NASA Responds To MMO Concerns

Sean Hollister writes "GameCyte contacted Daniel Laughlin, Project Manager of NASA Learning Technologies, to find out where that $3 million budget for their educational MMO actually went. As it turns out, NASA still has the money — they are just planning to use it differently than we thought. Meanwhile, the 'non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement' actually allows the game developer to profit where they might not have, otherwise. 'If it were a government contract, it would be illegal to be paid twice, once by the government and a second time by consumers.'"

Comments

Re:You can't make a B grade MMO for 3 million

[osu-neko]

I think they do understand. That's why they're doing in this way. Knowing that $3 mil isn't going to cover the costs, they're instead letting the developer charge real money for a real game, something the developer couldn't do if NASA paid them the paltry $3 mil.

SimMars

[SimHacker]

Maxis was working with NASA on SimMars, while I was there working on The Sims.

It was eventually canceled after The Sims shipped and sucked up all the resources into the franchise.

But some of the ideas from SimMars ended up in one of The Sims expansion packs and Spore.

From wikipedia:

In The Sims: Vacation, there was an arcade game titled SimMars and it had a detailed description about the game. This may or may not have been the real premise of the game:

"Direct mankindâ(TM)s first mission to the red planet! Launch rockets and deploy robot probes! Deploy teams to search for alien resources! Establish and run a network of specialized colonies to create a self-sufficient civilization! Provide your colony with food, shelter, and power! Fast, furious, adrenaline-pumping action!"

As of May 12, 2000, Maxis has stated that "SimMars is on hold and we do not have staff at Maxis currently working on the game. With the phenomenal success of The Sims, we've decided to move resources to support that franchise as well as other titles that we haven't even announced yet."

Some elements of SimMars are used in the upcoming Maxis game Spore.

-Don