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August 28, 2005

SETI@Home for games?

I have this wacky idea -- well, I have lots of those -- but this one felt like maybe it wanted to be blogged.

I'm toying around with the idea that complex mathematical problems could be solved through iteration by utilizing specific mechanics in games.

Obviously, this isn't a direct correlation to SETI@Home, but it would be using distributed computing for a purpose beyond the owner's original intent (voluntarily).

Now, I realize this is purely academic and in therefore may bore the crap out of the gamer in you, but for some reason I keep returning to the idea.

Why? Well, we have millions of people around the world playing online games, making all kinds of decisions and trying all kinds of wacky, unexpected actions inside the game experience to solve problems. And while brute force isn't always the best way to solve complex problems, it certainly is a legitimate one. However, the challenge of brute forcing really complex problems is that you have to make sure your algorithms attempt all the possible variations, or at least the most likely ones. The appeal of using humans as the source of effort is that they are somewhat unpredicatable and may try variations that no one else would.

Now, as anyone who knows me will point out, I'm not a mathematician, but for whatever reason, my brain is telling me to check this out.

Would it be cool to players if they knew that their choices in taking down the dragon in a raid also found the solution to a rare genetic disease?

Maybe not, but would they even have to know?

Has anyone ever heard of such an idea? I'm going to research it tomorrow, but I know there are lots of people out there smarter than I am, or who may have already heard of such a thing. Feel free to let me know!

Posted by SunSword at August 28, 2005 12:26 AM

Comments

Finally signed up for an account for your blog; I miss the forums :)

It's an interesting idea. I suppose one problem is that content eventually gets "spoiled", and then the amount of variation between different attempts would reduce significantly. And that's without even thinking of how you'd map game actions to the problem, which you'd probably have to think about any time you changed something for game balance reasons.

Posted by: Kaylya [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 31, 2005 06:15 AM

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