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NASA's Educational Game Proposal Deadline Extended

Posted by timothy on Thu May 29, 2008 04:46 PM
from the there-must-be-lasers dept.
Education NASA Space Entertainment Games Science
NASA MMO Team writes "Due to the additional time required to respond to the number of questions that were raised during the NASA Massively Multiplayer Online Educational Game RFP Briefing held on April 21, 2008 in Baltimore, MD, we have decided to extend the RFP Proposal response date to Monday, July 21, 2008 at 12:00 midnight EDT. ... Please contact the NASA Learning Technologies Project Office at mmo@nasa.gov with any additional questions." (NASA has set up a site with additional information on the NASA MMO Education Game project, too.)
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[+] NASA Wants its MMO Created for Free 217 comments
fyc writes "It seems that the educational MMORPG NASA's proposing will no longer have a budget of $3 million. Instead, any prospective development partner is being asked to create and maintain the MMORPG for free under a 'non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement'. It won't be a one-sided agreement, though. From NASA's RFP: 'In exchange for a collaborator's investment to create and manage a NASA-based MMO game for fun and to enhance STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics], NASA will consider negotiating brand placement, limited exclusivity and other opportunities.'"
[+] NASA Responds To MMO Concerns 91 comments
Sean Hollister writes "GameCyte contacted Daniel Laughlin, Project Manager of NASA Learning Technologies, to find out where that $3 million budget for their educational MMO actually went. As it turns out, NASA still has the money — they are just planning to use it differently than we thought. Meanwhile, the 'non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement' actually allows the game developer to profit where they might not have, otherwise. 'If it were a government contract, it would be illegal to be paid twice, once by the government and a second time by consumers.'"
Firehose:NASA MMO Educational Game RFP Response Deadline Ex by Anonymous Coward
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NASA's Educational Game Proposal Deadline Extended 17 Comments More /

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  • Nobody applied (Score:4, Informative)

    by CogDissident (951207) on Thursday May 29 2008, @04:53PM (#23591989)
    Well, NASA is requiring that people build an MMORPG and be unable to sell it. And the reward for the people making it? You get "limited brand placement".

    So, you get to make a game to popularize NASA, but you can't sell it, and you can only make money off of brand placement. Oh, and it gets better. You also have to stick to deadlines that NASA sets, and the entire end product is subject to their approval.

    I can't imagine why there are not hundreds of companies applying to give all of their development time to a project that will make almost no return on investment. Investors love giving away money for free based on vague promises and loss of control of their own product!

    • Re:Nobody applied (Score:4, Informative)

      by everphilski (877346) on Thursday May 29 2008, @05:13PM (#23592243) Journal
      No, you are not getting paid to build a MMO that you can re-sell **to other customers**. That's the key behind the non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement (NRSAA). Namely, you get to keep what you make and you can re-sell it. If NASA was paying for it (reimbursable space act agreement), you'd owe them a deliverable that would become their property, and you would have no further profitability off of the MMO. But under the NRSAA, you get to keep the property you developed, and you can utilize it to profit in other areas.

      So you could either use an existing in-house framework, or build up a new framework for this Nasa MMO, and then profit by creating a new MMO or selling a MMO toolkit. There are paths to profitability, they aren't extremely clear, but chances are if you do a good job you can make more than the $3M they initially put up anyways...
        • That's a somewhat pessimistic view, sure.

          A slightly more optomisitic view is "gee, there's no transfer of money, but we do get X thousand hours of free NASA employee labor, and we can advertise that our framework is running the game ... so while we're focusing on our commercial game, we can crank this out for the free labor and the advertising potential while our main goal remains Y..."
      • You are mostly correct. In the fact that if you were to create this MMO you do get to keep it and try to sell and profit off of it. Although what they mean by non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement is that (get this) you don't have to pay them. Where as a Reimbursable SAA means that you would have to pay them for the time they spend. Such as if they had a subject matter expert on laungh trajectories or something you would need to pay for his time if you needed to have him help with something. I was at the

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Nasajin (967925)
      1. expend thousands of man-hours on creating MMORPG 2. give MMORPG to NASA 3. ??? 4. !profit

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not only did noone serious apply with the mmorpg.
      Noone serious replied to the Slashdot post.
  • Now we may never know if ants can be trained to sort tiny screws in space.
  • Simple. CCP should be all over this.

    Add the known stars in the Milky Way and known exoplanets, our solar system into this different version of EVE Online, and add the simulation of orbital mechanics to the whole lot, as well as the ability to simulate surface landings and you're done.

    Hey CCP! Send me a copy of yer source so I can mod it for NASA's use. I'll mention you guys in the credits...

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by varcher75 (800974)
      Given the "realistic" requirements, an EvE game (minus the PeeVeePee, since that would be unpalatable to the Gov.) wouldn't work.

      What you can imagine is however a kind of simulation of some "near future" solar system. Kids (since that's aimed at kids and youngsters, remember) can pursue all kind of professions, and navigate around the system up to the Oort Cloud, specialise in pseudo-engineering (improving efficiency of designs of all kind of modular stuff), space industry (production of the aforemention
    • And, of course, everyone starts out by harvesting the moon for resources...
  • All the ideas I've heard for this game involve it being similar to Eve. My idea is to go a different direction: make this game a simulation of starting a space colony.

    When players sign up, they get to choose what colony they join. Each colony would be on some sort of planet -- maybe one would be Mars-based, one based on Venus, one Earth-like, etc. Maybe they have some sort of profession, too. The gameplay would be similar to A Tale in the Desert (note: I've never played that game, so I'm basing this on what
  • The mmo@nasa.gov email address is incorrect. Questions should go to daniel.d.laughlin@nasa.gov. The other address does not exist.
  • Check out the attendance list from their conference.. I'm sure they will have plenty of applications judging by the interest shown there. Don't get me wrong, not being able to recieve funding from NASA may disinterest some parties, but still.. Also, did you examine the RFP requirements? Lots to fill in there considering potential applicants have only had a month since the conference... As for gamestyle ideas, I may hang myself if someone suggests "EVE-style" yet again. Firstly, CCP will have no intere
  • There was a lot of interest in this MMO project because of the positive karma associated with NASA -- there are a LOT of space program fans in the game industry. Unfortunately the great deal of interest and outpouring of support from the development community seems to have convinced NASA they don't need to pay for quality product.

    There is no professional company who is going to deliver professional product without getting paid. What they are looking at now is the amateur market, unless someone with spare bu

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