Forio's Forum

Having been run nearly 25,000 times, the Near Beer Game is one of the most popular simulation in the Forio Simulate community.  It’s called the Near Beer Game because, although it’s not identical to the original Beer Game developed at MIT, it teaches many of the same lessons. It also teaches one extra lesson not in the original game: even with perfect information, even when there are no breakdowns in communication, you’ll still feel the bullwhip effect due to procurement and manufacturing delays. See what all the excitement is about by playing the game for yourself at http://forio.com/simulate/mbean/near-beer-game .

Regular visitors to this once-active blog may have noticed a distressing absence of posts this year.  Strong client demand and rapid organizational growth have consumed the time of primary contributors (and Forio founders) Michael and Will.  Recent visitors will have noticed that something’s been afoot, however.  Layouts have changed.  That’s because we are relaunching Forio’s Forum!

In the weeks ahead, look for stories from the field: examples pulled from established Forio clients as well as from more recent additions to the Forio fold.  Look for advice on simulation development from our rapidly growing team of modelers, developers and designers. Look for entries from a wide array of characters: we’ll be asking  our friends and colleagues across the system dynamics, computer modeling and simulation communities to share their insights.  Look for examples by and interviews with Forio Simulate authors: from the prolific to the profound, we are proud to host such an amazing community of simulation model builders.

Last, but not least, look for posts from Michael and Will, who have more to say than ever!

A recently declassified U.S. war simulation conducted in 1999 by U.S. Central Command to explore post-occupation Iraq scenarios illustrates the use of war gaming within the U.S. government. The formerly secret simulation, called Desert Crossing, included 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence participants who role-played for the exercise.

The simulation and seminar was essentially a change management workshop designed to minimize undesireable effects in a post-Saddam Iraq. The simulation relied on a series of descriptive worst-case and most-likely-case scenarios that were intended to be plausible, not predictive, and to present a range of possible events that would allow participants to explore and develop issues and requirements in a not for attribution, risk-free environment.

Teams were divided into Interagency Deputies (Blue Team), Iraq (Red Team), and Coalition Countries (Green Team). The simulation was organized into four rounds. During each round, the Blue Team was required to define issues facing the U.S. and how they believed Red and Green team would respond to their decisions.

Some of the conclusions from the simulation exercise are similar to what actually occurred after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, including potential stability problems, reactions from coalition partners, and responses from Iran and other Arab governments.

The declassified documents can be found at the George Washington University National Security Archive. A description of the simulation design can be found in Section IV of the Desert Crossing After Action Report (PDF document) from June 28, 1999.

New Yorker reporter John Seabrook writes about Will Wright and his upcoming release of his new game, “Spore” by Electronic Arts. Seabrook provides a brief history of gaming, starting with Atari’s Pong which was developed by Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn, and advancing to “God games” such as SimCity in the late 80s. Seabrook writes:

Computer animation is a brute-force project of converting graphic art into two-dimensional pixels, and, more recently, into three-dimensional polygons, the building blocks of digital pictures. But to create a truly absorbing simulation, one that offers some insight into the nature of real life, is a much more difficult proposition. The designer must play God, or at least the notion of God in Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy — a god that can anticipate the outcome of the player’s actions and yet allows the player the feeling of free will.

For us, the most surprising feature of Will Wright’s Spore is that, unlike World of Warcraft, it isn’t a multiplayer game. Will Wright describes Spore as a “massively parallel single-player game.” While you are connected online, Spore servers will pollinate your copy of the game with content created by other players, but you never compete directly with other players.

If you haven’t seen Spore yet, you can watch this demonstration on YouTube.

Electronic Arts anticipates that Spore will be released in 2007.