Gaming and simulation mean different things to different people. Currently there exist separate schools of individuals working on interrelated but basically different areas. Each have their own special goals and terminology. Yet there is a sufficient overlap among them that it is important to clarify the common and different interests and terminology.
The general topic of gaming is ripe for an examination to see to what extent there exists a basic methodology and theory of gaming. This paper addresses itself, in part to this problem. Different types of games and different purposes are discussed. It is stressed that there is not one validation problem but many validation and specification problems which must be addressed if professional standards are to be attained.