ABSTRACT
Games and simulations are powerful learning tools when used separately. When mixed together into a simulation/game they become powerful agents of personal damage – damaging personal relationships and reputations and causing emotional hurt and distress. Friendships can be broken, professional reputations ruined and such antagonisms can develop that some people never speak to each other again. Facilitators are not only victims but are usually bewildered victims, almost inevitably unaware of what hit them and sometimes not realizing that they have been hit. One consequence is that genuine games and genuine simulations get a bad name because of the utter confusion of terminology and methodology.
The conclusion is that simulation/games should not be used. What should be done is to (a) clarify the concepts of games and simulations to reveal their incompatibility; (b) explain this to the participants; and (c) make whatever design changes are necessary to the materials to remove inconsistencies.
