
The next step for games? Simulate the entire world - jordigg
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2016-01/12/simulating-the-real-world-online
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sago
The better games through simulation fallacy. We've had variations of this for
at least the 25 years I've been involved with games. "We'll get better stories
when the world is more accurate." because our lives are full of great stories,
right?

The dragon that stays dead is only fun for the team who slew it. There's no
great technical block to keeping it dead. A database is not a new technical
breakthrough. MMOs don't do this, because it sucks. Arrive later, tough,
you're not the hero.

Why would an emergent simulation of dust from a distant mine collapse make the
world more satisfying? The vast, vast majority of such events are irrelevant.
And when you have limited time in a game, and want to feel powerful, the game
designer's job is to filter out all the stuff you can ignore.

There are kinds of realism that help games. And there are kinds of realism
that would make a game just as dull as your daily grind. Although a company
pops up every few years or so promising to simulate everything, I'm yet to see
any of them show examples of it being actually more fun to play.

