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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.'"
I don't know if the government bureacrats quite understand how fast asset production eats through money. Its insane, and it continues getting more insane because increasing hardware capability leads to increased asset production cost AND the winner-take-most leaders in the MMORPG space are running away from the field qualitatively. You can make an MMORPG for $3 million, sure, but it will be like comparing Pine to GMail. Hint: people who enjoy MMORPGs do not typically choose Pine over GMail. (Pipe down, you. You're atypical. Ask the other folks in your WoW guild.)
Maybe someone could clue the NASA folks in. "Hiya guys, MMORPG has costs approaching that of programming control code for the shuttle." "Gadzooks! Why, $3 million wouldn't cover the header file on the system clock function!" "Yeah, its sort of like that. Except minus the defense contractor slush fund. But mostly like that."
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I think they should just build something on top of Second Life. With $3m, they can actually do something in SL that's a lot better than other SL effort and they already have a user base. SL pretty much ensures it will be a B-rate experience, but at least it will be that, and it will be a B-rate experience that's better than all the other stuff in SL. And, maybe, NASA could actually get SL to fix some of the awful limitations of that platform.
Another NASA-ish thing to do might be to build something on top of Croquet (www.opencroquet.org)... they'd be supporting a neat platform, and for $3m, they could probably get the Croquet people quite interested and get something better out of it than paying a game company to develop a new MMO from scratch.
Why not? Think of it... NASA endorsement and advertising. Sure, maybe a major game studio isn't going to, but if people are willing to work on, say, open source projects where you pretty much won't make any money and never will, why wouldn't a relatively new game company try to work on it and get their name out there in a big way? It would be like an unknown composer (like me) getting to work gratis on a video produced by a major video studio. You don't get money, but you get your name out there in a big way, and if you do WELL, it would do wonders for future job contracts.
'If it were a government contract, it would be illegal to be paid twice, once by the government and a second time by consumers.' Except, with the game sure to cost far more than $3 million, they're really only being paid once.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
It's a bit more complicated than that. When you browse seriously thru the RFP, you see patterns to emerge.
Despite naming (with typos) MMORPGs like EVE Online or World of Warcraft, they are not looking to a MMORPG. A number of elements that have to feature in your game, like "measuring the learning", having specific educator access, and it's explicit target audience (kids from 13 - the legal minimum for an on-line service - to college) indicate that they're not looking to a RPG or anything but a straight educational tool. Their goal is not to make SimNasa, but the next-generation morning-class video - only with Web 2.0 and social networking, in which, presumably interested pupils will team across the country to do "fun" NASA-themed assignments and projects and whatnot.
A classical MMO, while interesting and all isn't what they've specified. If you read the STEM brochure, on figure 1 page 5, you'll see what. The tool they specify lies squarely on educate/engage side. A classic MMO would probably in the Informal block, inspire/engage. Those two products are as different as night and day (and, I admit, I was lured by the MMO catch-word). It's a MMO, but probably not in the sense we recognise; it's closer to a Web 2.0 browser tool than a PC/Console game. Which means the $3m budget makes sense: it's a paltry sum for a videogame, but a good sized budget for a web application.