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SimCities and SimCrises (2017)

104 points by rrherr 5y ago

abnry 5y ago
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.
- adamrezich 5y ago
  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.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > 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)
    - adamrezich 5y ago
      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?
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        > 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. -------------- 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.
        adamrezich 5y ago
        thanks so much for the info! gonna try and get one of the older versions soon now
        dragontamer 5y ago
        Woops, I got my dates confused. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/23828/avalon-hill-hasbro-edition https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/23828/avalon-hill... Avalon Hill / Hasbro made the 2008 edition. ---------- 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.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    > 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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord's_Game , written as an act of political activism by a Georgist in 1904.
  - otherme123 5y ago
    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".
- Mediterraneo10 5y ago
  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.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  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!
  - abnry 5y ago
    >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.
    - nerdponx 5y ago
      > 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.
- senortumnus 5y ago
  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
- makeworld 5y ago
  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.
  - abnry 5y ago
    >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.
    - birdyrooster 5y ago
      The urge for destruction is also a creative urge!
      - abnry 5y ago
        By definition, no, it is not.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  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.
- lloydatkinson 5y ago
  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.
  - hhmc 5y ago
    > 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.
    - me_me_me 5y ago
      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.
      - lloydatkinson 5y ago
        Exactly
      - hhmc 5y ago
        > 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.
        me_me_me 5y ago
dexwiz 5y ago
The problem with "games" is that the designers often have a goal already in mind, and then give players the tools to reach that goal. For any meaningful analysis, you need to understand the artist (game designer) to fully understand the art (game). While SimCity carries its own biases, I highly doubt a game developed for activist conference is any more impartial. Utopias in general are a great demonstration of man's hubris, and we have known that forever. The Tower of Babel is perhaps the oldest fable warning against such fallacies, and Bruegel perfectly captured it in his renderings. Ford and Disney both attempted planned cities (Fordlandia and Epcot respectively), and failed. Utopia designers like SimCity wash away all that makes a city (people, struggles, relationships), and replaces it with a Map. Any simulation, no matter how noble, falls victim to the same problem that the Map is not the Land. If anything, its all a bike shedding operation of trying to fix something which we have control over, instead of what we do not, just to fulfill our Ego. How many city planners really care about the people over just imposing their own vision of ideal upon the populace?
- aaron-santos 5y ago
  > Utopias in general are a great demonstration of man's hubris, and we have known that forever. This is a message that programming language designers and advocates need to hear. The idea that a better language can lead to better outcomes is itself utopian in the same way that better cities can lead to better outcomes. They both take a look at the substrate and extrapolate. Sure, there's an infinite number of ways to make a bad city, but we have to realize that's a different kind of thing.
- rrherr 5y ago
  Yes, the OP acknowledges this: > I swear, I can design you a game that subtly leads people to whatever “solution” you want. > We have to encourage players to always question the designers’ systems and educate them to detect their biases and agendas, even our own. > Cities result from conflicts, conflicts are not always “solvable”. > The problem with most utopian thinking is the idea of tabula rasa, the blank slate. In order to design a perfect society, you have to start from zero. That’s the also utopianism of SimCity. Ctrl-F for "bias", "utopia", & "conflict" for more along these lines.
GenerocUsername 5y ago
Stopped reading when the author began complaining about SimCity not including enough Race Relation management features.
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  There is only one line which mentions race, and it does so in context with class, “In SimCity race and class conflicts are sanitized.” The author of the article didn’t even push a race based agenda (clearly class oriented) and the parent commenter is projecting onto it. Americans and their insane racial culture is causing people like the parent commenter to disengage from reality.
  - medicineman 5y ago
    Rent free.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  A family friend of mine got her start in life in a trailer park. A lot of these city-builder games assume that "higher land values" is better, because land values == better tax revenue. But is that really what we should be optimizing for in these games? A city without trailer parks / low-cost housing is a city where my friend wouldn't stand a chance at all. The power-gamer in SimCity 2000 ignores hospitals and schools. Because life-expectancy doesn't lead to any tax benefits, and school / education counts don't seem to have any real effect on the city either. At some point, the game "stops reflecting reality", and when that illusion disappears, some players no longer find the game interesting. I personally am a power-gamer, I've never held that "illusion of reality" in any game I've ever played (be it SimCity, Civ, or whatever). I play these games to have fun and understand that there's almost no political or social commentary associated with the game design decisions. ---------- But other people play these games hoping to "roleplay" a City's Mayor, or to "roleplay" the emperor of a Civilization. For these people, realism is a highly important trait. Alas: most games are not realistic at all. The games that do seek realism (ex: Hearts of Iron) are too complex for the typical person to pick up on. ------- I think its fair for people to look at SimCity and say "well... that's not realistic. The game doesn't have the right incentives in the right places". Because frankly: it doesn't. Its just an incomplete viewpoint into city building. Even Cities: Skylines has a similar issue. ---------- Games like "Two Point Hospital" are better, because its all clearly a joke. So the game is clearly a game. Curing clown's disease is funny and clearly not what happens in Hospitals. You better understand the game in the abstract: patients seek a diagnosis. The GP takes a guess, and sends the patient to a diagnosis room (X-Ray or other machine). The diagnosis room gives another result, and the doctor either is confident in treatment or needs additional diagnosis machines to make a better guess. Or... you just remove all the diagnosis rooms and force doctors to send patients in for treatment because treatment makes more money. Lulz. Then when the patients inevitably die to these poorly made decisions, you get a bunch of janitors with vacuum cleaners to clean up the ghosts. But yeah, it makes the most money (because you have the highest throughput of patients), so its the "Power gaming" move in Two Point Hospital.
medicineman 5y ago
This is why the "oppressed" don't listen to their over-educated saviors. Its buzzword bombing namedropping tired crap, like most continental philosophy.
seltzered_ 5y ago
see also https://logicmag.io/play/model-metropolis/ https://logicmag.io/play/model-metropolis/ (critique in some similar directions) and https://www.filfre.net/tag/simcity/ https://www.filfre.net/tag/simcity/ (deeper origin story on simcity)
dragontamer 5y ago
SimCity's main issue (and this was true as far back as SimCity 2000, maybe earlier) is that the "car traffic" goes from residential -> industrial -> commercial in roughly that order. This means that one plot of industry + one plot of commercial is enough to satisfy an entire residential neighborhood's worth of traffic planning. Similarly, one plot of residential + one plot of commercial is enough to satisfy an entire industrial zone worth of traffic. As this design decision became more and more widely known, power-gamers took advantage of it to make weirder and weirder cities that don't look like a real city at all. ------------ Cities: Skylines has a better traffic simulator. But its got too much emphasis on traffic simulation without actually having enough controls over traffic. Police departments can only go as far as traffic lets them. Optimize for traffic, your police cover a greater area. Schools only go as far as traffic lets them, optimize for traffic, your schools cover a greater area. Etc. etc. ------------ I guess I'm liking OpenTTD, even though its not really a citybuilder. You can plan the routes of every train, bus, airplane, and boat. The cities do NOT grow naturally (the more traffic you provide, the more they grow. Its not like SimCity / Cities:Skylines where you need to provide a variety of services to make a house grow... its assumed the cities "figure out the details" as long as you provide enough traffic planning). Its simplified and "less realistic" than Cities: Skylines. But because its a bigger focus on traffic-planning that Cities: Skylines, its a more "honest" game IMO. If you're gonna make all elements of the game rely on traffic, then focus on traffic like OpenTTD does.
- johnday 5y ago
  Cities:Skylines was built from the ground up to be a platform for modding and expansion. While the base game itself is solid, there is a staggering quantity of high-quality mods which expand the functionality and control you have over your cities. The most obvious one that springs to mind is Traffic Manager, which allows you to go in and change the direction of any individual turning lane to maximise throughput and efficient road usage.
- Aperocky 5y ago
  The scale is a problem, the largest city are no more than 2 miles wide yet apparently people will struggle to drive their cars 300 ft because they somehow cannot walk at all. The traffic is ridiculous too, having 40 houses on a street? Traffic is going to be so insane! Oh and did I mention it took them 1 hour of commute to get to somewhere that is only half a mile away? This traffic simulator is crooked. Thank god for NAM.
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nolvorite 5y ago
Pretty good critique of the realist aspect of the game, and props on him for trying to make a new game based on the factors that he mentioned. However, it's not like Sim City is expected to include every single aspect of city development and growth as a factor, nor is it expected to be some kind of acceptably accurate depiction of city development. And he said so himself, the developers of SimCity didn't want to involve aspects of the real world that were politically divisive as a factor, which I don't really think is a bad thing.
- rrherr 5y ago
  > However, it's not like Sim City is expected to include every single aspect of city development and growth as a factor, nor is it expected to be some kind of acceptably accurate depiction of city development. Agreed, but SimCity was marketed for realism and used for education. The OP writes: > Over and over, the SimCity series invoked “realism” as a selling point. SimCity 2000’s box playfully warns: “If this game was any more realistic, it’d be illegal to turn it off!” > SimCity has been used and is being used as educational tool ... shaping the way a lot of people understand or misunderstand city planning.
  - nolvorite 5y ago
    That's what they want you to think. However I strongly doubt that people think they have the city-macrocosmic simulation down to an exact science. It's like saying that playing racing car video games makes you think you're good at driving in a race in real life.
    - nopeYouAreWrong 5y ago
      I am pretty sure I would be a great city planner based on my extensive collection of utopian simulations in Cities Skylines. Though I would have to take a huge payout to do far more important work, so I will have to pass.
wodenokoto 5y ago
I really enjoyed the heavy use of pictures and animations. There are no page size limitations on the web, as opposed to print media, so there are few reasons to be economical with pictures, imho. There was a time when similarly styled stories from imgur were a big thing on reddit, and I also loved those.
q_andrew 5y ago
For those who are interested in similar discourse, I recommend these cities skylines videos from youtube user donoteat01: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lvUByM-fZk&list=PLwkSQD3vqK1S1NiHIxxF2g_Uy-LbbcR84 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lvUByM-fZk&list=PLwkSQD3vqK... They are sarcastic tutorials on how to worsen your Skylines cities enough to qualify as a realistic North American metro area. If the mic quality bothers you, skip to the newer videos.
- scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
  donoteat01 was a huge discovery for me personally. I wouldn't call them tutorials though, more talks on urban development and history, which use the heavily modded game for illustration.
nickdothutton 5y ago
I’m not sure anyone who has spent any significant time in Singapore would call it a “dystopia”. The place is clean, safe, and well run. The west has given up on building more cities, which I think is a pity. I’m looking forward to visiting Neom, Songdo, and other places where the future is being created.
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chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
The article ends with the following: > In conclusion, I’ve been trying for years to imagine an alternative SimCity. > And I realized that the biggest fallacy of a City simulator is to try to present itself as an all-encompassing system, supposedly capable of describing many possible cities. > I believe that in order to move away from the SimCity paradigm we need many different city simulations, each one limiting its scope to certain dynamics, certain contexts. Does anyone have suggestions for a more prescriptive SimCity? something more limited in scope and egalitarian?
- anthk 5y ago
  Try Lincity-NG.
eumoria 5y ago
The Magnasanti video he references brought back some memories. Very fun video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJQTc-TqpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJQTc-TqpU
scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
SimCity shaped how I see many aspects of how the world was constructed, especially as a child. The author mentions how Dziga Vertov and the French New Wave subverted the tools of the medium to expose the lie at the core of cinema. These ideas then circulated and transformed cinema to the core. Seeing these strange games used as examples is a great parallel. It is logical conclusion that we really are in the midst of a somewhat similar big leap in gaming and simulation, both as a tool and an artform.
rowlandrose 5y ago
Developers of simulation games could publically state what biases they put in their ruleset, and even release multiple rulesets with different biases. Maybe a rule-set editor could be included. What would my city look like if people generally put up with taxes? Or if people hated them? Or if education was a quick solution to crime, or a less guaranteed one?
taf2 5y ago
Ah for me the best part of simcity 2000 was the fact that the game could literally never end. just keep expanding. gave me great hope for the future - we should be able to expand forever.
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jahewson 5y ago
There’s some interesting thoughts in the latter half of this article, it’s much more compelling to read the author praise and explore the new than criticise the old. I’m disappointed by the paternalism though - the author underestimates children - as a 10 year old growing up in Europe it was abundantly clear to me that when I played sim city I was building a particular kind of modern American West city - the ground wasn’t even green! The criticism of the game’s claimed “realism” rings hollow given that the front of that game box has a giant alien robot on it. I’m also disappointed that someone who is so invested in the topic of cities would handwave away the existence of suburbs as simply “white flight” - again, growing up in Europe we have plenty of large sprawling wealthy suburbs and white flight is definitely not one of their causes. My understanding is that it was a minor factor in the creation of the American suburbs, with the automobile and baby boom being key. It’s hard not to see this misattribution as an attempt to push a biased political narrative, given that the author is an activist.
thelamest 5y ago
As much as the slideshow points out a genuine, interesting question, what's a little frustrating is that presentation author then spends a good deal of time advocating for his own preferred utopian rulesets, with similar issues of micromanagement in a fundamentally shallow meta, and with similarly narrow, politically pointed assumptions. Don't get me wrong: it's perfectly understandable that people have preferences, and that questions of complexity and design introduce difficult trade-offs. I doubt I'm alone in finding rut micromanagement the most unfun part of sim games. Having to impose all sorts of tiny decisions all the time on sim population, in such a constrained rule space, that there are always only the same few optimal strategies to progress. Issue is not that there are optima, but all of that static micromanagement could be handled bottom-up (in sims, automatically). Fun play could derive more from variations in system dynamics, discrete shocks to rules, and in general, macro or meta decisions. But here am I replying to "this is not the exact game I would have designed" with "this is not the exact game I would have designed either, plus this is not an exact argument I would have made" – with me not even doing the actual work of gamemaking, unlike the author.
DonHopkins 5y ago
https://donhopkins.medium.com/designing-user-interfaces-to-simulation-games-bd7a9d81e62d https://donhopkins.medium.com/designing-user-interfaces-to-s... >Will Wright on Designing User Interfaces to Simulation Games (1996) [...] >Everyone notices the obvious built-in political bias, whatever that is. But everyone sees it from a different perspective, so nobody agrees what its real political agenda actually is. I don’t think it’s all that important, since SimCity’s political agenda pales in comparison to the political agenda in the eye of the beholder. >Some muckety-muck architecture magazine was interviewing Will Wright about SimCity, and they asked him a question something like “which ontological urban paradigm most influenced your design of the simulator, the Exo-Hamiltonian Pattern Language Movement, or the Intra-Urban Deconstructionist Sub-Culture Hypothesis?” He replied, “I just kind of optimized for game play.” [...]
DonHopkins 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22851109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22851109 DonHopkins on April 12, 2020 | on: Enemy AI: chasing a player without Navigation2D or... One trick is to spread the computation out over time, if you don't need to do it all at at once every frame. Since the enemies don't move that fast, a bit of delay might be good enough, depending on what you're tracking. SimCity has several layers like pollution, land value, etc, which slowly diffuse over time. But it only does that computation every so often, not every frame. It has a 16 phase simulation clock, and it scans the cells of the map in eight stripes over eight steps, then scans different layers like taxes, traffic and rate of growth decay, power, pollution and land value, police coverage and crime, population density, fire coverage and disasters, and the RCI valves. (That made it possible to run on a C64!) Chaim Gingold's SimCity Reverse Diagrams show how the different phases of "Simulate()" perform different kinds of analysis over time, and how the different map layers interact with each other. https://lively-web.org/users/Dan/uploads/SimCityReverseDiagrams.pdf https://lively-web.org/users/Dan/uploads/SimCityReverseDiagr... >SimCity reverse diagrams, by Chaim Gingold (2016). >These reverse diagrams map and translate the rules of a complex simulation program into a form that is more easily digested, embedded, disseminated, and and discussed (Latour 1986). >If we merge the reverse diagram with an interactive approach—e.g. Bret Victor’s Nile Visualization (Victor 2013), such diagrams could be used generatively, to describe programs, and interactively, to allow rich introspection and manipulation of software. >Latour, Bruno (1986). “Visualization and cognition”. In: Knowledge and Society 6 (1986), pp. 1– 40. >Librande, Stone (2010). “One-Page Designs”. Game Developers Conference. 2010. >Victor, Bret (2013). “Media for Thinking the Unthinkable”. MIT Media Lab, Apr. 4, 2013.
f154hfds 5y ago
I also have lived in Pittsburgh for the last 10 years as this author but I have to say I have a different impression of the city. One of my employers had an orientation on Pittsburgh a few years ago and brought in some city planners who talked about the successes and failures of some of their initiatives - the South Side Works and Homestead Waterfront. Their main objective was to integrate neighborhoods with the riverfront which had historically been pretty destroyed by industry and was now ripe for rehabilitation. For all of their effort and good intentions they had mixed success. South side does nicely slide into the Works but Homestead remains to this day awkwardly separated from the Waterfront. Other neighborhoods have gentrified with terrifying speed - Lawrenceville and East Liberty are the two that come to mind. I know poorer folks sitting on properties that have likely tripled in value in the last 10 years alone. Other neighborhoods seem perfectly situated for gentrification and somehow years go by and nothing changes. I think it's too easy to attempt to 'model' (simplify) these dynamics to attempt to provide evidence for some sort of narrative. White flight happened in many locations around this country, gentrification is happening now. These are opposite movements of people that both get criticized. Reality tends to be much more complex than we would like and doesn't like to play by pre-determined rules. Who knows what the upper and middle class will be criticized for 20 years from now or what these cities will look like? In the 90's Pittsburgh was a complete disaster.
aidenn0 5y ago
That screenshot looks like "Raid on Bungling Bay." I had no idea sim-city was inspired by the level editor for that.

104 points by rrherr 5y ago

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.

adamrezich 5y ago
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.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > 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)
  - adamrezich 5y ago
    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?
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      > 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. -------------- 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.
      - adamrezich 5y ago
        thanks so much for the info! gonna try and get one of the older versions soon now
        dragontamer 5y ago
        Woops, I got my dates confused. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/23828/avalon-hill-hasbro-edition https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/23828/avalon-hill... Avalon Hill / Hasbro made the 2008 edition. ---------- 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.
- pjc50 5y ago
  > 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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord's_Game , written as an act of political activism by a Georgist in 1904.
- otherme123 5y ago
  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".
Mediterraneo10 5y ago
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.
nerdponx 5y ago
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!
- abnry 5y ago
  >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.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    > 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.
senortumnus 5y ago
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
makeworld 5y ago
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.
- abnry 5y ago
  >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.
  - birdyrooster 5y ago
    The urge for destruction is also a creative urge!
    - abnry 5y ago
      By definition, no, it is not.
mkr-hn 5y ago
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.
lloydatkinson 5y ago
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.
- hhmc 5y ago
  > 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.
  - me_me_me 5y ago
    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.
    - lloydatkinson 5y ago
      Exactly
    - hhmc 5y ago
      > 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.
      - me_me_me 5y ago

dexwiz 5y ago

The problem with "games" is that the designers often have a goal already in mind, and then give players the tools to reach that goal. For any meaningful analysis, you need to understand the artist (game designer) to fully understand the art (game). While SimCity carries its own biases, I highly doubt a game developed for activist conference is any more impartial. Utopias in general are a great demonstration of man's hubris, and we have known that forever. The Tower of Babel is perhaps the oldest fable warning against such fallacies, and Bruegel perfectly captured it in his renderings. Ford and Disney both attempted planned cities (Fordlandia and Epcot respectively), and failed. Utopia designers like SimCity wash away all that makes a city (people, struggles, relationships), and replaces it with a Map. Any simulation, no matter how noble, falls victim to the same problem that the Map is not the Land. If anything, its all a bike shedding operation of trying to fix something which we have control over, instead of what we do not, just to fulfill our Ego. How many city planners really care about the people over just imposing their own vision of ideal upon the populace?

aaron-santos 5y ago
> Utopias in general are a great demonstration of man's hubris, and we have known that forever. This is a message that programming language designers and advocates need to hear. The idea that a better language can lead to better outcomes is itself utopian in the same way that better cities can lead to better outcomes. They both take a look at the substrate and extrapolate. Sure, there's an infinite number of ways to make a bad city, but we have to realize that's a different kind of thing.
rrherr 5y ago
Yes, the OP acknowledges this: > I swear, I can design you a game that subtly leads people to whatever “solution” you want. > We have to encourage players to always question the designers’ systems and educate them to detect their biases and agendas, even our own. > Cities result from conflicts, conflicts are not always “solvable”. > The problem with most utopian thinking is the idea of tabula rasa, the blank slate. In order to design a perfect society, you have to start from zero. That’s the also utopianism of SimCity. Ctrl-F for "bias", "utopia", & "conflict" for more along these lines.

GenerocUsername 5y ago

Stopped reading when the author began complaining about SimCity not including enough Race Relation management features.

birdyrooster 5y ago
There is only one line which mentions race, and it does so in context with class, “In SimCity race and class conflicts are sanitized.” The author of the article didn’t even push a race based agenda (clearly class oriented) and the parent commenter is projecting onto it. Americans and their insane racial culture is causing people like the parent commenter to disengage from reality.
- medicineman 5y ago
  Rent free.
dragontamer 5y ago
A family friend of mine got her start in life in a trailer park. A lot of these city-builder games assume that "higher land values" is better, because land values == better tax revenue. But is that really what we should be optimizing for in these games? A city without trailer parks / low-cost housing is a city where my friend wouldn't stand a chance at all. The power-gamer in SimCity 2000 ignores hospitals and schools. Because life-expectancy doesn't lead to any tax benefits, and school / education counts don't seem to have any real effect on the city either. At some point, the game "stops reflecting reality", and when that illusion disappears, some players no longer find the game interesting. I personally am a power-gamer, I've never held that "illusion of reality" in any game I've ever played (be it SimCity, Civ, or whatever). I play these games to have fun and understand that there's almost no political or social commentary associated with the game design decisions. ---------- But other people play these games hoping to "roleplay" a City's Mayor, or to "roleplay" the emperor of a Civilization. For these people, realism is a highly important trait. Alas: most games are not realistic at all. The games that do seek realism (ex: Hearts of Iron) are too complex for the typical person to pick up on. ------- I think its fair for people to look at SimCity and say "well... that's not realistic. The game doesn't have the right incentives in the right places". Because frankly: it doesn't. Its just an incomplete viewpoint into city building. Even Cities: Skylines has a similar issue. ---------- Games like "Two Point Hospital" are better, because its all clearly a joke. So the game is clearly a game. Curing clown's disease is funny and clearly not what happens in Hospitals. You better understand the game in the abstract: patients seek a diagnosis. The GP takes a guess, and sends the patient to a diagnosis room (X-Ray or other machine). The diagnosis room gives another result, and the doctor either is confident in treatment or needs additional diagnosis machines to make a better guess. Or... you just remove all the diagnosis rooms and force doctors to send patients in for treatment because treatment makes more money. Lulz. Then when the patients inevitably die to these poorly made decisions, you get a bunch of janitors with vacuum cleaners to clean up the ghosts. But yeah, it makes the most money (because you have the highest throughput of patients), so its the "Power gaming" move in Two Point Hospital.

medicineman 5y ago

This is why the "oppressed" don't listen to their over-educated saviors. Its buzzword bombing namedropping tired crap, like most continental philosophy.

seltzered_ 5y ago

see also https://logicmag.io/play/model-metropolis/ https://logicmag.io/play/model-metropolis/ (critique in some similar directions) and https://www.filfre.net/tag/simcity/ https://www.filfre.net/tag/simcity/ (deeper origin story on simcity)

dragontamer 5y ago

SimCity's main issue (and this was true as far back as SimCity 2000, maybe earlier) is that the "car traffic" goes from residential -> industrial -> commercial in roughly that order. This means that one plot of industry + one plot of commercial is enough to satisfy an entire residential neighborhood's worth of traffic planning. Similarly, one plot of residential + one plot of commercial is enough to satisfy an entire industrial zone worth of traffic. As this design decision became more and more widely known, power-gamers took advantage of it to make weirder and weirder cities that don't look like a real city at all. ------------ Cities: Skylines has a better traffic simulator. But its got too much emphasis on traffic simulation without actually having enough controls over traffic. Police departments can only go as far as traffic lets them. Optimize for traffic, your police cover a greater area. Schools only go as far as traffic lets them, optimize for traffic, your schools cover a greater area. Etc. etc. ------------ I guess I'm liking OpenTTD, even though its not really a citybuilder. You can plan the routes of every train, bus, airplane, and boat. The cities do NOT grow naturally (the more traffic you provide, the more they grow. Its not like SimCity / Cities:Skylines where you need to provide a variety of services to make a house grow... its assumed the cities "figure out the details" as long as you provide enough traffic planning). Its simplified and "less realistic" than Cities: Skylines. But because its a bigger focus on traffic-planning that Cities: Skylines, its a more "honest" game IMO. If you're gonna make all elements of the game rely on traffic, then focus on traffic like OpenTTD does.

johnday 5y ago
Cities:Skylines was built from the ground up to be a platform for modding and expansion. While the base game itself is solid, there is a staggering quantity of high-quality mods which expand the functionality and control you have over your cities. The most obvious one that springs to mind is Traffic Manager, which allows you to go in and change the direction of any individual turning lane to maximise throughput and efficient road usage.
Aperocky 5y ago
The scale is a problem, the largest city are no more than 2 miles wide yet apparently people will struggle to drive their cars 300 ft because they somehow cannot walk at all. The traffic is ridiculous too, having 40 houses on a street? Traffic is going to be so insane! Oh and did I mention it took them 1 hour of commute to get to somewhere that is only half a mile away? This traffic simulator is crooked. Thank god for NAM.

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nolvorite 5y ago

Pretty good critique of the realist aspect of the game, and props on him for trying to make a new game based on the factors that he mentioned. However, it's not like Sim City is expected to include every single aspect of city development and growth as a factor, nor is it expected to be some kind of acceptably accurate depiction of city development. And he said so himself, the developers of SimCity didn't want to involve aspects of the real world that were politically divisive as a factor, which I don't really think is a bad thing.

rrherr 5y ago
> However, it's not like Sim City is expected to include every single aspect of city development and growth as a factor, nor is it expected to be some kind of acceptably accurate depiction of city development. Agreed, but SimCity was marketed for realism and used for education. The OP writes: > Over and over, the SimCity series invoked “realism” as a selling point. SimCity 2000’s box playfully warns: “If this game was any more realistic, it’d be illegal to turn it off!” > SimCity has been used and is being used as educational tool ... shaping the way a lot of people understand or misunderstand city planning.
- nolvorite 5y ago
  That's what they want you to think. However I strongly doubt that people think they have the city-macrocosmic simulation down to an exact science. It's like saying that playing racing car video games makes you think you're good at driving in a race in real life.
  - nopeYouAreWrong 5y ago
    I am pretty sure I would be a great city planner based on my extensive collection of utopian simulations in Cities Skylines. Though I would have to take a huge payout to do far more important work, so I will have to pass.

wodenokoto 5y ago

I really enjoyed the heavy use of pictures and animations. There are no page size limitations on the web, as opposed to print media, so there are few reasons to be economical with pictures, imho. There was a time when similarly styled stories from imgur were a big thing on reddit, and I also loved those.

q_andrew 5y ago

For those who are interested in similar discourse, I recommend these cities skylines videos from youtube user donoteat01: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lvUByM-fZk&list=PLwkSQD3vqK1S1NiHIxxF2g_Uy-LbbcR84 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lvUByM-fZk&list=PLwkSQD3vqK... They are sarcastic tutorials on how to worsen your Skylines cities enough to qualify as a realistic North American metro area. If the mic quality bothers you, skip to the newer videos.

scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
donoteat01 was a huge discovery for me personally. I wouldn't call them tutorials though, more talks on urban development and history, which use the heavily modded game for illustration.

nickdothutton 5y ago

I’m not sure anyone who has spent any significant time in Singapore would call it a “dystopia”. The place is clean, safe, and well run. The west has given up on building more cities, which I think is a pity. I’m looking forward to visiting Neom, Songdo, and other places where the future is being created.

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chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago

The article ends with the following: > In conclusion, I’ve been trying for years to imagine an alternative SimCity. > And I realized that the biggest fallacy of a City simulator is to try to present itself as an all-encompassing system, supposedly capable of describing many possible cities. > I believe that in order to move away from the SimCity paradigm we need many different city simulations, each one limiting its scope to certain dynamics, certain contexts. Does anyone have suggestions for a more prescriptive SimCity? something more limited in scope and egalitarian?

anthk 5y ago
Try Lincity-NG.

eumoria 5y ago

The Magnasanti video he references brought back some memories. Very fun video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJQTc-TqpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJQTc-TqpU

scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago

SimCity shaped how I see many aspects of how the world was constructed, especially as a child. The author mentions how Dziga Vertov and the French New Wave subverted the tools of the medium to expose the lie at the core of cinema. These ideas then circulated and transformed cinema to the core. Seeing these strange games used as examples is a great parallel. It is logical conclusion that we really are in the midst of a somewhat similar big leap in gaming and simulation, both as a tool and an artform.

rowlandrose 5y ago

Developers of simulation games could publically state what biases they put in their ruleset, and even release multiple rulesets with different biases. Maybe a rule-set editor could be included. What would my city look like if people generally put up with taxes? Or if people hated them? Or if education was a quick solution to crime, or a less guaranteed one?

taf2 5y ago

Ah for me the best part of simcity 2000 was the fact that the game could literally never end. just keep expanding. gave me great hope for the future - we should be able to expand forever.

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jahewson 5y ago

There’s some interesting thoughts in the latter half of this article, it’s much more compelling to read the author praise and explore the new than criticise the old. I’m disappointed by the paternalism though - the author underestimates children - as a 10 year old growing up in Europe it was abundantly clear to me that when I played sim city I was building a particular kind of modern American West city - the ground wasn’t even green! The criticism of the game’s claimed “realism” rings hollow given that the front of that game box has a giant alien robot on it. I’m also disappointed that someone who is so invested in the topic of cities would handwave away the existence of suburbs as simply “white flight” - again, growing up in Europe we have plenty of large sprawling wealthy suburbs and white flight is definitely not one of their causes. My understanding is that it was a minor factor in the creation of the American suburbs, with the automobile and baby boom being key. It’s hard not to see this misattribution as an attempt to push a biased political narrative, given that the author is an activist.

thelamest 5y ago

As much as the slideshow points out a genuine, interesting question, what's a little frustrating is that presentation author then spends a good deal of time advocating for his own preferred utopian rulesets, with similar issues of micromanagement in a fundamentally shallow meta, and with similarly narrow, politically pointed assumptions. Don't get me wrong: it's perfectly understandable that people have preferences, and that questions of complexity and design introduce difficult trade-offs. I doubt I'm alone in finding rut micromanagement the most unfun part of sim games. Having to impose all sorts of tiny decisions all the time on sim population, in such a constrained rule space, that there are always only the same few optimal strategies to progress. Issue is not that there are optima, but all of that static micromanagement could be handled bottom-up (in sims, automatically). Fun play could derive more from variations in system dynamics, discrete shocks to rules, and in general, macro or meta decisions. But here am I replying to "this is not the exact game I would have designed" with "this is not the exact game I would have designed either, plus this is not an exact argument I would have made" – with me not even doing the actual work of gamemaking, unlike the author.

DonHopkins 5y ago

https://donhopkins.medium.com/designing-user-interfaces-to-simulation-games-bd7a9d81e62d https://donhopkins.medium.com/designing-user-interfaces-to-s... >Will Wright on Designing User Interfaces to Simulation Games (1996) [...] >Everyone notices the obvious built-in political bias, whatever that is. But everyone sees it from a different perspective, so nobody agrees what its real political agenda actually is. I don’t think it’s all that important, since SimCity’s political agenda pales in comparison to the political agenda in the eye of the beholder. >Some muckety-muck architecture magazine was interviewing Will Wright about SimCity, and they asked him a question something like “which ontological urban paradigm most influenced your design of the simulator, the Exo-Hamiltonian Pattern Language Movement, or the Intra-Urban Deconstructionist Sub-Culture Hypothesis?” He replied, “I just kind of optimized for game play.” [...]

DonHopkins 5y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22851109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22851109 DonHopkins on April 12, 2020 | on: Enemy AI: chasing a player without Navigation2D or... One trick is to spread the computation out over time, if you don't need to do it all at at once every frame. Since the enemies don't move that fast, a bit of delay might be good enough, depending on what you're tracking. SimCity has several layers like pollution, land value, etc, which slowly diffuse over time. But it only does that computation every so often, not every frame. It has a 16 phase simulation clock, and it scans the cells of the map in eight stripes over eight steps, then scans different layers like taxes, traffic and rate of growth decay, power, pollution and land value, police coverage and crime, population density, fire coverage and disasters, and the RCI valves. (That made it possible to run on a C64!) Chaim Gingold's SimCity Reverse Diagrams show how the different phases of "Simulate()" perform different kinds of analysis over time, and how the different map layers interact with each other. https://lively-web.org/users/Dan/uploads/SimCityReverseDiagrams.pdf https://lively-web.org/users/Dan/uploads/SimCityReverseDiagr... >SimCity reverse diagrams, by Chaim Gingold (2016). >These reverse diagrams map and translate the rules of a complex simulation program into a form that is more easily digested, embedded, disseminated, and and discussed (Latour 1986). >If we merge the reverse diagram with an interactive approach—e.g. Bret Victor’s Nile Visualization (Victor 2013), such diagrams could be used generatively, to describe programs, and interactively, to allow rich introspection and manipulation of software. >Latour, Bruno (1986). “Visualization and cognition”. In: Knowledge and Society 6 (1986), pp. 1– 40. >Librande, Stone (2010). “One-Page Designs”. Game Developers Conference. 2010. >Victor, Bret (2013). “Media for Thinking the Unthinkable”. MIT Media Lab, Apr. 4, 2013.

f154hfds 5y ago

I also have lived in Pittsburgh for the last 10 years as this author but I have to say I have a different impression of the city. One of my employers had an orientation on Pittsburgh a few years ago and brought in some city planners who talked about the successes and failures of some of their initiatives - the South Side Works and Homestead Waterfront. Their main objective was to integrate neighborhoods with the riverfront which had historically been pretty destroyed by industry and was now ripe for rehabilitation. For all of their effort and good intentions they had mixed success. South side does nicely slide into the Works but Homestead remains to this day awkwardly separated from the Waterfront. Other neighborhoods have gentrified with terrifying speed - Lawrenceville and East Liberty are the two that come to mind. I know poorer folks sitting on properties that have likely tripled in value in the last 10 years alone. Other neighborhoods seem perfectly situated for gentrification and somehow years go by and nothing changes. I think it's too easy to attempt to 'model' (simplify) these dynamics to attempt to provide evidence for some sort of narrative. White flight happened in many locations around this country, gentrification is happening now. These are opposite movements of people that both get criticized. Reality tends to be much more complex than we would like and doesn't like to play by pre-determined rules. Who knows what the upper and middle class will be criticized for 20 years from now or what these cities will look like? In the 90's Pittsburgh was a complete disaster.

aidenn0 5y ago

That screenshot looks like "Raid on Bungling Bay." I had no idea sim-city was inspired by the level editor for that.