The Real Deal in Computer Gaming
Ferry Zuiderwijk is still too young to be a commercial pilot or to hold an MBA. But at age 17, he knows how to keep the nose up while running a sizable airline.
The resident of Wateringen, Netherlands, earned his flight stripes playing “Airline Tycoon,” a computer simulation game that subjects users to the hassles of federal regulators, crafty equipment dealers and surly passengers.
He has grown his virtual company from a one-route, one-plane local hop to a transoceanic juggernaut with hundreds of daily flights from Los Angeles to San Juan to La Paz.
“It’s cool when something works out good--like planning the flights and earning big money with it and seeing your customers very happy,” he said.
Simulation games--once the realm of joysticks and quick reflexes--are moving into new territory. Game players now can run theme parks, make Wall Street deals or operate a working farm, all without leaving their living room.
Bruce Pulver, a Virginia Beach, Va., musician, has played dozens of different “sims,” from CitySim to Roller Coaster Tycoon. He’s a reviewer for Games Domain, a dot-com community of game players, and has a theory about their growing popularity.
“Games like these allow you to become anything you want to be, which is, in many ways, quite empowering,” he said.
‘There Will Be a Sim for Everyone’
P.J. McNealy, a senior analyst with Gartner Group in San Jose, Calif., said simulators are changing because players are demanding more realism.
That desire, coupled with home PCs with more memory and graphics capability, have spawned feature-rich games, including “The Sims,” a game where players control an entire family.
He said these simulations appeal to older players because they require more sophisticated strategizing and thought than the rapid-fire games like Quake and Duke Nukem. And the sims offer a chance to test one’s entrepreneurial savvy without putting real money on the line.
“Airline Tycoon,” designed and marketed by Monte Cristo Games of Paris, has been a modest success, selling more than 150,000 copies in the last 16 months.
Jean-Marc de Fety, co-president of Monte Cristo, said realism is an important part of the new breed of sims.
De Fety, a former vice president with Credit Suisse First Boston, and co-founder Jean Christophe Marquis, a corporate lawyer, have parlayed their financial market experiences into games. Another of their products, Start-Up 2000, lets players guide a company from birth to initial public offering, provided they make the right calls along the way.
“You have to design your product, hire your people and manage your finances,” de Fety said. “The advantage is that you can do it without the risk, unlike the real thing.”
McNealy says games that simulate business and markets can be realistic training grounds for companies.
“Hopefully, there won’t be a downsizing sim,” he quipped.
Monte Cristo targets business schools for its games, as well as computer gamers. One of its first games, “Wall Street Trader,” is still used by the French Ministry of Education for teaching purposes.
“These games are all about living vicariously through the virtual world of our computers. After all, we are not all suited to be Wall Street power brokers,” said Pulver, the game tester.
McNealy said many companies--from aerospace to management firms--could likely start using simulations to enhance their own training efforts and offer virtual experience for would-be executives and managers.
Zuiderwijk said sims will likely appeal to him and his friends through the years because of their flexibility.
“There are so many options for sims that you only have to find out a good idea,” he said. “There will be a sim for everyone.”
But Pulver said the genre could go too far.
“My only concern is that there may come a point when games mirror real life so precisely that they are no longer fun to play,” he said. “Games need to be a pleasant diversion from everyday life. I fail to see any attraction in sitting down at your computer after doing a load of laundry to play a game that simulates doing the laundry.”
