3 replies to this topic

[A941]

Millions of People play RPGs, Ego-shooters, RTS games etc. every day, couldn't this be used for research purposes?

For example :In WoW we had the Corrupted Blood Glitch which lead to a Pandemic in this virtual Environment and the data was analyzed to learn more about how disease spread, interesting i think.

Could we create Games that could gather Data about the ways people solve problems more effectively than we allready do with protein folding games, use the accumulated brainpower of millions of players, or make games that could help us predict human behavior (test Escape routes, find effectiv evacuation routes etc.)?

What do you think?

[Lister]

I remember that Corrupted Blood glitch back in Classic WoW (Sub Lv60). Since the inception of rich video game content (around the start of EQ, Counter Strike, even before that to text RPG’s) there’s been a push to try and figure out how to monetize gaming populations. The invention in diablo of auction houses which allow you to sell in game items for real money is great! However the real challenge is as you said, finding a way to take the minds and actions of the gamer and turn that into something productive.

I thought it would be interesting to break down protein folding into a logic problem which can be solved to get experience in game. Though how much of a logic problem are present games? In WoW you’re given a quest and then sent to kill X monsters to get Y collectables or just simply to kill them. Is that really enough to build in viable productive capacity?

If you made a game to music like Dance Dance Revolution you could theoretically build in logic problems. Use dancing or beat maneuvers to implement calculations… Something like, dark and light colours representing 1’s and 0’s built in very simple math terms – and have a computer check of a half or a quarter of the solutions the player creates. Then add in faster music the faster you go; score multipliers; accuracy multipliers; BANG – monetized. Problem is though is the player going to be able to do any more work any faster than present day cell phone SoC (System on a Chip)? You could train players to a point where at the highest levels they’re producing huge amounts of results however are those results going to be worth anything?

Ultimately you need to build a game which uses real life scientific information as items, monsters, quest objectives – and educate the player through that so they can develop scientific results on a very specific field…

It’s a tough one I tell ya! But whoever solves it will have a video game to trump all video games. Famous gamer saying: "If I could earn a salary playing this game I'd quit my job tomorrow!"

[A941]

I think there are a few ways to use games

-"Training" a certain Software with the best ways gamers did to solve a problem for further application
-Just collect and review Data generated by the gamers
-Let them do the research by themselves, every problem is given to multiple people to work on, choose the best for testing "in vivo"
(no further ideas here... at least by me)

So the best solution would be to create a platform which would enable us to connect all these ideas in a singel social research mmog which could be feed and adapted to additional "kinds and fields of research", store and interlink generated data, give more control to experienced/effective players (evolution of the fittest :-)), and be fun to play.

So that the store-and-interlink-data-part may work the game would need a set of tools for simulation, categorization, annotation(with higer levels), and a rated Help-system (which will let you level up faster).


I think this could be made with a couple of interested people and experts in these fields, unfortunately this isnt getting that much attention here.

At the moment Iam trying to make a Forum/CMS to cover these neglected fields, unfortunately I dislike drupal and my own attempts to make something better from parts (playing Frankenstein) may just have generated code which will clog the net more then be of any use.
Ill do my best to get that running in one or the other shape, but i hope some one else reads this and decides to post in this thread so that this could start on a small scale (at the moment).

[Danail Bulgaria]

The game may use background processes, which do not interfere with the game.

 

The game is just a software, like any other software and it may do many things without showing it on the screen and interfereing with the picture or sound without the user even to understand, that the software has done these things.

 

While the player playing the game, the software may be using the processor power and the RAM memory working on something else completely different from the game.

There were software projects, which combine the unused processor power of many computers and turn it into one supercomputer, which may do different tasks. I am not sure if the @FoldingHome is something simmilar.

 

What comes to my mind is:

 

- You may create simply an all purpose supercomputer, which to be used anywhere when biological scinece needs a supercomputer.

 

- Another idea is that supercomputer to mine cryptocurrencies for the development of the science. The last idea sounds great, but it actually isn't that great, because today even a supercomputer will mine too low amount of cryptos. Doing a particular task is the better.

 

- A combined supercomputer to be used for sequencing. The raw data received from the most contemporary DNA sequencing machines require a supercomputer to analyze and link them like in a huge puzzle of billions of segments. Making thousands of computers to work for that as one, as a single supercomputer may drop the cost of the DNA sequencing. That is something for which many in this forum dream about.

 

I think, that Whatever you do, you have to cleary point that out to the people, who will play the free game, otherwise you may be breaking some of the laws.

 

Edited by Danail Bulgaria, 11 April 2024 - 07:39 PM.