which is why i find the genre of Simulation so interesting. of which Flight Sims seem to be most well known, most typical example of. In the old Falcon 4, there was a large manual that one required just to operate the radar screens. and folks would learn them . Perhaps it provided some feeling of mastery over a complex task - and knowing it derived from something from reality/nature meant that task was in some way grounded in "truth".
In something newer like the DCS series each aircraft has rows of knobs - that represent reality as closely as possible. Of course you can expand Simulation to all sorts of domains. e.g. for tanks Steel Beasts is almost a game in the proper sense, but quite simulation influenced (actual militaries use it to train tank teams).
Finally, why restrict yourself to avation/military... you could truly attempt simulate any experience. essentially, you would de-gamify it.
i think the core values of simulation are free-form structure, customization, exploration, experimentation.
Are engaging with these sims "fun"? I dont' know, but folks sure seem to spend a lot of time "playing" them. They must be getting something out of it.
I'm interested how far you could take this, how far you could expand into something engaging that not along the well-trodden path of flight/military/car stuff.
People who own planes generally report it being fun to fly; it is just also extremely expensive to do often and there is a massive element of risk if you don't know what you are doing or your luck with the weather runs out for you and your small plane that you are flying with your limited skills. I don't be know many people who report "going into the military was extremely fun and I would do it constantly if I just had access to enough sufficiently-evil enemies to kill".
> I don't be know many people who report "going into the military was extremely fun and I would do it constantly if I just had access to enough sufficiently-evil enemies to kill".
That statement to me shows you even have difficulty conceptualizing what a non-gamified model even look like! (.e.g "sufficiently-evil enemies to kill").
Simulation has much more elements of tedium (no "pacing"), just like real life.
Or the learning curve is not constructed just so to be the perfect on-ramp, just like real life. The learning curve is simply what nature/environment demands.
e.g. "Enemies" are not "sufficiently evil", or even presented to you at proper game-enjoyment level times/pacing.
It is why simulations are not really "games", they are not "fun" (but the can be, but that isn't the "point"), but my point was that something draws people to them, and they engage with them. It's interesting to think about why.
I brought that up to isolate the moral ambiguity of war, not to imply something about gamification. The reason I did that was because, without that comment, I think you would have to be a sick and twisted person to consider shooting at and killing other people to be "fun", even if it were thrilling and challenging and engaging and whatever else you find "fun".
Flight simulators do not have the same moral quandary, so we don't have to worry about it there: we can ask the question "is flying fun"... and you seem to have ignored my premise which is that the answer is apparently "yes": people who own planes report that flying is fun.
However, most people can't fly, as it requires you to have a ton of disposable income to own the plane and contract the hanger and pay for the fuel. The people I know who own planes hardly ever get to fly them, and when you do get to fly you are often almost "forced to" in order to keep your training up to date.
Regardless, it is worth noting that you have now slipped into the territory of having defined a simulation as something inherently not fun, so we should ask if a flight simulator even qualifies for your circular definition, and it turns out it doesn't :/.
So, the reason why a true combat simulator (with the caveat that the enemy is "sufficiently evil") would be "not fun" is that most of combat is "hurry up and wait", maintaining your equipment, and doing training exercises. What makes a first person shooter fun is that you get to do only the parts that are thrilling, challenging, and engaging: even your gun is maintained by other people.
A flight simulator is thereby not really a simulator, as if it were 99% of your time would be spent making money to buy fuel. You would only get to fly a couple times a month at most, and your plane would even be in the shop a lot. You would be managing your flight certification credits more than your air traffic control, and you would have a pretty limited set of destinations.
In Flight Simulator, you can fly any plane, from anywhere to anywhere, the plane always works (unless you ask for it to not work), you get to decide how bad (aka, "exciting") the weather is, and the fuel is effectively free. You get to spend all of your time doing the parts that are thrilling, challenging, and engaging.
The closest you can get to this experience in the real world is flying commercially, whether for a large airline (in which case you do get to fly large aircraft--which is both interesting and boring--but mostly in good weather on someone else's schedule) or you start your own small business flying people around (in which case we would expect a bunch of sales and accounting hours).
Getting your License requires a significant money and time investment. The kind of investment that a significant amount of people cannot make. Meanwhile FSX is under 20 dollars and runs on a laptop from 2007, which a nice joystick costing about 30 dollars. It even lets you turn down the simulation-ness, if you just want to play around instead of follow checklists.
> In the old Falcon 4, there was a large manual that one required just to operate the radar screens. and folks would learn them .
I still have it around... in the preface, one of the lead game designers (IIRC) tells the story of how he went up a twin-seat F-16 with a pilot who was consulting for the game, who in mid-air proceed to let the guy fly the bird... and actually, he did pretty well!
This is why I qualified my statement with "usually." The other use for games for practicing real skills. Flight simulators are a great example of this, as the best ones actually count as credit towards a pilot license. The joy of these sorts of games is the same as playing with music synthesizers, or some new complicated software, or building a side-project, or studying math.
Pushing a button to get a drip of dopamine doesn't qualify for this category either.
It's expanded pretty far outside those realms already. Aside from the obvious ones like The Sims, Sim City, Roller Coaster Tycoon etc, sports simulators are huge (FIFA, Madden, Football Manager), cooking/retail simulators are big business on consoles and especially as mobile games (https://www.tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/628-best-mobile-...), Euro Truck Driver and a million variations are making plenty of money, and I just came across Farming Simulator 17 - https://www.humblebundle.com/store/farming-simulator-17
"Life" is not classified as a proper game because of a very unfortunate combination of gameplay mechanics - it has permadeath, suffering (unheard of in pretty much any other game), lots of grinding, and it's very unbalanced. Any one of these alone is OK, but taken together, they make for a shitty, and ultimately one-time experience.
In something newer like the DCS series each aircraft has rows of knobs - that represent reality as closely as possible. Of course you can expand Simulation to all sorts of domains. e.g. for tanks Steel Beasts is almost a game in the proper sense, but quite simulation influenced (actual militaries use it to train tank teams).
Finally, why restrict yourself to avation/military... you could truly attempt simulate any experience. essentially, you would de-gamify it.
i think the core values of simulation are free-form structure, customization, exploration, experimentation.
Are engaging with these sims "fun"? I dont' know, but folks sure seem to spend a lot of time "playing" them. They must be getting something out of it.
I'm interested how far you could take this, how far you could expand into something engaging that not along the well-trodden path of flight/military/car stuff.