excerpts.

• 3DO, NASA to develop $3M MMO
  
• GigaGames, Carmack Proposes Assistance
• Read the PDF proposal from NASA

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) have characteristics that set them apart from other games. They are shared spaces where hundreds, thousands and even millions of players can experience the same game. They are persistent and evolving online environments. For example, with a stand-alone game, the game environment turns on and off at the user's whim and is essentially loaded with all of its potential states when it is shipped from the factory. If there is a sequel, the new game comes with a brand new, though probably familiar, game environment. MMOGs, in contrast, run continuously. Actions by players can alter the game world and the game creators can change features of the world through expansions or patches. The persistent and evolving nature of MMOGs makes them more like the real world and less like the static, intermittent nature of stand-alone games. The game setting in MMOGs, is thus a synthetic world, while the game setting of a stand-alone game is not.

A massively multiplayer online NASA game can be built with the primary goal of engaging young people in NASA’s mission. The power of games as educational tools is rapidly gaining recognition (Gee, 2003). NASA is in a position to develop an online game that functions as a persistent, synthetic environment supporting education as a laboratory, a massive visualization tools and collaborative workspace while simultaneously drawing users into a challenging, game-play immersion. Innovative university faculty are already holding classes and taking fieldtrips to synthetic worlds like Star Wars Galaxies and Second Life (Thomas, 2005). A NASA game built on a game engine that includes full physics capabilities will support accurate in-game experimentation and research. It will present real NASA engineering and science missions in a medium that is comfortable and familiar to the overwhelming majority of students in the United States today. A NASA-inspired game will provide opportunities for students to investigate Science, Technology, Engineering and Technology (STEM) career paths. A NASA game can contribute to the development of the critical skills and capabilities needed to build a pipeline of qualified scientific and technical employees required to fulfill the Vision for Space Exploration. Recently, both Time and Fortune have recognized synthetic environments and robust and significant technology entering mainstream society. The MacArthur Foundation, the Federation of American Scientists and National Science Foundation have all identified computer games as significant educational tools. A Horizons of Technology report marked massively multiplayer online games as one of the technologies with the greatest potential to impact education in the next decade.

A game-quality synthetic environment will be a vital element of NASA's cyberstructure. The synthetic world will be a collaborative work and meeting space of a kind familiar to increasing numbers of Americans. Games and challenges in the synthetic environment will engage students in a way that is both familiar and comfortable for them. In turn, success in the games will build increased student awareness of STEM fields. The synthetic environment will allow immersive career exploration opportunities in a much deeper way than reading alone would permit and at a fraction of the time and cost of an internship.