Growing Complex Games

Growing Complex Games, a 2005 DiGRA conference paper by Nicholas Glean, argues that strategy and "God" simulation games such as SimCity, Civilization, Children of the Nile, and Rome: Total War should be analyzed as complex systems using concepts drawn from complexity science. Its central thesis is that these games, though fully deterministic, generate emergent, unpredictable, and novel play patterns through interacting agents and player decisions. The paper positions such games not as accurate predictive models of real-world phenomena but as "transitional objects" that enable experimentation and reflection, and it calls for games studies to move beyond its narrow humanities-based framing toward a more multidisciplinary approach.

The argument rests on a contrast with "traditional" strategy games, whose outcomes are clear, predictable, and easily exploited. In complex games, by contrast, challenge arises from self-organization among agents following simple behavioral rules rather than from designer-scripted content. The author frames complexity in terms of inequality and heterogeneity within simulated societies, and suggests that players are rewarded for identifying underlying systemic problems and making decisions that benefit their agents, rather than for exploiting rule loopholes or assuming agents will act in the player's interest. New challenges emerge qualitatively as civilizations grow.

The paper's evidence is primarily conceptual and qualitative. It draws on examples of game marketing and reviews, which present Children of the Nile as a living city, and on an extensive reference list spanning complexity science, game studies, and play theory, including work by Axelrod, Epstein and Axtell, Holland, and Salen and Zimmerman. It presents no empirical data or quantitative findings, so its claims are best understood as an analytical framework for the field rather than as measured results.