Games not being used as games?

March 13, 2008 11:34 AM

What's the coolest non-traditional use of games (especially video games) that you have ever heard of?

I am thinking of things like using games to distract burn patients, games to generate ideas on how to deal with an oil crisis, or using game-like interfaces to make work more enjoyable.

I am especially interested in games used for idea generation or innovation...

Do you know of any interesting examples?

posted by blahblahblah to technology (25 comments total)

Shall we play a game?
posted by caddis at 11:43 AM on March 13

Johnny Chung Lee's Wii remote hacking comes to mind (also, previously on Metafilter.)
posted by lou at 11:47 AM on March 13

Generating Art from Games

I would link to Nullpointer's QQQ directly but the site doesn't seem to be up at the moment.
posted by prostyle at 11:49 AM on March 13

Anyone who's been involved in the management of a large MMO guild knows how much you end up learning about economics just trying to come up with a satisfactory system for distributing loot. My own guild went from a rough free-market bloodbath to a placid zero-sum socialist model over the course of a year, experimenting with what worked. So the conditions of cooperation for the game ended up being just as important to the player experience as showing up and pressing buttons.
posted by cowbellemoo at 11:52 AM on March 13

Flickr started out as part of a game: Game Neverending.
posted by mattbucher at 11:58 AM on March 13

The Google Image Labeler is a game that's used to generate metadata for images.
posted by jacobm at 11:59 AM on March 13

Depending on your perspective, the Marine Doom project will likely skew far one way or another. I remember checking it out when I was real young, pretty funny to compare it to their current wall-to-wall convoy sims, etc.

"Marine Doom is a project of the Marine Corps Modeling and Simulation Management Office (MCMSMO). MCMSMO adapted the game Doom II for training four-man fire teams. The game teaches concepts such as mutual fire team support, protection of the automatic rifleman, proper sequencing of an attack, ammunition discipline and succession of command."

posted by prostyle at 12:02 PM on March 13

More on the Google Image Labeler and similar games:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8246463980976635143
posted by martinrebas at 12:10 PM on March 13

I don't know if it counts as use of a game, or as use of a gaming device, but: Why Scientists Love Game Consoles (in particular measurement of Parkinson's sufferers shaking with a Wii).
posted by aeschenkarnos at 12:22 PM on March 13

Wii used for physical therapy.
posted by camcgee at 12:23 PM on March 13

Maybe not what you're looking for, but I've always enjoyed Red vs. Blue and other Machinima.
posted by uaudio at 12:25 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

Doom Sysadmin Tool
posted by Scoo at 12:29 PM on March 13

Many people use MMORPGs and other online games as a way of staying in touch with geographically distant friends and family.

There is an island in Second Life that is exclusive to autistic players, where they can form their own social structure. There was also a game that matched facial expressions to emotions to help them interact with non-autistics, but I can't seem to find the article about that.

Re-Mission is a game which was proven to boost confidence and medication regimen maintenance in young cancer patients.

Surgeons use video games to improve their hand-eye coordination.

Including "edutainment" titles, games can be used to teach new languages, math skills, pretty much anything you can think of.

Sometimes people use sports titles to match teams against each other and use that information to determine betting strategies in real-life sports (although that is game too, I suppose).
posted by Durhey at 12:32 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

Don't have time to run down the specific articles, but if you haven't read The Escapist they've done a number of issues about non-traditional uses for games. Highly suggest checking out their archives.
posted by Nelsormensch at 12:42 PM on March 13

Not untraditional, but very neat: Echochrome

Create Escher-like levels, set a walking robot on your designs, and watch the impossible.
posted by lain at 12:48 PM on March 13

To recruit people to join the army.

America's Army (also known as AA or Army Game Project) is a tactical multiplayer first-person shooter owned by the United States Government and released as a global public relations initiative to help with U.S. Army recruitment.
posted by slimepuppy at 1:13 PM on March 13

I was prescribed 6 hours of video games per day as a kid to prevent atrophy in my right eye after sustaining a concussive cataract. I kept my vision by playing video games. Thanks Nintendo!

To challenge me at Super Mario Kart was futile. A better use of your time would be to challenge a Rhino to a charging contest.
posted by JimmyJames at 1:18 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

I once used text adventures (á la Zork) working with a kid I was helping to learn to read.

A guy I know wrote a skiing game designed to help quadriplegics use those eye motion sensors for controlling computers.
posted by XMLicious at 1:42 PM on March 13

Wild Divine trains you in biofeedback techniques. Pretty fun, and easy to skip past the New Age twaddle.
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 1:50 PM on March 13

Freerice.com is a game being used to provide rice to the UN World Food Program.
posted by MrVisible at 2:07 PM on March 13

To visualise polling.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 3:35 PM on March 13

Reach Out Central is a point & click game that helps teach CBT to young people with depression.
posted by divabat at 6:00 PM on March 13

I will give one big second to The Escapist, which is by far the best discussion of video game culture on the web today, doled out in the form a weekly online magazine. Lots of good examples there.

Personally, I think the most interesting uses of games other than for entertainment is for therapy. The Escapist touches on this with D&D Therapy, Treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with Virtual Reality, just to name a few.

I also remember this fantastic photo slideshow done by the NYTimes comparing people how they look in real-life with their avatars from online games. Quite touching, but for the life of me I can't find it.
posted by BenzeneChile at 6:02 PM on March 13

Here's one: Scientists Glue Wii Remote Parts to Flying Lemurs
posted by thewrongparty at 8:09 AM on March 14

I've used Pokémon to teach probability, experimentation, and reverse engineering to elementary schoolers, and I'm a planning a class on biological taxonomy using Flow.
posted by ulotrichous at 10:32 AM on March 19