Comment by Terr_
14 days ago
> 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 is a flight simulator, not an aircraft operations simulator. Similar, but different.
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.