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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ourchair" data-source="post: 5464555" data-attributes="member: 85362">I am sick and my ears are clogged to high hell, so it is difficult for me to articulate my response, so allow me to make a partial response until I can get back to it:The fun vs. realism dichotomy is a false dichotomy IMHO.It assumes that insofar as design is concerned, realism is a rigid concept rather than a fluid one. That X amount of TOTAL reality must be abstracted to ensure that it does not get in the way of fun.The truth is that what is necessary is to determine which aspects of reality is the FOCUS of the game, before one can determine what needs to be realistic or not.Games are not designed around 'reality emulation' vs. 'mechanically sound design', rather they are about emulating a very particular subset of reality in a mechanically sound fashion to ensure fun.For example, Civilization II does not take into consideration notions of forced labor, subjugation of native peoples or civil liberties under Communism, and The Sims abstracts a lot of real-life economic considerations by translating them into the costs of objects. Both design choices are deliberate not because 'reality' got in the way of 'fun' but because they strip variables that add no value to what 'subset of reality' the game is trying to represent.</blockquote>