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Games Entertainment

All Aboard the Nerd Boat 105

Posted by Zonk from the cruising-for-knowledge dept.
Forbes is running an article detailing a most unusual cruise. 180 Computer Science profs were brought together on a Royal Carribean ship to talk about bringing computer games to the classroom. Despite the topic, there was a lot of serious discussion. From the article: "After Microsoft's Luehmann praised the technical sophistication of three new Xbox 360 games (Mass Effect, Too Human, and Gears of War), a silver-haired professor raised his hand and commented: 'You just showed us three very sophisticated and very violent games, and I'm sure they're good for something--though I don't really know what that is--but what I want to know is, when will you make a videogame that's really useful? When will you make a videogame that's going to teach my students chemistry?'"
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All Aboard the Nerd Boat More

All Aboard the Nerd Boat

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  • Games are traditionally something that people do in order to relax and have fun. A game that teaches chemistry? It doesn't exactly sound like something I'd want to have a multiplayer deathmatch in...

    Don't forget that videogames are a business. The developers make what the market wants (at least, that's the theory).

    Baltika
    • Why would Microsoft go on a cruise that is specifically designed to identify games as an education source, only to highlight and force-advertise their 360 lineup? It would be no less transparent if Sony showed off the latest version of GTA or if Nintendo showcased Mario 128. What do they have to gain other than a shallow attempt at advertising, and hopefully a few more consoles moved?

      That said, the prof might be a little out of his element (I have a hard time finding a "silver-haired professor" being a
      • Most of my knowledge of history has roots in my countless hours spent playing Civilization or, later on, Age of Empires and Medieval: Total War. Games that teach you things hardly have to be boring.
      • That said, the prof might be a little out of his element (I have a hard time finding a "silver-haired professor" being a gamer of any means, although that is a generalization and I could be wrong), but his question is at least somewhat valid.

        Hmmm, I regularly cross weapons with an 80-year old in an FPS game. Another player who is a regular is in his mid-50s. Heck, most of the players that I know of are in their 30s and 40s. The younger folks are just too excitable and get frustrated when their fast-t

    • What ever happened to education? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Games are traditionally something that people do in order to relax and have fun."

      No! That's ONE accepted definition of a game. A game can educate (it's called a simulation). The military uses games to educate. Same with business (what do you think simcity and the tycoon series taught?). Even healthcare uses games.

      The nice thing with most modern games is that the tools are within everyone's reach. From FUN to making a movie, everyone (with talent) can create.
      • Finally the correct reply. To teach using a simulation. Make it a reflection of a child's growth and a reflection of how their interaction with society expands as they get older. Simcity is a good basis i.e. sim-home, sim-village, sim-town and then sim-city.

        So you have the simulation as a common thread, for all the other educational concepts to form around, with this concept taken through from kidergarten through to university, with the students interaction and the degree of complexity varying as the stud

    • Fun games (Score:3, Interesting)

      by phorm ( 591458 )
      First, I'll add that to achieve a desired level of stimulation often (but not always) requires more complexity as time goes on, partly to continue being a challenge. However, I work in schools where many of the children are learning typing skills through games like "Tuxtype" and others.

      Educational games can be one of the best ways to engage young people. Taking a child that is otherwise reticent to learn and making it 'fun' will have him or her suddenly wanting to do the activity, not realizing that her o
    • Sup at least in Japan, all three of Nintendo's educational Brain Training series games have sold over 1 million units since May. Brain Training 2, released 5 weeks ago, has already sold over 1 million units. So...if educational games can work in one area of the world, they might work in others. Maybe not, but still, there's a new and powerful precedent. Not to mention, educational games are exceedingly cheap and quick to develop compared to blockbuster titles. So in terms of a business perspective, it's bla

  • Hangman (Score:2, Funny)

    by szembek ( 948327 )
    What, this guy's never played Chemistry Hangman? http://www.creative-chemistry.org.uk/funstuff/hang man/hangman.htm [creative-c...try.org.uk] I mean Come on!

  • Whoa, know what? McGyver! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Vo0k ( 760020 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @12:34PM (#14626749) Journal
    That's one helluva idea for a game.
    McGyver style.
    The new engines would finally allow for that level of sophistication.
    Create a database of 1000-2000 different chemical reactions, then give objects besides the standard "texture, lightness, weight" properties the property of chemical composition. Give player a lab to prepare stuff. Then let them loose on missions, using at first simple stuff like black powder, later play with transporting a canister of nitroglicerine across Manhattan in public transport, then do more advanced stuff, fill a building with hydrogen-oxygen mix, smuggle dissolved gold in fuel tanks, etc, all the cool stuff you can do with chemistry. :)

    Cool!
    • I can see the lawsuits already.... look at how many people sue game makers over shootings, imagine if the games showed kids how to make bombs!

      • Do what the show did (Score:4, Insightful)

        by hey! ( 33014 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @12:44PM (#14626875) Homepage Journal
        They always left or obscured out a crucial piece of the bomb recipe.

        So, the majority of users would be stuck, leaving a few of the more gifted and determined ones to work out the remaining details. Then you pray to Darwin that this minority takes reasonable precautions (your game should teach them that too).
        • Yep. Leave the burner fire 10% too strong. Boom. Load. Put the hot cyllinder on cold, wet damp metal table. The glass breaks. Boom. Load. You walk by and knock the table. The cyllinder falls. Boom. Load. You heat it too long, it starts boiling. Boom. Load. You stop it from boiling earlier and go for mission. You leave the cyllinder at the gate and shoot it from a distance. Sizzle, poof. Whoops, load and test if it's really explosive next time. :)

          With high enough critical failure rate kids would be taught ex

          • Re:Do what the show did (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Leave the burner fire 10% too strong. Boom. Load.

            Except that in real chemistry (which is what you're trying to teach, right?), most things are not so apt to go "boom." It would be more like this: Mix chemicals X and Y. Nothing happens. Try heating them. Nothing happens. Add chemical Z. Nothing happens. Start over with chemicals P and Q. Nothing happens...

            This is starting to sound like a really boring game.

            • Well, if you mix random chemicals without the manual (chemistry book), it would be likely like in your scenario. Or more like: Mix chemicals X and Y. Nothing happens. Heat them. Bubbles appear. (so what?) Add chemical Z. Some cheesy stuff lands on the bottom. Add P and Q. It starts stinking. Filter out the cheesy stuff. Boggle.
              Either you understand the parts of chemistry and get desired results, or you don't and you get random results. Usually boring. You need to learn to achieve something.
              My scenario was a
        • The show mostly just made up random stuff.

          I'd estimate 70% of Macguyverisms are just total BS, with no relation to reality at all. 10% might actually work, and the remaining 20% have some tenuous relation to a real thing.

          Of course I'm referring to the earlier seasons, the show really started to suck once it became about "rehabilitating inner city youth" instead of "fighting commies and cartel leaders".
    • A database of 1-2k reactions? Stupid. For one thing, a vastly larger database would be simple. But more importantly, couldn't it just be calculated? Maybe not with perfect atom precision, of course, but I do recall calculating and being able to make moderately reasonable guesses about what would happen when to chemicals were mixed under certain conditions using horrible formulas in H.S. chemistry...but couldn't a computer eat those formulas alive?
      • Calculated, well, yes. At least some, most of the non-organic chemistry and some of organic chemistry, sure. But you'd still need a database of effects, like what burns, what explodes, what produces blue fire and what green fire, what gas will make people laugh silly and which one to inject in the corridor to thwart voice-based authentication by raising pitch of voice. True -some- of these things could be calculated too, but I doubt XBox360 has enough of computational power for that yet.
    • McGyver rocked. I would never have thought of making an afterburner out of a flare gun, and using it to rocket to safety.
    • "play with transporting a canister of nitroglicerine across Manhattan in public transport"

      Was that McGuyver or McVeigh?

    • As you go through the game you get to fill in a periodic chart of the various elements you have collected, purified, and used...

      And then on the final level you find number 94.

      That level would be far more impressive than just "transporting a canister of nitroglicerine across Manhattan in public transport" :D

      -

  • duh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @12:35PM (#14626752)
    When will you make a videogame that's going to teach my students chemistry?'"

    Newsflash: Your students don't want to learn chemistry. They want to beat up the hooker and get their money back, run away from the cops in a flashy sports car, and unload an entire arsenal into the local shopping mall.

    That's why Grand Theft Auto 3 is the most successful franchise in history, and Mavis Beacon Teaches Chemistry hasn't even gotten to the drawing board stage yet.
    • I don't know about Mavis Beacon Teaches Chemistry, but when my mom bought me Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge instead of BoneStorm, I played the shit out of that golf game. If it weren't for his "I recommend you use the putter," I'd still be using my 3 wood to drive golf balls right off the green.

      And now look at me. I'm Tiger Woods.
    • exactly.

      this is much more a culture problem than a market problem. the market will exist and flourish when the consumer demands the product. right now, parents could give a shit less what their kids are doing (for the majority). it's the exact same reason the U.S. is lagging in many arenas (16th in Internet, way back in education, etc.).

      face it: america is on top. problem being, there's only 1 way to go once you're up there. prepare for it or suffer in the end.

    • Re:duh (Score:3, Informative)

      by kryzx ( 178628 ) *
      True enough.
      But there are some people out there trying to learn what makes the fun games fun and apply that knowledge to making the stuff we have to learn a little more fun to learn.
      www.seriousgames.org [seriousgames.org]

      If they do it well enough, they may even create games that are entertaining enough to play them for fun, even if they teach you something as a side effect.
      Like, say, this one:
      www.americasarmy.com [americasarmy.com]
      or these: www.sheppardsoftware.com [sheppardsoftware.com]

      • Re:duh (Score:3, Informative)

        by Blakey Rat ( 99501 )
        America's Army is a great example. After playing that off and on for a few years, I could probably be dropped into the middle of a military action and stand a pretty decent chance of staying alive. Assuming, of course, that I didn't just wet myself, huddle in the fetal position, and cry for my mother. (There's a pretty big difference, still, between games and reality.) But, in any case, America's Army teaches a lot.

        So do flight simulators, BTW. At least, not the 'arcade' Crimson Skies type. After virt
  • when will you make a videogame that's really useful? When will you make a videogame that's going to teach my students chemistry?

    Talk about conflicting objectives! Small wonder the game developers doesn't succeed, or even bother trying.

  • Is all the good educational software older? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Myself ( 57572 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @12:36PM (#14626773) Journal
    I suppose DrugWars was more about economics than applied chemistry, unfortunately. If there'd been a meth-cooking section to the game, maybe we'd feel differently about it. :)

    Anyone remember Rocky's Boots? I played it on the Apple II, and I'm not aware of an updated version. It was essentially a logic game, building machines from sensors, logic gates, and actuators. Think Mindstorms minus the physical Lego. It was a blast for a little kid to play, and taught some valuable concepts much earlier than I might've otherwise encountered them. But I haven't seen anything like it in years.

    The question is a good one: Where have all the good educational titles gone? Perhaps now that violent games have proven they own the market, there's less appetite for trying something new and educational. Anyone?

  • Computer Games Taught Me Everything I Know... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02, 2006 @12:37PM (#14626780)
    Civilization taught me history and geography, Sim City taught me business and government, the Total War series taught me military tactics, the Sims taught me about relationships, Pro Pinball taught me, uh, how to play Pinball, Chessmaster taught me how to play chess and Doom taught me the proper use for a chainsaw.

    Computer games taught me everything I know...

    • Re:Computer Games Taught Me Everything I Know... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Vo0k ( 760020 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @12:47PM (#14626923) Journal
      Proper use of chainsaw? Kid, these games overrate chainsaws.

      Under influence of HL2 I bought a crowbar. A beautiful, long, heavy crowbar. Just the same as you find in HL2, I even made the grip red.

      Later that year I got opportunity to buy massive amounts of damaged wooden palettes really cheap. I bought 30. Wood for the fireplace for autumn evenings before we start central heating! Okay, I have a crowbar, that will take a moment. Gordon Freeman needed 2 hits to break such a palette to bits, such a pile would take him maybe 20 seconds.

      Bullshit. It takes good 20 minutes to break a palette to pieces using a crowbar, and you're covered with sweat afterwards.

      So I took the chainsaw instead.
      Okay, cutting the palette into 9 pieces that fit in the fireplace (5 cuts) takes about 3 minutes. It's tiring like hell too, but still vastly easier than breaking it using a crowbar. It took a whole afternoon to cut the pile of palettes with the chainsaw and I was dead tired after that.

      I really regret I didn't have a rocket launcher or at least sachel charges. That would make it sooo much easier!

      Damned games LIE!
      • You're forgetting the HEV suit.
      • Damned games LIE!

        Only because you were using those tools on the wrong objects. The crowbar in HL is not for breaking up palettes but is for brutally bludgeoning scientists! Beating scientists dead was one of my favorite self-invented mini-games for the original HL.

        As for the chainsaw, you won't find a single palette for cutting in Doom. Why? Because cutting wood is boring, but violently splattering bits of demon flesh is a most spectactular use of a chainsaw. Now, I lack demons to try this on, but given

      • Gordon Freeman needed 2 hits to break such a palette to bits, such a pile would take him maybe 20 seconds.

        Bullshit. It takes good 20 minutes to break a palette to pieces using a crowbar, and you're covered with sweat afterwards.

        Maybe you should workout more. It's just a suggestion.

        • Well, I took a measure of strength of a MIT graduate theoretical physicist like Gordon Freeman. Sure he might be somewhat more fit, training in the hazard course etc, but still there's no way he could break such a palette to pieces in two hits. Most optimistic count would be half the time it took me, that is some 10 minutes.
    • Computer games taught me everything I know...

      So you didn't learn anything from Leisure Suit Larry? Come'on, that was chalk full of one-liners that are sure to impress the ladies!
    • Populous II taught me about reproduction, the relationship of people to their god, and landscaping! The Incredible Machine was a 100% accurate physics simulation, including trampolines that impart energy to objects that strike them. Space Quest taught me plenty about security, resourcefulness, and the capacity of my pockets. Oh, and not to disrespect janitors.

      Before that, SimCity taught me that even with infinite money, running a successful city is still hard. There's nothing like a 20-lane highway to ease
    • Where in X is Carmen Sandiego.

      Space
      The USA
      The World
      Time

      Oregon Trail, Super Solvers X, Sim X, Number Munchers, some fish game I barely remember and more. They're still around, just so happens FPSs are getting all the news right now. Among others, try Pikmin as a more recent title.
    • In all seriousness, I've learned a lot of actual information from games myself, though not equally from all games. Playing the WWII Russian flight sim IL-2 Sturmovik inspired me to learn a great deal about WWII-era planes and technology as well as the history of the conflict, and Hearts of Iron taught me about the geography and colonization of that time period as well. On the other hand, Half-Life and CounterStrike, while great games, taught me virtually nothing, except the names of various firearms (and ev
    • Life and Death taught me how to remove someones appendix...
    • Just getting computer games to work correctly caused me to learn a lot about computers. I blame them for bringing out the geek in me.

      It taught me about DOS. The difference between Extended and Expanded memory (Thus getting the graphics enhancements in Wing Commander to work. Damn you EMM386!). Taught me about Interrupts and their conflicts (sound cards and video cards). Taught me networking (latency, TCP/IP, WINSOCK, routing, backbones, Modems, etc). Later in life it taught me about DirectX, OpenGL, s
    • the Sims taught me about relationships I take it, then, that you don't currently have a girlfriend?

      "I keep right-clicking on her, but no menu ever pops up!"

  • Love Exciting and New
    come aboard, we're expecting you

    The Love Boat
    soon will be making another run
    The Love Boat
    promises something for everyone

    Set a course for adventure,
    your mind's on a new romance

    Oh...wait...wrong boat...
  • 180 profs bring a game into the classroom, 1 person uploads a walkthrough on the internet.

    And I thought that "lectures" which are nothing more than powerpoint presentations were bad.

    *sitting through a powerpoint lecture as I'm typing*
  • I've heard this before from my dad who is a chemistry professor, but quite frankly, what is the _actual use_ of knowing chemistry? A vague idea about some toxic substances is the only thing that comes to mind, and that it pretty easily taught in games.
    • Well, I've always found it useful that I learned the basics about the structures of carbohydrates, lipids, etc. For instance, I know that there's no real point in using soap when cleaning out a glass of soda, since the sugar dissolves in water and has no hydrophobic end for the soap to have an effect on, unlike, say, a measuring cup that was used on oil. And I can laugh when I see oils and butters with "ZERO CARBS!!!" signs on them in the supermarket. Just in general, I think that a better understanding
      • Isn't it possible there's something else besides sugar in that glass? Like, say... saliva? Or if you have small children, anything from graham crackers to cheddar cheese to boogers.
        • There's only the teeniest tiniest amount of lipids in saliva, so soap isn't very necessary with it, either. Now, if the person drinking out of the glass is sick, you probably want an antibacterial soap, but that's a special case - as is the case of small children, which no, I don't have. Under normal circumstances, I'm not too worried about getting a tiny trace of my saliva back in my mouth the next time I drink out of the glass.

          Now, if I've had chapstick on, *then* I often need soap to get that off.

          • Soap is antibacterial. "Antibacterial soap" is foolish redundancy.
            • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • No it isn't. I mean, it might occasionally kill some bacteria just by accident (probably no more than a good scrub with water), but not the 99% or so that antibacterial soap is designed to kill. All soap does is bind to the hydrophobic end of a lipid, making it hydrophillic and thus allowing the lipid to be washed away with water.

              Yes, if you let your hands or dishes sit around with a lot of grease on them all the time, you will probably eventually find that they have more harmful bacteria on them for on

    • If you know about chemistry, you know how to blow stuff up and how to set fire to things that normally shouldn't catch fire. Blowing stuff up is every male's god given right!
  • Tech, exciting and new
    Come Aboard. We're expecting you.
    Games, life's sweetest reward.
    Bring your PSP, in case you get bored.

    The Nerd boat soon will be making another run
    The Nerd boat. Make sure to stay out of the sun.
    Slather on lots of sunblock, your pasty skin we'll mock like Windows XP
  • ...of number crunchers and the oregon trail. Schools have been doing this for a long time, this isn't really a *new* concept. However I do think it's a great idea to use games to teach kids things, it keeps them interested in the subject at hand unlike a boring textbook.
  • "When will you make a videogame that's going to teach my students chemistry?"

    Cause we all know THAT will make money.
    • Cause we all know THAT will make money.

      It will if you can convince the public school employees that are responsible for spending on school supplies. Never underestimate the stupidity of government employees.

      Am I kidding? I don't know.
  • Even if there was a good educational game available, there are other issues. Games are typically going to be banned across the board in a lot of schools. Getting approval for "this" game because it is educational, will be a tough sell to the school board/principal. They will worry about the slippery slope of approving one game. Next they will try to get halo approved for the Astronmy class, Gun for the history class, and GTA San Andreas 'hot coffe mod' for the sex ed class.
    • GTA San Andreas 'hot coffe mod' for the sex ed class.

      I wish sex ed class was actually about sex.

    • Not true, all of the public schools I attended at least allowed games and often encouraged them! In elementary school we had Oregon trail and the original Sim City which we went to the labs to play, in middle we had a teacher who would open his classroom at lunch to play TRS-80 and Apple 2 games, and im high school the math classes had to go play a game called green globs as part of class. (Well, to be fair, green globs was a really horrible game...) None of these schools had any problem with installing gam
  • Humans have a hard time making Chemistry interesting. How is a computer programmed by a human going to make it any better/more interesting?
    • Imagine a "Zork" type game where you have to find out the fomular for dynamite to blow a whole through a wall, put two chemicals in a ballon and wait for them to expand to push apart 2 walls, or create fireworks to lanch wires over a wall.

      Unfortuntaly I image that teaching kids how to make explosives would get shot down (even though shoting and raping people is ok).

      Still games like Rome Total war are educational in my opion, history games are fairly easy to make fun, I would like to see more of those
  • But with a few engine tweaks, I could definitely see Garry's Mod for Half Life 2 being adapted to teach lessons about physics.

  • Square-Enix's answer (Score:3, Funny)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @01:42PM (#14627552)
    "When will you make a videogame that's going to teach my students chemistry?"

    Full-Metal Alchemist!
  • Anyone considered making a sex ed game? Tons of sub-games available:

    - the whole thing, of course, is an RPG.
    - singles bar = RTS
    - you're a sperm travelling up the falopian (sp?) tube = racing game
    - money shot = FPS

    Features:
    Support for force feedback joysticks.
    Special item: +5 shield of latex.
    Alcohols gives charisma bonus of 27% (not to the person drinking it though).
  • There was a game that I played on my Amiga 500 with dragons. I forget the name, but you had to hatch dragons and raise them to be able fight other dragons and conquer towns and stuff. Anyone know the game I am talking about? Anyhoo there was a part of that game that you had to brew up potions using different heat levels and adding chemicals at different parts of the process, and not heating too much etc. Then using that potion on the dragon eggs or adult dragons with different effects. I remember one potion
  • Not as much as they're supposed to, or could. Beyond that being the mantra of those trying to keep games like GTA on the market, the fact is that most educational software is teaching kids to "click here, then here," and kids aren't really understanding why.

    That is a gross generalization, but in many cases it's true, and if you spend an afternoon with a child playing educational games, you'll start to see it. My nieces can blow through a Carmen Sandiego game in no time, but they couldn't tell you a single t
  • I don't want to troll but I am shocked at whst seems to be the general assumption that games shouldn't be educational or couldn't be educational. Some books (or television shows or movies or websites) are entertaining, some are educational, and some are both. Why can't games be the same?

    Remember that all games are educational in a sense. They give you a goal that you cannot accomplish immediately but through repeated attempts and failures you build the skills required to acomplish the goal. And then the
  • I'd like a one on one interview with her, if ya know what I mean.
  • The nerd boat.....

    Will it visit the isle Aspergia?

    http://www.aspergia.com/ [aspergia.com]
  • Let's do a reality check.

    People who want to use videogames to teach children chemistry are lazy. They don't want to TEACH, to actually make an effort and engage the kids in the topic. Instead, they want to pander to a certain demographic's desire to skate out on their studies, to make everything easy so they don't have to do any actual WORK.

    The TRUTH is, this demographic isn't going to have the chops to learn chemistry ANYWAY. And you don't want to let them anywhere NEAR a freakin' lab. Matter of fact, you
  • It (or a modified version of it) would be great for teaching physics principles like gravity, balistics and stuff.
  • Look, even if we're not teaching our kids chemistry, games could do a lot more to broaden our perspectives. Sometimes a good RPG plot will do that, but I really think the future is in simulation.

    SimCity is wonderful, a great example, but its constrained by basically modelling existing systems; city dynamics. There was a middle school project we entered where we built scale model city in conjunction with a simcity city, some competition (our team never really got in gear, I dont think we even submitted), w

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