Academic Games Are No Fun

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Academics have been flocking to use virtual worlds and multiplayer games as ways to research everything from economics to epidemiology and turn these environments into educational tools. A game called Arden, the World of Shakespeare, funded with a $250,000 MacArthur Foundation grant and developed at Indiana University was supposed to test economic theories by manipulating the rules of the game. There's only one problem. "It's no fun, " says Edward Castronova, Arden's creator and an associate professor of telecommunications at the university. "You need puzzles and monsters," he says, "or people won't want to play ... Since what I really need is a world with lots of players in it for me to run experiments on, I decided I needed a completely different approach." Part of the problem is it costs a lot to build a new multiplayer game. While his grant was large for the field of humanities, it was a drop in the bucket compared with the roughly $75 million that goes into developing something on the scale of World of Warcraft. Castronova is releasing Arden to the public as is and says his experience should serve as a warning for other academics. "What we've really learned is, you've got to start with a game first," Castronova says. "You just have to." The new version is titled Arden II: London Burning."

Why use money?

[suso]

If there is one thing I've seen on The Linux Games Tome [happypenguin.org], its that it only takes a few people to build a MMORPG. If anything, they should just use the quarter of a million to mobilize some open source programmers around a game that is open source.

Requires Neverwinter Nights

[snarfies]

I see Arden is just yet another module for Neverwinter Nights. And so long as I need to have THAT installed to play Arden, why don't I just, like, put on my robe and wizard hat and play the main campaign? Of COURSE people don't want your module - you've lashed it to something that's far more compelling.

Shoulda learned from real MMORPGs

[faloi]

World of Warcraft is the biggest name out there precisely because it is fun for a lot of people with multiple playing styles. How many games that either weren't fun at all, or only fun for a small subset of a potential player base have gone by the wayside in recent years? There's still something to be said about gabbing a niche for a player base, but the game has to be fun to attract enough people to keep it going. Once the game stops being fun, the only thing to keep it going is the sense of community with the people you're playing with. Once that's gone, people move on.

Huh?

[r_jensen11]

I remember plenty of fun, academic games that I used to play.

Number Munchers, Super Number Munchers, Donald Duck's Playground, Oregon Trail, Oregon Trial 2, anything involving Sesame Street.

Of course, it's easier to make educational games for children. Part of the reason is that even if they don't know how to play the game as it was intended, they'll play it a different way. I suppose this is also mimicked by adults with Grand Theft Auto, but then again, adults aren't learning much other than the various ways of killing prostitutes.

Don't hurt me.

[Shivetya]

but it only takes a few people to make a MMORPG only a few people will ever want to play.

Considering all the angst displayed here when World of Warcraft is mentioned there should be no shortage in OS programmers creating new and great MMORPGs to bring down the evil and all so boring and all so many people are leaving and etc etc World of Warcraft.

But there isn't.

The problem in crafting a MMORPG is that it takes a long long time. I can find any number of people "with great ideas for a MMORPG" I just cannot find anyone who is a. willing to expend the real time it will take, b. compromise with others, c. just be available for group meetings, and d. willing to code the grunt side of the setup.

Hell this guy is just making a module for NWN or such... all the ugly stuff most programmers hate is provided (art work etc)

The days of just tossing out something (laughable anyone think a MMORPG can be made quickly - even muds took time to evolve beyond copies of diku)

You need puzzles and monsters?

[weave]

"You need puzzles and monsters" eh? Explain Second Life then.

I don't "get it" (SL) and actually remarked to a co-worker after trying it for a while that it wasn't any fun because you don't kill anything, but lots of people spend a lot of time there.

Re:Don't hurt me.

[UbuntuDupe]

The problem in crafting a MMORPG is that it takes a long long time.

True, but that's mainly because of one time-consuming thing you didn't list: building up the user base and getting them to stay there, so that the network effects take off. (The feeling that they're being toyed with isn't good for that.)

I was rather unsatisfied with the claims in the summary: A MMORPG needs puzzles and monsters? What about Second Life and Club Penguin? And why is it so hard to add them? $250,000 is quite a lot if you think in terms of "how much you'd have to pay five geeks to set up a vitrual world in a month".

Convincing people to come can pose other problems for the economic analysis as well. The fact that people can quit any given game but not real life, can influence results.

It has to be a game first and foremost

[cliffski]

I make games, and 95% of my focus with a game is to make it fun, and entertaining, and popular. that used to be 100% of the focus until I made this [democracygame.com] which started getting enquiries from university teachers and students who wanted to integrate it into lessons. That game now has a number of site licenses for schools, and apparently goes down very well. The reason I think it works, is that ultimately, it's just a fun game. The game may make you think about the subject matter (politics) but it doesn't ram it down your throat. It's also not vaguely preachy, and basically tries to be neutral on all issues, which avoid antagonizing or irritating any of the players.

Democracy is popular enough for me to do a sequel (nearly done!), and this time round it does contain a whole bunch of real world statistics and background data (in wiki-style form) which is presented as additional (and optional) to the game itself. This is just like those historical RTS games which have a built in encyclopaedia. You can play Age Of Empires just for fun, but it you really want to find out a bit more about trebuchets, the game is happy to help.
that is as it should be. Games on interesting and intelligent topics that encourage the curious player to learn more. You should never ram the educational bit down the players throats. People play games for fun. If they want to do hardcore learning, they break out a textbook.

Re:You need puzzles and monsters?

[urbazewski]

Shakespeare's work has sprites, fairies, wizards, witches, wars, feuding street gangs, feuding royals, treachery, broken alliances, hidden identities, and yes, even a puzzle or two. There's plenty of material to create an interesting world. Then there's the amazing language games that Shakespeare plays.

This was a failure of imagination, methinks.

Re:You need puzzles and monsters?

[vorpal22]

Agreed. Anyone remember M.U.L.E. [wikipedia.org], which was essentially a simulation of economics? It was, IMO, quite possibly the best game of all time, and the one that my friends and I played the most when we were kids. I bought a C64 emulator just to relive the memories.

Not a single puzzle or monster in it (well, the wampus, but chasing a black dot through mountains hardly qualifies as a real monster :D).

Re:Things need correct focus

[AmberBlackCat]

I think the guy needs to try to get professors from other colleges to encourage their students to play the game and use what they've learned from the game in their classes. Maybe if they get a grade for it, they'll be more likely to do it.