Disparaging Remarks About SimCity In Media

[simcitynate 134]

My fellow visionaries,

I had the misfortune to stumble across an article the other day entitled "SimCity-style modelling flunks the real-world test". Apparently, an influential institution put together a simulation model to predict the spread of coronavirus cases, and in some areas, the figures are well off the mark. The coding is flawed, it's argued, and therefore any accuracy on its part should be considered merely coincidental. So, an entirely different simulation, with an entirely different objective, with a clear imperative to err on the side of caution, attempting to account for complex activity on a global scale, results in some inaccuracies,  and this justifies disparaging SimCity?  

I wish I'd just left it there, but morbid curiosity led me to search for any other such comparison. To my dismay, I found another article gleefully detailing the failures of this pandemic simulation while declaring it to be "less sophisticated than SimCity. SimCity!" Well what does this ignorant fool even know about the power and complexity of SimCity? And exactly which game is being referred to? The original from 1989? That's never made clear in either article. There's a picture that I think is from SimCity 2013 accompanying one of them, but it's my understanding that's outside the author's control. Now I suspect a strong bias from these authors in these presentations, but regardless of ones views on the matter, I feel such an attack on our beloved game is unwarranted. 

Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive, and maybe this wasn't worth bringing up, but it did bother me, so I really felt that I needed to vent. 

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

Those who do, do. Those who don't, write.

 

[twalsh102 1,601]

@simcitynate, I'm not sure that either article really disparages our favorite game.  Don't forget that SimCity4 was never designed to truly simulate the real world. As sophisticated as we find the game itself, it would certainly flunk a real-world test of simulating ALL the things that would affect the management and growth of a real-world city. A true model of an active city would have to be agent-based, and would be tremendously more complex than SimCity 4, by probably several orders of magnitude. City: Skylines is agent-based to a degree, and there are many limitations as to what can be done with it ( especially as far as city size and number of inhabitants) using common, fairly-recent household computers. Given that in SimCity4, one can grow a city on a large city square to have multi-million inhabitants (which in itself would be a higher population density than the real-world's most densely populated city), the number of agents necessary would be mind-boggling. And one would need to model all the other factors that effect the agents (weather, weather-related disasters, other natural disasters, crime, flammability, healthcare, education, economic factors, homelessness, unemployment, and on, and on...).  I'm not sure one could create a simulation taking all these things in to account that could run as a single-threaded 32-bit program. And even if one could, it would probably take a computer that isn't affordable to 99% of the planet's population.

So, I take the first article to mean that the subject institution took too "simplistic" an approach (too game-like?) (also not withstanding the flawed programming) in its model development to provide any degree of accuracy.

I don't view the second article as being an attack on SimCity either. The author essentially states that SimCity is actually more sophisticated than the modeling approach used by the subject institution.

We don't know which version of SimCity the authors may be referring to. Maybe they're only aware of the latest failed version (SimCity 2013), or maybe they're only aware of some version prior to SimCity 4.  Or are they just referring in general to the level of simulation available from the developers of electronic games whose self-interest would be in developing simulations that can be played on the widest number of computers possible (with city-building simulations probably being the nearest analog to a simulation depicting the spread of a pandemic) (and with SimCity probably being the most famous of that genre)?

So while your loyalty to the game is certainly commendable, I think your aggravation/anger may most likely be "much ado about nothing", and most certainly nothing to get upset about (unless there is more context in the articles than you mentioned in your post).

[simcitynate 134]

Well I appreciate your efforts to calm my outrage, but I wasn't suggesting that we should expect any computer simulation to perfectly emulate the world. I just felt they misrepresented SimCity by depicting it far too simplistically. If the authors felt the pandemic simulation was too game-like, maybe they could have picked a better example, unless there's good evidence it was actually modeled after SimCity. As noted though, precisely which  game they mean is never made clear, so I'm happy SimCity 4 is never mentioned. However, to take prediction results which are only partially inaccurate from a different type of simulation model and then declare that SimCity-style modelling failed THE reality test, as if there could only be one and it's definitive , strikes me as unfair. It's the second article I find most annoying, as "less sophisticated than SimCity. SimCity!" seems like a clear jab to me. In this context, it's not a compliment. It's using SimCity as a pathetic standard which the pandemic simulation couldn't even meet. I get the impression these writers have little experience with the game, and are likely oblivious to additional world of possibilities opened up through this site or SCD4. SimCity isn't the main focus of course and is only briefly mentioned, but considering it does accurately reflect much of how real cities work, I don't think the authors give it proper credit.  Again though, I'm aware of my high sensitivity to the topic, but I was also just curious to see what the community might have to say. I respect your logical analysis, though "dem's fightin' words" was the solidarity I was more hoping for to be honest.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

1 hour ago, simcitynate said:

It's the second article I find most annoying, as "less sophisticated than SimCity. SimCity!" seems like a clear jab to me. In this context, it's not a compliment. It's using SimCity as a pathetic standard which the pandemic simulation couldn't even meet.

I guess you can read this a bit as follows:

"This simulation that's supposed to help us in times when people are dying and supposed to be a serious, scientifically sound, and reliable instrument turns out to be less sophisticated than a simulation made for a computer game, for mere entertainment!"

Even when games become complex for a game, there are very few that come even close to reality. Microsoft's latest Flight Simulator close to real-world flying? Yes, maybe. But SimCity close to a real-world city? Sorry, no. An airplane cockpit is complex enough, but an entire city is so infinitely more complex that no simulation that is suitable for a game (i.e., it does not choke all entertainment value) will ever come remotely close.

And even if we assume that MS Flight Simulator is pretty darn close to the real thing, can you imagine the outrage if a pilot crashes a passenger plane, dozens of people die, and it turns out he didn't have an actual pilot's licence but only lots of practice in MS Flight Simulator? You think people would shrug it off and say "Well, that's a pretty good and complex simulation, I don't see a problem here"? Entertainment is one thing, science is another, especially when human lives are in danger.

So yeah, I'd agree with @twalsh102 here.

[simcitynate 134]

Thanks for your input. That SimCity is just like running actual cities isn't the claim that's being made though. The question is, could SimCity-style modeling, with proper coding and without bugs, as is alleged, theoretically be a reliable tool in predicting a specific real-world phenomenon. I guess I can take solace in knowing a team of scientists led by a prominent mathematical epidemiologist at a prestigious institute think so; a belief based partly on prior successes. Of course there's no computer simulation that can take every real-world factor into account, but I'm sure there's a good reason that simulation models are so often used in training and to inform government policies. 

When reading "for mere entertainment!", again, it's the oversimplification I object to. It implies no challenge; a vapid activity with every aspect designed to induce pure delight, when I'm sure we've all experienced at one time or another just how wrong things can go. Sometimes they go so wrong the game comes to an end. It's so popular for obvious reasons, but entertainment value doesn't preclude a basis in reality. 

What if someone were to mock the capabilities of a beginner pilot because "all of their knowledge of flying comes from a flight simulator. A flight simulator!" I'd think we could all take issue with the implication of the pilot's cluelessness and the simulator's uselessness while acknowledging the difference from flying an actual plane. 

[Silur 3,304]

@simcitynate You have a lot of words, but what do you want to say ...

I think @twalsh102 gave me the answer ...