Tackling the Metaphor-Simulation Dilemma

Sebastian Möring's "Tackling the Metaphor-Simulation Dilemma" addresses a persistent puzzle in game studies: the terms "metaphor" and "simulation" are frequently invoked together and often defined in strikingly similar ways, raising the question of whether one is superfluous. The paper surveys classic metaphor theories, including substitution, comparison, interaction, and Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphor, alongside competing accounts of games from Chris Crawford, who places them on a continuum from realistic simulation to pure metaphor, and from Salen and Zimmerman, who argue that all games simulate something and that simulations can operate metaphorically.

The central argument is that the distinction between metaphor and simulation in game studies is largely illusory. Examples commonly cited as metaphorical, such as the serve mechanic in Top Spin or the puzzle duels in Puzzle Pirates, can equally be read as simulations, since all simulations are stylized, simplified, and abstracted. Because abstraction cannot cleanly separate the two categories, the author frames a "metaphor-simulation dilemma" and proposes a way forward.

That proposal holds that simulations are best understood as metonyms, and more precisely as synecdoches, in which a selected part stands for a whole drawn from a single conceptual domain. Sim City serves as the illustrative case, tracing a chain from real-world urban dynamics to Forrester's system model, to Will Wright's implementation, to the player's mental model. The paper critiques Peircean and Frasca/Bogost/Begy/Gregersen accounts that tie simulation to similarity or interpreter perception, arguing these criteria offer no objective threshold for separating simulation from metaphor. Metaphor enters only when two distinct conceptual domains are combined, as in playing football under chess rules.