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- IDA endorses the Derby House Principles on diversity and inclusion in professional wargaming
- But we don’t treat women or minorities any different here!
- Wong and Heath: Is the (US) Department of Defense making enough progress in wargaming?
- Army University wargaming tournament, 15 March
- Simulation and gaming publications, January-February 2021
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- Liberating Mosul (solo edition)
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- Government Matters: Wong on wargaming at the Department of Defense
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- But we don’t treat women or minorities any different here!
- Connections: on the power of empathy
- Sepinsky: Rigorous wargames vs effective wargaming
- Teaching international relations through popular games, culture and simulations (Part 1)
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Streisand effect. If not for Apple’s rejection of the game from the App Store, I doubt half as many people would have heard of it.
I tried the game out on my Android way back when (oddly enough, the Google Play store now says it is not compatible with my phone despite the fact that I’ve previously installed it). It leaves much to be desired as a simulation, but I think it is more important for the implications of “walled gardens” we are now seeing pop up.
Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft now all have their own major “app” markets with various restrictions. Microsoft at one point intended to make Games for Windows Live a prerequisite to installing and playing games on Windows 8, but I believe they backed away from that. Android does not require apps be installed from the Play Store, but an app not being listed in it certainly has a negative effect on its visibility to potential users. The recent SimCity debacle was the result of a game publisher attempting to assert total control over a singleplayer game (it didn’t help that the city simulation was apparently broken from the start).
Since one of the major benefits of simulations is the educational role they can play, I find the idea of software being developed under increasing restrictions to be very troubling. In this case, I’m sure Apple had no ideological stance on the developer’s representation of the Syrian conflict, but it sets a creeping precedent for companies to stifle simulations they disagree with.
I just saw this at the Game The News website. Love the Orwellian references. Don’t you know we’ve always been at war with Eurasia?
These games seem a bit superficial but at any rate they do spur interest in the topic. Interesting comment on using videogames to augment journalism by Sean Holman (one of the best political journalists in BC) here: http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2013/03/22/Video-Game-Journalism