All Aboard the Nerd Boat

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?'"

Comments

Whoa, know what? McGyver!

[Vo0k]

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!

duh

[voice_of_all_reason]

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.

Computer Games Taught Me Everything I Know...

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

[Vo0k]

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!