essay is nothing but one of the many deconstructionist essays, one which prefers to tear down instead of build up. To highlight problems instead of celebrate what is good.

The article actually goes on to explain how to build better games and showcases examples. The author is literally building up their own game in response to the problem of SimCity.

>the problem of SimCity

This is the key: Treating, and naming as, "the problem of Sim City". That's an extremely activist lens which presents critiques of a game not as mere deficiencies, but as something that is a societal problem. It tears down Sim City because the activist mindset aims to tear down all facets of society itself.

It is so darn tiring.

The urge for destruction is also a creative urge!

By definition, no, it is not.

Depending on your social circle (or that cross-section of the general public that one encounters on Twitter and Reddit), then we may be entering – as society does cyclically – an era where any “escape” from modern problems is viewed as offensive. I have seen this recently even in literature forums where poets who wrote abstract modernist verse are now labeled as problematic because their work does nothing to tackle the problems that BIPOC and LGBT face. It would be no surprise if gamers, too, were challenged for the games they play being supposedly unhelpful.

The article is obviously using SimCity as a starting point for a discussion.

That said, to quote the article:

> SimCity has been used and is being used as educational tool. Now, more than ever, is shaping the way a lot of people understand or misunderstand city planning. This is a recent initiative, a modified educational version.

> The original SimCity is now open source and was included in the OLPC - One Laptop per Child (the cheap laptops created by the MIT for education in developing countries). We are literally shipping our ideas of cities to the third world. Because of this educational uses and because it claimed to be a simulation of a really existing system and not “just a game”, SimCity has been criticized from pretty much every angle.

Of course the map is not the territory. But what exactly is different between the map and the territory? What are you missing when you examine the former and not the latter?

> nothing but one of the many deconstructionist essays, one which prefers to tear down instead of build up

The same could be said about your comment!

>The article is obviously using SimCity as a starting point for a discussion.

Yes, a starting point for a darn, tired activist discussion. SimCity is not merely flawed, it is flawed in a way that is ruining society, as is most everything else.

> The same could be said about your comment!

Ah, but it is mere tit for tat! You play by the deconstructionist rules, then I am allowed to play by them against your own deconstructions.

> tired

I haven't been involved in all this tired Sim City discourse, I guess I missed it the first few times around. I found the article interesting.

> activist

The article is about a computer game (that was originally marketed as "realistic" but isn't realistic at all) somehow ended up being used for actual education about cities, and that might not be a good idea. That's some real radical stuff, man!

> SimCity is not merely flawed, it is flawed in a way that is ruining society, as is most everything else.

The article didn't say anything like this. It says that Sim City isn't very realistic as a "simulation", because we can't represent all the nuances of the real world as a tidy automaton. It also says that spreading it around as if it were realistic can therefore lead to and/or perpetuate misguided ideas about how cities and societies work, or about how they ought to work.

The exploration of the differences between the map and the territory is precisely what is interesting about the article.

> Ah, but it is mere tit for tat! You play by the deconstructionist rules, then I am allowed to play by them against your own deconstructions.

Sounds more like hypocrisy to me, but suit yourself.

> I haven't been involved in all this tired Sim City discourse, I guess I missed it the first few times around. I found the article interesting.

>The article is about a computer game (that was originally marketed as "realistic" but isn't realistic at all) somehow ended up being used for actual education about cities, and that might not be a good idea. That's some real radical stuff, man!

The author identifies as an activist. Indeed, the author cares more about constructing a game that meets their activist ideals rather than playing a game for fun. This is why I am giving strong push back... the author is fundamentally discarding the purpose of a game, which is to have fun, for ideological purposes. It's in the zeigtgeist to do this for _everything_ and it is so darn tired. Nothing is just a game or just a movie or just a whatever--it is something that is perpetuating a blah blah blah wrong view of the world and This Is A Problem (tm).

> The article didn't say anything like this. It says that Sim City isn't very realistic as a "simulation", because we can't represent all the nuances of the real world as a tidy automaton.

> It also says that spreading it around as if it were realistic can therefore lead to and/or perpetuate misguided ideas about how cities and societies work, or about how they ought to work.

You restate what I just said. The author claims SimCity is wrong in a way that is ruining (i.e., misguiding, misinforming) society. Instead of emphasizing that we should always be prepared to understand the map is not the territory, and hence not make too much of any map, the author extrapolates the case of SimCity as something particular pernicious for society while ignoring its fundamental purpose (to have fun playing a game). In other words, it's not just a minor issue that the map is not the territory, it is a major issue. And this is the tiring activist junk that is being applied to everything these days. Of course you can't capture all the nuances, but no, that does not mean the map/model is ruining/misguiding society.

> Sounds more like hypocrisy to me, but suit yourself.

It is the principle of self defense, that is all. Otherwise if you allow deconstructionism to run roughshod it will destroy everything.

I've met way too many people who confuse a map of policing for a map of crime, and I believe SimCity's crime map and the game's widespread use in education shares some responsibility.

Yeah, I was looking forward to a write up about SimCity because I've played SimCity 2000, 3000, 4, 4 Unlimited - and more recently Skylines. I've put probably literally thousands of hours into SimCity.

Instead we got statements like "the game contains no racial riots and political problems". It's a game, and honestly I don't want american political drama and strawman arguments adding to a game. That people play. For fun.

> a game. That people play. For fun.

A pretty key part of the article is that SimCity isn't just a game. Given it's being used as an educational tool, it invites additional scrutiny.

Or maybe you are the bias-one by imposing your view on how society look-like and what kind of problems it should be dealing with?

What if SimCity models its society in post-racial world or world where all sims were always are equally treated?

In that case the only issues to deal with are the ones created by the environment and decision the player makes.

Its a hollow and circular discussion of an entertainment.

IMHO much better article would touch on the mechanics next SimsCity game could implement and how it would be beneficial to player experience.

Exactly

> IMHO much better article would touch on the mechanics next SimsCity game could implement and how it would be beneficial to player experience.

So write it then. Surely that would be a more productive use of your time.

No I won't. I couldn't care less about playing next SimCity that has 'racial tension' mechanics, even less about trying to come up with such mechanics.

> next SimCity that has 'racial tension' mechanics, even less about trying to come up with such mechanics.

You've completely invented a position to argue against.

The article literally talks about racial riots.

1 sentence in 2000. It's very revealing that you feel so threatened and have such an outsized response to it.

Very rich coming from the person that said "You've completely invented a position to argue against.".

You have done that by implying the game should include racial problems, despite being a game.

Where did I say that? All I said is that a game used in an educational setting invites additional scrutiny. I didn't bring race into this.

I'm curious to know if you have read "Seeing Like A State" by James Scott. There's a fair bit of discourse on the idea of the territory and the map edit: I learned about the book on HN and so wondering how pervasive it might be on other HN readers' bookshelf

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