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NASA has extended its deadline for developers to submit game design proposals for a massively-multiplayer online game. A game about SPACE!

“The developer gets to make money on the game… some of which (negotiable) goes to NASA” explained MMO Evolution author Robert Rice. “This isn’t any different than making a game based on a Hollywood license, except the developer will get better terms, more creative control, and probably some sweet technology out of the deal.”

It wouldn’t be the first time a branch of the U.S. government has used multiplayer gaming for its own purposes, but compared America’s Army, this would presumably focus less on shooting people and more on the core goals of teaching “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”

I do hope NASA shares the design proposals once they’re all in. I’d be interested to see how companies approach this problem. Ever since Einstein shackled us to this little region of space, popular entertainment has had to rely on ideas that are science-y without really being science, stuff like hyperspace and warp speed. We won’t be able to gallivant about the universe anytime soon, meeting strange new lifeforms and having sex with them. Space exploration as it stands is careful, methodical, and kind of unsuited to a video game.

But hey, if you’re a small developer and you think you’ve cracked the problem, maybe you should get to work on a design doc?

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Categories: Video games //