Software priorities for classroom roleplay

Skip Cole of Sea Change Simulations is currently running an online poll that asks “What are the features of the software we need to get teachers to run role plays in their classrooms?“ So far, the top four answers (based on more than 400 replies from educators) are: Simple enough overview tutorial that newbies can understand [...]

simulations miscellany, 27 May 2012

I’ve been a bit slow posting in recent weeks, in part because I was away hanging around in Alabama bars while trying to overthrow the corrupt and dictatorial regime of “Florabama.” Under the wise leadership of opposition leader David Ortega—and with a little help from our friends—I’m pleased to say that we succeeded. As might [...]

Imagination, player engagement, and (war)gaming

Phil Sabin’s Simulating War Yahoo Group has seen a great deal of stimulating discussion in recent weeks of a range of issues relating to war-game (and, indeed, game) design. I hope to excerpt some of it here on PAXsims from time to time, both to broaden exposure to the discussion and to publicize the group [...]

A digital “banana republic” and teaching the political economy of development

For many years now, one of the assignments in my introductory course in political development at McGill has been to write a book review. Students are usually allowed to choose which book to review from among four or five possibilities. This year the choices were the World Bank’s 2011 World Development Report on conflict security [...]

Gaming urban counterinsurgency in Iraq: Fardh al-Qanoon update

Over at his Smart War Blog, graduate student Robert Hossal recently released the draft map, counter set and rules for his simulation of 2007 Baghdad Security Plan—all part of his class assignment  in Professor Philip Sabin’s well-known course on conflict simulation at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. His progress on the project is well worth following for the [...]

“Getting serious about video games”—and some caveats

Over at Tom Ricks’ “Best Defense” column at Foreign Policy magazine, Peter Bacon recently examined the possible contribution of video games to improving understanding of history and international relations, enhancing military training and preparedness, and sharpening the ability of even civilian policymakers to address key foreign policy challenges: …In the foreign policy arena, video games can [...]

simulations miscellany, New Year 2012 edition

A few recent items that may be of interest to PAXsims readers (or older items that we missed at the time): * * * Back in early December, Michael Peck had a column in the Training & Simulation Journal asking “Tools or toys? Training games are popular, but no one knows how well they work.” Important [...]

First reflections on a brown bag lunch about “gamification” with Gabe Zichermann

The Knowledge and Learning Council (KLC) here at the Bank hosted a very interesting discussion on gamification with Gabe Zichermann, author of  Game-Based Marketing  and Gamification by Design – you can see his blog here.   Gabe’s presentation was really well done and very well received.  It was mostly a Bank audience (about 60 folks), though [...]

Virtual economies and development

Over at GlobalPost today, Jeb Boone has an interesting article on how developing countries have benefited from converting “virtual economies” within massive multiplayer online games into real sources of revenue: Shouting in strange, digital languages at baleful, hyper-intelligent dragons is fun. So is clawing for a tactical edge in real-time, chess-like strategic melees. But it [...]

Prine does zombies!

Over at his website Line of Departure, investigative reporter, mil-blogger, and fashion aficionado Carl Prine has an interview with James Ian Burns (of the Dragons and Dragoons game shop in Colorado Springs) on ”the growing popularity in board games amongst the troops and defense intellectuals.” The piece is entitled “Brain-eating Xmas Zombies Attack!” because it contains some [...]

Gaming military coups

PAXsims is pleased to feature a contribution from game designer Brian Train on a political-military issue that has received relatively little attention to date from published boardgames: the military coup d’état. * * * When I was a boy, there were certain books on my father’s shelf that I found interesting, first for their covers [...]

Game plots and the global recession

  Over at the electronic gaming website Kotaku, they ask some interesting questions about whether the current global recession will increasingly feature as a plot element in computer and video games: Would you shoot someone responsible for America’s horrible housing market? Would you like to? What if you met his wife and kid first? How [...]

Do wargames glorify war?

Our recent post about the forthcoming documentary War Games helped to spark an interesting discussion on whether wargames glorify war over at BoarGameGeek. While at times the discussion conflates cardboard boardgames and the much more visual, immersive, and seemingly “realistic” genre of first-person-shooter videogames (there seems to me to be rather a difference between the two), [...]

Blog-based wargaming?

In addition to a shout-out to a very good piece by Peter Perla and Ed McGrady on Why Wargaming Works from the Summer 2011 issue of Naval War College Review, the Information Dissemination maritime strategy/strategic communications blog currently features an interesting discussion of using a blog as the basis for an online wargame/crowd-sourcing exercise. There are already [...]

History through games

Over at his blog Peasant Muse, Jeremy Antley ponders the challenges of designing a university course on “history through gaming”: What results do I wish to achieve?  I want students to be able to critically evaluate a board game, or any game derivative, looking at not only its outward theme and graphics/material pieces but also [...]