Internet Spreadsheets Spaceships

My last blog post had to do with Landing and how it fit into AthU's grander scheme of providing a next-generation online learning environment. Looking at all of the research projects in my own School (SCIS), it's pretty obvious that the University considers research into the direction of Distance Learning to be a major goal. This goal has apparently been embedded into the school's mission since the very beginning.

In other words, it's a very big question, and it's very important to the University, with lots of people interested in it. So! I'm a bit embarrassed about bringing it up, since there are people here who have made it their lifes' work. Who am I to interject, indeed. Lucky for me that I'm perfectly happy to both speak my mind and be brutally corrected when I'm wrong. I look forward to having to retract my opinions in the near future ;) That said, big question, far too big to attack whole-cloth. I've got some ideas and inquiries, but I thought I'd follow up my last post with something a little less dense: an analogy of sorts.

I'm a computerey sort of fellow, which should be unsurprising given my aim at a BSc-IS. I've got a computer at home that people tend to go bug-eyed at when they first see it, and I use it as the hub of my schoolwork and entertainment. And, like most computer afficionados, I play video games.

In particular, the game I want to talk about is an MMO, a multiplayer online game called EVE Online. In this science fiction game, players log into a massive central server and fly around in spaceships, basically. You can shoot up computer controlled bad guys (we call'em rats, because they infest all the good asteroids), you can mine asteroids to build things and then sell to other players; you can be a pirate and hunt other players for their stuff, you can join alliances to control solar systems, etc, etc. In short, it's an open, massive, free world, giving the player free range to do what they want. Players of EVE Online get very attached to the game and its trials. EVE is hard.

Most games out there try to provide a gentle learning curve; a nice easy slope that provides a little challenge, but not a lot. You don't have to learn much to start playing, and you don't need a lot more to have real fun. Squeezing the rules will get you a bit more efficiency, but in general you can sit back, relax, and have a good time without thinking about it too much.

EVE throws all of this out through the closed, triple-pane window. I re-iterate, it's hard. A new player has to make choices that are almost irrevocable, and will decide the fate of that character from the very beginning. And once you've made your decisions, then the real "fun" starts.

• The physics system is real, and it's brutal. If you want to maximize the damage of your weapons you need physics (ballistic flight paths, rocket burn times, etc), and if you don't do that you won't get the kills, or the loot that you're out there for anyways. And if you want to survive at all, you need to do the same to your defenses, which means juggling a few hundred different options in a dozen different categories, each of which needs to be separately evaluated to get the maximum effect. This has to be repeated every time you learn something new about your opponent.
• The in-game market is sophisticated enough that it can be, and has been, studied by economists. Stock manipulation, inside trading, and day trading are everyday things to the savvy EVE player. Alliances will cause market bubbles, political events on the other side of the in-game universe will have rippling affects that will continue for months. Business people play this game for training.
• Sabotage and subterfuge is rampant. Solar systems worth billions of in-game credits - directly transferable to thousands of real dollars - are fought over bitterly every day, and change hands weekly. The most famous, and most shocking, was when the Chief Financial Officer of a major alliance decided to jump ship, taking something around a trillion in game credits with him. This translates directly into $15,000 USD. A savvy player can translate these in-game assets into real dollars. In other words, this player made $15,000 real dollars by playing a video game.

The average EVE player has three spreadsheets running while they're playing the game, just to keep track. Did I mention that EVE was hard? EVE actually revels in how hard it is, and invites people to pick up World of Warcraft if they aren't looking for a challenge.

Look hard at this. CCP, the makers of EVE Online, has struck upon something that the Landing should be wanting for themselves. CCP made a complicated game with obtuse and ugly interface, and people are tripping over themselves for the pleasure of torturing themselves with spreadsheets. They're teaching themselves economics, calculus, algebra, to get an edge in this game. They haven't made learning fun, they've made it invisible.

There's something going on here, something that's directly translatable to Landing and distance education. I'm not suggesting that Landing implement Internet Spaceships, or anything of the sort, but there's some sort of social carrot and stick routine going on here that is making these people ambitious towards things they would otherwise have no time for.

Worth looking into. At the very least, it's a fun way to explore the question.