Attempts at online simulations can be traced back to a U.S. senate simulation on Prodigy in the mid-1990's, but sim history is usually traced back to the AOL Senate Sim , which was conducted purely on AOL-based message boards. However, several Internet-based simulations popped up not long afterwards.
The history of U.S. government simulations can perhaps be best divided into four eras. The first began with the founding of the AOL Senate Simulation (which lasted from July of 1998 till July of 2003, the longest of any) and other Internet-based simulations such as USGS and NGS1. NGS1 was unique in that it simulated the House of Representatives, whereas most other simulations had chosen to simulate the United States Senate. USGS was a hybrid sim that incorporates both Congressional chambers as well as State Governors and takes a more relaxed approach to rules and procedures.
The second era began with the second incarnation of National Government Simulation (NGS2), with Senate Sim developing later. NGS2 operated for several years. NGS2 was often contrasted with the Senate Sim in terms of style and demeanor.
The third era began with the collapse of Senate Sim and NGS2. NGS: America was a short-lived successor sim that attempted to fill the void unsuccessfully. The United States Senate Simulation was founded shortly after the collapse of Senate Sim.
After a period of mediocrity and a slew of short-lived and unsuccessful government sims, the fourth era began in mid-2004 with the launch of American Government Simulation (AGS) and Govsim.com (which eventually merged with the United States Government Simulation (USGS)). Both differed in several respects from the predecessors of earlier eras, with administrators having significant powers to determine election results and events, and differentiated between in-character and out-of-character actions, a distinction which previous sims had not made.
The history of International simulations does not reach back as far as those of U.S. simulations, but nonetheless there are several successful simulations of countries other than the United States. Two of the most popular ones are Politics U.K. , simulating the British Parliament, and Politics Canada , simulating the Canadian Parliament. Both similarly named games share an amicable relationship. Simulations for nations such as France and the USSR have also existed in the past, although without any major successes. Several attempts have also been made at United Nations-type simulations.
Online government simulations face some of the same problems as any online forums, such as Flame Wars , Trolls and Spam , but they also face unique problems related to their structure and goals. Some of these include:
- - In many sims the number of players in a party directly affects which parties control the simulated legislative body. Some players recruit friends and others to join games to inflate the size of their party, a strategy called '''droning'''. However, since the drones are not in the game to participate, scenarios can arise in which the majority party loses major votes. In election sims, players often stop participating if their campaigns don't succeed, making it difficult to realistically simulate important events such as endorsements.
- - Certain simulations have become notorious for banning, censoring, or otherwise muting members who are critical of the actions of Administrators. While, in even the most lenient sims, there are a few members banned in any given year for harassment and repeated offensive conduct, many simulations ban almost anyone who raises even the most minor objections to the actions of Administrators.
- - Also known as Sock Puppets or multies, cloning is an attempt by a player to use multiple accounts to inflate party size or swing a vote toward a preferred position. Cloning is considered a major breach of fairness in most sims, but the nature of an online-only forum makes clones difficult to catch and expel.
- - Many players come to government simulations to test out ideas that have not taken effect in real life, but find that longer-running sims have already diverged significantly from the real world. NGS2 suffered from several major divergence-related problems by the fall of 2002. First, legislation in many important areas (including the legalisation of gay marriage, the abolition of the death penalty, and the establishment of a universal health care system) had been passed very early in the history of the simulation (when membership was quite low) resulting in a political climate significantly different from that of the United States. Additionally, the simulation suffered from a proliferation of political parties (at one point the parties included the Republicans, Democrats, Social Democrats, Libertarians, Whigs, Greens, and White Panthers). As a result, a movement emerged to "reset" the simulation. Legislation to this effect passed the House, but was later overturned by the Supreme Court after a protracted battle. As a result, activity in the simulation virtually ceased. Newer sims have attempted ways to mitigate the problems caused by divergence: USGS runs on an accelerated time system in which the game periodically restarts after a number of game "years" have passed, while AGS has a system of "retconning" in which in-game events expire and revert to reality after roughly one year.
- - Many sims exist in a virtual "bubble" in which players are able to take any position, no matter how unrealistic or unpopular, without any consequences. Nor do they simulate the results of in-game actions that differ from real life. Of those that do, results are often generated slowly and the realism and integrity of the simulated results are often in question. Further, some admins have little or no experience with real life politics, which can lead to unrealistic consequences for in-game actions.
- - Due to the serious nature of of the sims topic (Politics) many players can feel personally hurt when an in-game event happens in which thier character is hurt by the actions of another player. This has lead to many personality conflicts, where some players 'refuse' to play a version of a game that is run by someone who they have a personal grudge towards. This has extended, in some cases, to arguments about who founded various games. Due to the large ammount of time and effort invested in many simulations, these differences are sometimes difficult to work out.
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