The Foldit application has a lot more in common with photoshop or autocad than it does with WoW, or Call of Duty. The people who solved this puzzle might be gamers in the broadest sense of the word, but have nothing to do with its common use. When people think "gamer," they think of Halo nerds, Madden bros, etc, and such people had nothing to do with this discovery.
It's true that the people involved in solving it likely aren't your typical gamers. What would stop that sort of application from being placed as a mini-game side-quest in for example WoW, though? Give out unique mounts for people who contribute to its solving. You know they'd piece it together. Some European guild would crack it in three days.
I think what it really speaks to is the potential power of large scale cooperative problem solving, which is something that some games do touch on, and something that many typical gamers could be involved in if it were presented to them in the right way.
Warder to starry_nite
Chapterfish — Nate's Writing Blog
http://chapterfish.wordpress.com
Chapterfish — Nate's Writing Blog
http://chapterfish.wordpress.com
Scientists struggle with problem for 15 years; gamers solve it in days
- 19/09/2011 08:22:02 PM
433 Views
It's interesting that human "spatial reasoning" outperforms computer simulations
- 19/09/2011 09:41:28 PM
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Meh. This is cool, but doesn't really have anything to do with "gamers."
- 21/09/2011 07:24:56 PM
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The board needed the post and you know it. :p
- 21/09/2011 08:04:11 PM
257 Views