Wargaming

A wargame (also war game) is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short. When used professionally by the military to study warfare, "war game" may refer to a simple theoretical study or a full-scale military exercise. Hobby wargamers have traditionally used "wargame", while the military has generally used "war game"; this is not a hard and fast rule. Although there may be disagreements as to whether a particular game qualifies as a wargame or not, a general consensus exists that all such games must explore and represent some feature or aspect of human behaviour directly bearing on the conduct of war, even if the game subject itself does not concern organized violent conflict or warfare. The business wargames exists too, but in general they are only role playing games based on market situations.

Wargames are generally categorized as historical, hypothetical, fantasy, or science fiction. Historical games by far form the largest group. These games are based upon real events and attempt to represent a reasonable approximation of the actual forces, terrain, and other material factors faced by the actual participants. Hypothetical games are games grounded in historical fact but concern battles or conflicts that did not (or have yet to) actually happen. Fantasy and science fiction wargames either draw their inspiration from works of fiction or provide their own imaginary setting. Highly stylized conflict games such as chess are not generally considered wargames, although they are recognized as being related. Games involving conflict in other arenas than the battlefield, such as business, sports or natural environment are similarly usually excluded.

Wargaming (company)

Wargaming Public Co Ltd is an international game developer and publisher headquartered in Nicosia, Cyprus. Although its original Belarusian studio in Minsk remains an important hub and has been described as the heart of Wargaming, the company operates across 16 offices and development centres. Primarily focused on TBS and RTS games, Wargaming switched to developing free-to-play online action games in 2009, and has since become one of the leaders in the market. The company's critical and commercial success came after the launch of its first online project, the military-themed team-based game World of Tanks. Wargaming is now working on several follow-ups.

History

Wargaming was founded by Victor Kislyi in 1998 in Minsk, Belarus as a development studio creating multiplayer strategy games for PC.

The company’s first project was DBA Online—the digital version of a miniature tabletop rule set De Bellis Antiquitatis—launched in 2000.Wargaming started working on its first full-scale commercial project—the sci-fi turn-based strategy game Massive Assault—in March, 2002.