While reading through my daily rss feeds today I came across this wonder…

Technology Review – Virtual Labour Lost

Basically the idea was to study the way people interact, from economics to the spread of diseases using an educational MMOG about a Shakespearian bard.

The researchers behind it have hit on an important truth… Not only do people involved in play learn a lot, but people can learn a lot from other people’s play.

Unfortunately in this case it didn’t have the results they thought. Why not?
The researchers themselves admit: “It’s no fun.”

Why on earth would you make a game that isn’t fun? Their software would be more appropriately named a Massively-Multiplayer-Online-Educational-Research-Survey. Not the title you would expect to attract a large base of players needed for the study.

I tried to imagine myself being a participant in this experiment. I enjoy role-playing games, and I have had fun playing MMOG’s like WoW(http://www.worldofwarcraft.com) in the past; because the experiment is pitched as a game, I come to it with similar expectations. But what I find is a virtual world where I can talk to medieval people about their social environment and take trivia quizzes. This would probably hold my attention for an hour or so, and maybe it would entertain a Shakespeare buff for longer. However, the purpose of the experiment was to study very large groups of people over a sustained period of time!

I think it’s odd that sometimes efforts to ‘educationalize’ play also suck the life and fun out of the activity.

It doesn’t have to be this way! When we were young, play was what taught us the most. There was a sense of wonder and awe in the way we tried to find out more about the world around us.
Software developers of the world… Make your software fun to use! Play is not the opposite of ‘productive’, ‘educational’ or ‘meaningful’.

It’s all that and more.