The Humanizing Power of Numbers

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By Grayson Davis

Wednesday, 03 March 2010

People, as a rule, don’t like to be defined by numbers. We don’t like to be categorized, weighed, graded, and otherwise broken down into discrete quantities. The idea that we’re just a social security number or a bank account or number 26 in line at the deli is dehumanizing. The same ideas hold true in fiction: we like our characters to feel real, to feel rounded. If a character is defined only across some binary spectrum – good or evil, for instance – then we say that character is shallow, isn’t very human.

Management simulation games, also as a rule, define people solely by numbers. In SimCity or RollerCoaster Tycoon, you don’t care about individuals except as variables (if indeed you are actually dealing with individuals, and not generalized groups of people). If the visitors to your theme park want a certain “excitement rating” in their rides, then you will build your rides according to that rating, and as a result their “happiness rating” will go up, and they will spend more money. All of those very real social concepts are broken down into equations, and we, as players, assume a ruthlessly corporate attitude in our exploitation of those concepts.

Tropico 3, despite being a management sim, pulls the focus towards people – and not just people, but individuals. The economy of your island is almost entirely a function of the satisfaction of individuals and factions, as opposed to generalized and abstract economic factors. Every inhabitant of the island of Tropico has a name, a job, an education, a faction, and a range of satisfaction metrics. If their housing quality is poor, or their religious needs are not met, then people will protest or possibly violently rebel. Virtually all of the actions you take in the game are designed to influence those satisfaction metrics, and your actions are often targeted at specific factions or even individuals. You’re really a manager of people and less a manager of infrastructure, and the end result is a surprisingly humanized game – despite the fact that you know your citizens exclusively through numbers, and you know with mathematical precision how to influence them. Your citizens are not even terribly expressive, and in fact are visually homogenous.

So why does Tropico feel so human while other management games, even other quite good games, don’t? To some degree we can credit fairly obvious design elements. If you exercise your dictatorial powers to assassinate a faction leader, then the game, despite its macro goals of establishing a thriving economy, focuses in on the individual, on the human. If you build a church in response in demands from the religious faction, then you are appeasing a specific group of people composed of specific individuals. But I don’t believe these elements are sufficient to explain the game’s humanity, as I can point to other management games where you deal specifically with people as well that don’t feel nearly so personal. The Movies, for instance, requires you to manage a stable of needy actors, and I found that process frustrating and unengaging. In Tropico, though, I think twice before performing corrupt or dictatorial acts – even if I can get away with them – and more strongly consider the personal desires of my citizens.

Above all else, I think the game’s humanity comes from its thorough “dehumanization” of a wide range of social and personal needs. Everything from food to religion to housing to education is condensed in a simple chart. As an island dictator, we can issue edicts which have specific numerical effects. By drastically simplifying these complex issues, but still remaining focused squarely on individuals, the game implicitly raises questions about how complex these issues really are. After all, we generally consider religion and education more nuanced social issues than, say, how we spend our leisure time. But Tropico (which is drippingly satiric) challenges those ideas. The religious needs of your populace are as simple to satisfy as their desire to visit a pub at night: build a church, hire some priests. Problem solved. From an individual perspective, this seems inadequate; but from the perspective of a Caribbean dictator, this makes perfect sense. It feels realistic. We are transparently manipulating our citizens, but if we actually lived on Tropico, would we feel manipulated? Or are our own desires as simple as some “happiness rating?” We would like to say no, but your citizens’ behavior in Tropico never feels wrong or unreal. They never feel inhuman, despite how “inhumanly” the game portrays them.

If games can make an argument, then Tropico argues that our deepest concerns are simple to satisfy and easy to manipulate. Tropico takes those concerns, trivializes them, and ignores everything else – and yet I can’t help but feel a twinge of regret when I fix an election, or issue an edict that deprives my citizens of their “liberty rating,” because I share the same concerns and worries that my citizens do. Tropico may dehumanize its citizens, but in doing so asks me how human they were to begin with. If a Tropican behaves exactly like they would “in real life,” then has Tropico really dehumanized them at all? That, I think, is the humanizing power of these games. By defining people by numbers, these games make implicit (or sometimes explicit) arguments about human behavior. When a simulation game achieves something like reality, then we can’t help but feel attached to our virtual citizens, no matter how abstract they might be, because the game has managed to ruthlessly simplify and lay bare what we care about the most.

Tropico is hardly the first game to deconstruct social behavior with a mathematical, systemic approach. The Sims is, of course, the most prominent example. But I think Tropico is noteworthy for deconstructing social behavior without dehumanizing it. It does not feel aloof like so many other management sims, even though the game’s dictatorial premise practically begs you to manipulate and coerce your citizens like the weak little people they are. The game’s status as a strategy game further distinguishes it. While The Sims numeralizes social behavior, its status as a sandbox game prevents it from making too fine a point on that behavior. The Sims is a curiosity, and an intriguing one, but still just a curiosity. Tropico, however, puts a much finer point on those numbers. You need to think about those numbers and how to exploit and manipulate them, because that’s the point of the game. And while other management sims focus on thematically specific behavior (The Movies requires you to manage an actor’s alcoholism, and RollerCoaster Tycoon cares more about queasiness than religion), Tropico doesn’t shy away from giving its fake people real concerns.

Perhaps the designers of Tropico could have further individualized their virtual citizens in ways we typically see in games. Perhaps, like the citizens of Grand Theft Auto, Tropicans could have a greater variety of appearances. Perhaps they could stop to chat on the street. But I don’t feel like the average citizen of Grand Theft Auto feels any more real than the average Tropican. Both games achieve a certain level of humanity in different ways. Grand Theft Auto relies on tricks of presentation – simulated “real” behavior – while Tropico relies on something more tangible. While we may not like to be defined by numbers, the success of simulation games (especially across demographics) shows us that we find something meaningful and maybe vulnerable in them.