Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
self is to collect all the solutions that users can provide and to analyze them. In 2011,
The Huffington Post wrote that it just took three weeks for Foldit to solve a protein
problem of a monkey virus, a process which could not be solved by traditional meth-
ods for 15 years in a row. This is simply incredible!
The following screenshot is from a game with a purpose called EteRNA (
ht-
tp://eterna.cmu.edu/web/
)
where the process of designing RNA sequences turn into
an elegant connection puzzle:
Variousnaturalsciencetasksareusuallypresentedintheformofpuzzles.Thegame
pieces are simple and in many cases have minimalistic design, and the rules are
pretty tricky, an ideal mix! Archivist type of duties usually deal with an adventure
genre when it comes into the picture; players can be pushed to click photos of a par-
ticular location to update an image bank, add tags to improve some search engines,
test some digital solutions, and so on.
Of course, there are some disadvantages of gamification. First of all, not every activ-
ity can be easily split into abstract pieces and turned into a game. Some comprom-
ises should be made that can distort the reality giving inaccurate results. Another
weak point can be derived from the main conceptual part of the method—I'm talk-
ing about people. The user community may be disappointing. There will be a lot of
participants, but only a small number of active ones, so the overall activity can be in-
effective. Finally, there are some moral and legal aspects. Are you playing the game
with a purpose, is it a form of entertainment, or is it a form of work? In the case of
scientific projects this, undoubtedly, is some kind of volunteering. But what if in the
near future, an evil corporation creates a pretty attractive and addictive game, hiding
its true meaning? In this case, thousands of players would solve the various puzzles
without guessing that in reality, they provide employment to this evil corporation. This
could be reckoned as some form of virtual exploitation of other people's efforts and
ideas. Apparently this is a very good concept for a cyberpunk or dystopian novel.
Nevertheless, there is a strong hope that such scenarios would appear only in fic-
tion, but our everyday routine will become more vivid because of gamefication. For
