Original scientific paper
Playing the War? Civil and Military Use of Wargames
Teo Matković
Abstract
The paper discusses wargames in civillian and military usage. The development of military wargaming is reviewed since the early Prussian Kriegsspiel to the integrated computermediated wargaming. The general public started playing wargames at the beginning of the 20th century, half a century later civilian wargaming boomed and grew more elaborated, and recently made its transition to personal computers and Internet. Although all wargames fulfill most of the criteria and functions ascribed to the activity of play, military wargames lack three key characteristics: they are not free, they are not nonproductive and they are not purposeless. Hence, it would be more appropriate to understand them as technical redoings – a method of purposeful gaming in a simulated context. Wargames better the understanding of war and warfare in civilian usage as well. However, in recent years, wargames have become ever less based on history and reality of warfare, and ever more present as postmodern simulations – real virtualities.
Keywords
games; military wargames; civil wargames; history of wargames; simulation and gaming; technical redoings; real virtuality
Hrčak ID:
2778
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2003.
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