Massively Multiplayer Online Birdwatching Game

eldavojohn writes "The shots you take in CONE Sutro Forest don't come from shotguns or sniper rifles. In the game, players manipulate remote control cameras, taking pictures of birds and classifying them. It starts next week with the premise being that the more birds you take pictures of and classify correctly, the more points you get. It's more of an experiment in collaborative technology than a game ... but if you can get your users to do work for you and have fun at the same time, you might have something big."

Comments

Collaborative cheating?

[6Yankee]

From TFA: Players can see who else is logged on and try to beat them to the best pictures. The system waits until the photo is classified consistently by at least two players, and assigns points according to how rare the bird is. Players with higher scores get more influence over where the video camera is positioned.

So if a friend and I both classify a common sparrow as a bald eagle or something, we both get a too-high score and increased priority on the camera? Lather, rinse, repeat.

Hmmmm.

Interesting Idea

[UtmostCathode]

I am willing to bet this game will be more successful than you think. I can really see my Mother participating in this.

Instead of being limited to viewing local birds and manually reporting them to online databases that track species locations, she can now view them through several cameras located in unique areas while still helping bird societies by reporting them.

I think some of you should evaluate exactly what it is you are doing when you play your 'fun' MMOs - I think you will find that a lot of it is spent standing around doing nothing.