The term “wargaming” is problematic for people running and selling business games, as it can bring up connotations with purely military simulations, or to recreational games such as Warhammer. Therefore I’ve compiled a list of synonyms I’ve heard used, some idea of what they imply about the format to be used, and a credit where I’ve remembered to put this in.
Please note:
- this is an informal list I’m putting together so that I can refer to it in future, do start your own if you’d like to take a different angle on this.
- the source of the term is a credit to where I heard the term, rather than an authoritative originator of the term.
- submissions to this page will not be accepted.
- this is a curated rather than comprehensive list, entries will be dropped if the page is too long, or on a whim.
In a seminar run by Stone Paper Scissors, John Mizon shared a particularly good definition: “a serious game is any game we run for a professional purpose”, where the lessons learned during the game are expected to feed into further processes. I’m paraphrasing, but a modified version of that definition feels useful for you to use in your marketing efforts, and to use with any of the terms listed below.
Synonyms: #
- Challenge Tools - via Rob Grayston
- Competitor Role-Playing Workshop - CRPW - Benjamin Gilad, Business War Games, pg 20
- Decision Analysis - via Frasier Patrick of i2
- Decision Rehearsal
- Dynamic Exercise - Rob Grayston
- Dynamic Wargaming - James Bennett
- Experiential Decision Making
- Experiential Learning - James Bore
- Fire Gaming - Christopher Hands, Fire Officer at West Midlands Fire Service
- Flight Simulations - Crisis Games’ description of their service, which I think fits into my definition of “wargaming”.
- Functional Exercise - from this piece to differentiate a practical test of whether something works from the more traditional, linear, and pre-planned tabletop exercises.
- Games with Purpose - Derek Ricke
- “gym for the mind” - Demis Hassabis, cofounder of DeepMind
- Leadership Training - Nathan Charlish
- Immersive Exercise
- Iterations of Rivals Strategies - IRS - Benjamin Gilad, Business War Games, pg 20
- Iterative Wargaming
- Live-play Exercise - although from a reference by Plan B Consulting, definitions between the Cabinet Office and NCSC in the UK differ. And some definitions expect this to include a real world simulation of events in situ, such as a train crash.
- Mock Scenario
- Opposed Decision Making - Brant Gullory’s definition I heard at Connections Online 2022.
- Plan Walkthrough - this is specifically listed here as I’d say it’s not a wargame, and fits in with the military “Rehearsal of Concept”. Inspired by reading this.
- Professional Games - I like an overall term rather than Business Games or Serious Games, but it does imply that games for recreation or entertainment are “amateur”, which is clearly not the case.
- Scenario exercise with a red team - taken from this article by Evocatus Consulting. Knowing their managing director, Ant Sharman, on the one hand I’m a little “you can use the W word Ant” … but on the other, where a reader may see wargaming as “Warhammer 40K”, this is a nice extention of the existing term “exercise”.
- Serious Games - a common term but denigrates the benefits of engagement, or even “fun”
- Serious Play and Serious Games for Serious People - Sqn Leader Nige Furlong
- SIMEX - SIMulation EXercise, team members will be replicating their real world roles and responsibilities in a facilitated exercise simulating a cyber incident scenario, information is distributed realistically rather than universally, activities and decisions happen in close to real-time, taken from this blog post by Plan B Consulting.
- Social Simulations - I believe this is the name of a Polish company working in the area
- Strategy Dry Run Test - SDRT - Benjamin Gilad, Business War Games, pg 20
- Strategic Immersive Simulation - “Foom” says my notes
- What Would Go Wrong Exercise - WWGWE - Benjamin Gilad, Business War Games, pg 20
