Gamification used to successfully solve AIDS research problem

Gamification is beginning to seep into all aspects of our lives in advertising, business and education being the most prolific examples. Now through Foldit, players can now help collaborate and solve scientific problems, their latest coup was solving a years old scientific problem in just three weeks.

Created by Seth Cooper from the University of Washington last year, Foldit gets tens of thousands of gamers to collaborate and solve scientific problems through a gaming interface.

Reported in Discover Magazine, Firas Khatib, also from the University of Washington, decided to use Foldit to solve a long standing problem associated with AIDS research. A problem that has puzzled scientists for years only took gamers three weeks to solve.

The goal of the game is to work out the three-dimensional structures of different proteins and players don’t need any scientific training to take part. With tutorials, visual hints and simplistic language to avoid players getting bogged down by jargon and Barely one eighth of the players work in science while two-thirds of the top scorers have no biochemistry experience beyond high school.

The game is also competitive with players scored based on how they do with an overall leaderboard showing how they rank against other players. While there is the appeal of contributing to genuine scientific research, most players play it because it’s fun, as well as the social aspects and for the achievements.

Anyone who wishes to play or take part in Foldit can download the game for Windows, Mac or Lunux platforms. The breakthrough is another example in gamification being used to solve real world problems, a topic Jane McGonigal spoke about at TED in California last year.