Definition
Games in Science are used for scientific purposes, like crowdsourcing scientific problems, collecting data from gamers, educating the gamers, or gamifying science itself.
Introduction
Games are not only used for entertainment but also for several serious purposes. Academia has used games for research and knowledge generation as well as for teaching and knowledge transfer. It has been proven that some complicated scientific problems can be solved much better by human players than algorithms. If it is possible to transfer a problem into an entertaining game structure, it could possibly be crowdsourced to a worldwide gaming community. Motivated by game mechanics and the higher purpose of hel** science, many players have invested a tremendous amount of time in these games.
One of the most popular examples of this strategy is Foldit, an experimental computer game in which the...
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abbott, A.: Gaming improves multitasking skills. Nature. 501(7465), 18–18 (2013)
Anguera, J.A., Boccanfuso, J., Rintoul, J.L., Al-Hashimi, O., Faraji, F., Janowich, J., et al.: Video game training enhances cognitive control in older adults. Nature. 501(7465), 97 (2013)
Cooper, S., Khatib, F., Treuille, A., Barbero, J., Lee, J., Beenen, M., et al.: Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game. Nature. 466(7307), 756 (2010)
Hand, E.: People power. Nature. 466(7307), 685 (2010)
Kortemeyer, G., Tan, P., Schirra, S.: A Slower Speed of Light: develo** intuition about special relativity with games. In: FDG, Chania, pp. 400–402, May 2013. http://www.fdg2013.org/program/papers.html
Raykar, V.C., Yu, S., Zhao, L.H., Valadez, G.H., Florin, C., Bogoni, L., Moy, L.: Learning from crowds. J Mach Learn Res. 11, 1297–1322 (2010)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Stein, C., Lilge, T. (2024). Games in Science. In: Lee, N. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23161-2_152
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23161-2_152
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-23159-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-23161-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceReference Module Computer Science and Engineering