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How World of Warcraft could save your life

Sarah Lux

by Sarah Lux

23 Sep 05:40am

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Filed under: Aids, Gaming, Health, Science, Society, Technology

45 comments

Mothers and girlfriends worldwide have long yelled at errant sons and partners for being overly fixated on a video game. 

The gamer in your life could be fighting more than dragons. Photo: News.com.au


This week, however, a group of gamers and scientists demonstrated that proficiency in World of Warcraft may be worth more than the geek cred it achieves.

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology has published an advance online copy of a paper that explains how enjoyment of and technical skills in playing video games can be harnessed to achieve remarkable outcomes in scientific research.

The scientists, hailing from the US, Poland and the Czech Republic, challenged players of the competitive protein folding game Foldit to produce accurate models of the crystal structure of M-PMV retroviral protease. 

Scientists researching antiretroviral AIDS medication had tried and failed for years to map the protein with the requisite level of detail using more conventional scientific means.  These particular scientists thought the Foldit gamers might have more success. 

The experiment worked.  In just three weeks, the gamers succeeded in generating models of sufficient quality to meet the scientists’ needs.  The result is incredible, and may lead to a significant advancement in AIDS research. 

More broadly, considerable attention should be paid to the importance and ingenuity of this collaborative model for research, which harnesses skills possessed by ordinary humans to empower their meaningful contribution to the scientific process. 

Foldit, the game in question, describes itself as “a revolutionary new computer game enabling you to contribute to important scientific research”.  Understanding the structure of a protein is central to working out how to target it with drugs.  This process is difficult and elusive, as the Foldit website explains:

The number of different ways even a small protein can fold is astronomical… Figuring out which of the many, many possible structures is the best one is regarded as one of the hardest problems in biology today and current methods take a lot of money and time, even for computers. Foldit attempts to predict the structure of a protein by taking advantage of humans’ puzzle-solving intuitions and having people play competitively to fold the best proteins.

The program builds on the concept behind a predecessor, Stanford University’s folding@home, which networks participants’ computers to create a supercomputer which works through possible folding patterns.  Foldit adds to this concept the intuition and puzzle-solving abilities of human gamers to speed up and improve the results.  When directed at particular scientific problems, this amalgamation of human and computer capabilities can achieve significant results, as demonstrated by the AIDS study. 

This remarkable use of technology corresponds to a broader trend that has accompanied the increasing dominance of the internet in our lives and interactions.  Unprecedented access to information, thanks to the internet, has substantially addressed the information asymmetry that used to mean ordinary people needed access expensive experts to make decisions and achieve certain goals.  Almost all of us go to Google as our first port of call on almost every day-to-day question, and what we find includes the opinions, recommendations and warnings of an enormous unnamed audience who can help us solve our problem. 

Examples of the trend are infinite.  Travel review websites like TripAdvisor let you ask questions of a million strangers you never even knew had travelled to your intended location.  Flickr, now with an in-built Creative Commons licensing system, connects you with talented photographers who will licence incredible works for your personal or professional use.  And although the countless websites and forums containing basic medical information certainly do not replace the role of physicians, they do make for well informed patients who no longer have to defer all control over their health decisions to clinical experts. 

Outsourcing tasks and questions to the millions of people connected to the internet is increasingly acknowledged as a legitimate problem-solving model.  Crowdsourcing, the outsourcing of a task to an undefined group of people through an open call, can be arranged informally (for example, by a call for assistance over Facebook) or through companies like InnoCentive, which connect those with a problem (Seekers) with those who have solutions (Solvers), who are rewarded with cash prizes for proposing the right fix.  Currently on InnoCentive, a novel idea for the development of glucose-responsive insulin may win you US$100,000, while a photo reflecting “the World in 2012” may result in the award of a $1000 prize.  Crowdsourcing provides access to an entire world’s worth of experts and eliminates costs of participation.  As it is developed and refined as a model for various types of projects, it can only grow in popularity and impact.

Foldit is one of those refinements.  Rather than issuing a completely open call, the scientists (essentially, Seekers) identified a particular group (Solvers) possessing skills the scientists lacked, and turned the project into a competitive game to make participation attractive.

While technology is so often lamented and lambasted for harming our relationships – lovers text rather than talk, friends chat online instead of meeting, kids engage in multi-player online role-play rather than kicking around a ball – the internet has a powerful ability to connect people, with substantial personal, professional, societal and now scientific implications.

And just think – if gamers can actually help to cure AIDS, what might be the value of your voice in the crowd?

This article will also feature on The Social Interface, a new multi-disciplinary blog on the social implications of technology. 

Most commented

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336Animal experiments won't cure me from cancer
313Thomson didn't answer the question everyone is asking
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231South Australia. It's the middle bottom bit.
231Craig Thomson speaks. Meanwhile, in Australia...

45 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Erick says:

      05:50am | 23/09/11

      Absolutely brilliant article - one of the best ever posted on The Punch.

      The Internet will eventually change the world as much as the invention of the printing press, perhaps even more. And we’re just at the beginning.

      Reply

    • Mahhrat says:

      07:29am | 23/09/11

      Just wait until we get proper VR up and running.

    • stephen says:

      08:17am | 23/09/11

      Yes and we’re doing real well aren’t we ; no-one can agree on anything : global warming, Palestine/Israel, the IMF, poverty, etc.
      Maybe there’s too many people talking, and not enough thought is used.
      (It just occured to me ... when your talking, you’re not thinking.)

    • iansand says:

      09:20am | 23/09/11

      It’s lucky someone has had the foresight to set up a broadband network.  We don’t want data bottlenecks in this brave new world of connectivity.

    • Erick says:

      10:27am | 23/09/11

      @stephen - I don’t see the relevance of your point. People have always disagreed about things; nobody ever claimed the Internet would change that. Also, disagreement is a good thing.

      @iansand - I guess somebody had to politicise this. Apart from the fact that the Internet has been and is doing quite well without the NBN, there’s a question I have yet to see addressed.

      What about the huge bottleneck between Australia and overseas? Even if we all have 100Mbps connections, we still won’t be able to communicate any faster with the rest of the world.

    • Chris L says:

      11:29am | 23/09/11

      “What about the huge bottleneck between Australia and overseas?” -

      I believe we have three connections with the US at the moment. No reason (apart from cost) that we couldn’t add another couple if necessary. With the NBN in place it may be worthwhile.

    • St. Michael says:

      11:54am | 23/09/11

      @ Erick: I fully agree with you.  The Internet changes everything, and already has.

      I think its greatest impact can be explained in economic terms: it has made information a commodity, or very close to one.

      Up until the internet took off, information at large was, if you will, a “branded product”: in order to obtain information, you had to go somewhere, pay someone, or in any event pay a premium to a number of people to get it.  Even the information in your local library amounted to a branded product: in order to get use of it, you have to pay taxes or at least council rates to get use of the books, and you also had to be a member.

      When the internet came along, it reduced all that information to its most basic, least brandable form: letters and numbers on a computer screen.  And it was also the cheapest and most up-to-date form of that information: you could literally download encyclopaedias for about $20 a month.  Why do you think you don’t see Encyclopaedia Britannica salesmen spruiking door-to-door anymore? In commodity markets, the cheapest price always wins.

      The most striking examples of this are in the news industries and the copyrightable industries (music, video etc.)  Each of these industries sold products which you couldn’t get without paying a premium, being a “brand”: the copyright logo, the daily newspaper, and so on.  But when the net got started up, it generated a space where others could offer the same product or substantially the same product at no cost or much cheaper cost (indeed, the moment AAP started publishing to the web was the death knell for print media.)  All of those industries are in stages of massive transformation or erosion, precisely because they are no longer competing with branded products: they are competing on commodities, and they can’t do so.

      That is one reason—the unspoken reason—why the G8 are meeting to attempt to “discuss” the internet.  They know the threat it represents to them.  Governments can’t abide free markets in information across borders, because it makes it much harder for them to control information that gets to their own citizens, and because of e-commerce the net makes it nigh-on-impossible to control trading in their own currencies.  The prospect of the G8 imposing controls on the Internet across major civilised economies is the biggest threat the Internet at large will ever face, far more dangerous than a piddling net filter in Australia could ever be.

    • iansand says:

      12:06pm | 23/09/11

      Did I politicise it?  It just seems to me that this sort of thing is exactly one of the sorts of unforeseen potential benefits of having a broadband network.

    • MarkS says:

      03:08pm | 23/09/11

      The printing press changed the world, the internet will change people. The time will come when everybody in the rich nations will be wired in 24/7.

      Walk down a street & the interactive signs you see are only there on your headup display. What is real & what is VR will merge until the very question becomes almost meaningless.

      Viral memes as silly as laughing at a person who stumbles or powerful as overthrowing a government will sweep the world like waves across an unquiet pool. New government types will be form, why have MP’s when every single issue can be debated & voted on by all interested adults.

      Our meat memory & processing boosted by silicon until the new people will truly be cyborgs. Our grand children will be human but not as we know it. It is Brave New World & I want my soma.

    • Erick says:

      04:06pm | 23/09/11

      @ChrisL - Yes, but what I’m asking is whether faster connections overseas are included in the NBN plan?

      I’ve seen nothing about this - though I admit I haven’t done a lot of research on the subject. Can anyone enlighten me?

    • Chris L says:

      04:44pm | 23/09/11

      I haven’t heard anything about that either Erick. I just figure that the option is there, if it is decided to be worthwhile. Indeed Labor could just do the NBN and the next Coalition government could increase the intercontinental connections. I would have been just as happy to praise the Coalition if they had upgraded our internet.

    • acotrel says:

      06:59am | 23/09/11

      Sounds like the black mathematical art of pattern recognition should be coupled with this technology !

      Reply

    • gobsmack says:

      07:30am | 23/09/11

      The Foldit game sounds quite impressive.
      However, I don’t know why World of Warcraft is mentioned in the heading to the article.  WoW is fundamentally about material acquisition (albeit cyber materials) and players are required to perform repetitive and mundane tasks (aptly named grinding) in order to acquire the latest weapons etc.  I don’t think there is anything particularly creative in WoW - it’s designed to be addictive and thus fulfils the company’s core goal of selling server time.

      Reply

    • Shane From Melbourne says:

      09:44am | 23/09/11

      Chinese gold farmers have a right to work and earn money…..(despite the fact that they will hack your account in a heartbeat)

    • Az says:

      11:18am | 23/09/11

      I agree and disagree, I dont know how WoW ties into the article but….

      My experience of the game is very different to yours. ‘Grinding’ and repetitive tasks and quests are what you go through to get ready for the progressive raid environment. If your in a highly skilled WoW raid team be it 10man or 25man, clear communication, finely tuned player interaction and above all, problem solving is key to success.

      I’ve seen and been involved in some pretty intense and complex raid encounters where very complicated fight strategies need to be devised by all present and in many instances on the fly (particularly with new content). It’s fast moving and requires a lot of deep analysis – many times I’ve been in WoW raids where everyone present has just had to stand back, sit down and really nut out some very complex fight mechanics as a group - and that’s just the Person v Environment facet of the game – Person versus Person is a whole other ball-game.

    • stephen says:

      08:07am | 23/09/11

      Sure there’s a connection there ; I could find one between playing model trains and being a better Diplomat, but the question is really one of economy : to state a cause and effect, like this, is really to propose the effect as one of possible neccessity, when, all things being equal, the ‘ordinary’ should take precedence, i.e. if you’re spending your time playing games to improve not game-playing, your scientific skills may best be improved with Science.

      Reply

    • acotrel: says:

      08:49am | 23/09/11

      @Stephen
      ’ if you’re spending your time playing games to improve not game-playing, your scientific skills may best be improved with Science. ‘

      It’s amazing what is produced when you give a scientist such a powerful tool ! One concept which still has only been partly pursued is the concept of a multidimensional space, and the way data sets can be used to detect patterns and correlations in physics and chemistry.

    • skepdad says:

      12:03pm | 26/09/11

      An equivalent analogy might be that the best preparation for running marathons is to run marathons. While this is no doubt true, there is an element of accessibility and - dare I say it - enjoyment in the gym, or in shorter runs, or in interval training etc, that work towards the goal of running marathons while maintaining the variability and interest needed to sustain the effort.

      Unfortunately “science” doesn’t have the accessibility or enjoyment factor that gaming has.  It might be less economical, but at least it’s doing something towards building useful skills that staring at the telly doesn’t.

    • subotic says:

      08:29am | 23/09/11

      Now, if only we could just have decent internet connection and speed in Australian, maybe our nation could contribute to all of this advancement….

      Reply

    • Keith Hammersmith says:

      03:32pm | 23/09/11

      move within 100k’s of a city and reap the rewards…  you may have to pay for parking and deal with traffic, but you will get fast interenet,  you know,  pros and cons

    • Geoff Russell says:

      09:22am | 23/09/11

      Pure mathematicians are fond of pointing to the occasional application and saying “See! I told you this stuff was useful”. But what’s important and always ignored is the ratio of the useful to the useless ... which is pretty damn low. Is playing games better than watching TV or going to the ballet? Absolutely. But it’s still just self indulgent fun. Nothing wrong with self indulgent fun if balanced with more useful pursuits ... planting trees and flowers, helping people or animals who need it,  building schools in places who need them, keeping Tony Abbott out of office, getting rid of the chicken industry, ... I could add items to this list all day.  As for AIDS, ask yourself which is more useful, finding a better drug or ensuring that the people who need to wear condoms actually wear them and can afford them.  Sometimes the little things are more important than the big flashy things. 

      What I think is great about gaming is that it can develope the intensity of concentration and perseverance needed to solve all kinds of problems. TV does exactly the opposite. But what gaming doesn’t do is help you understand which problems are worth solving. That’s a far harder skill to
      develope ... so it seems ... all kinds of people spend vast amounts of time solving problems that aren’t really worth much.

      Reply

    • theo says:

      09:40am | 23/09/11

      zelda would have been a more accurate analogy, never the less the idea really blows me away, good article.

      Reply

    • RyaN says:

      09:50am | 23/09/11

      Perhaps the fact that gamers solved this scientific issue in such a short time just goes to show the poor level of our current “scientists”. Lets face it, there are some who speak with conviction and advise governments on global warming who haven’t a science degree between them.

      Reply

    • HappyCynic says:

      11:29am | 23/09/11

      Pfft you try doing what those scientists were doing before they crowd sourced the solution.  It would take you years if not decades to do it on your own, simply because alone you don’t have the brain power to do it.

      A collective of gamers all working towards a common solution in a competitive environment is always going to work much faster, it has nothing to do with “the poor level of our current scientists” and everything to with the fact that 2 average brains are better than one genius brain at certain collaborative tasks, 10 brains are better than 2 and so on just as 2 average computers working together are better than 1 high powered rig etc.

      Sneering at scientists and gamers alike while politicising an article that has nothing to do with climate change just makes you look ingracious.

    • RyaN says:

      04:28pm | 23/09/11

      @HappyCynic: fact is that if what you say is true then why do the IPCC and the like spend most of their time trying to hide their actual raw data rather than let it be available to the public.
      It was blatantly obvious from the Climategate emails the climate “scientists” were actively seeking to hide raw data.
      Either the scientists don’t understand your hypothesis or they are actually hiding something.

    • onlooker says:

      09:51am | 23/09/11

      At the grand old age of 60 years, I play and love Warcraft, as you age its good to keep your mind active, and this is an enjoyable way of doing it nice article thanks

      Reply

    • gobsmack says:

      10:46am | 23/09/11

      LOL.  You’ve reached level 60.  Gratz.

    • Shenanigans says:

      11:03am | 23/09/11

      just wait till he hits lvl 80, there’s an achievement in that

    • amy says:

      11:58am | 23/09/11

      I cant wait to see what games will be around when I reach level 60

    • Ricky says:

      10:14am | 23/09/11

      Fantastic article for sure. What would have made it perfect is stating what is bad about gaming? What is the difference between gaming and going to play a “sport” besides the physical factor. Both require concentration, skill, teamwork(depending on the game/sport), practice and determination.

      I liked how you mentioned that most people use technology over kicking the ball outside or meeting in person etc. This is so true and I find it funny when someone these days tells someone to “Get a Life”. These days what is “A life” and what does it entail? Does it entail being a sheep and doing what society proclaims to “Be a life”? I find it contradicting and amusing when someone says this to me as I don’t socialize while they’re texting their friend or putting on Facebook “I am here with whoever”. This society is a bunch of hypocrites who contradict themselves at every corner.

      Also Geoff Russell what is bad about Abbott when you compare him to Gillard? Are you in that much denial of the truth that you still believe Labor > Liberal. They’re crumbling and they know it because they can’t manage our economy adequately.

      Reply

    • Chris L says:

      11:46am | 23/09/11

      I agree with most of what you’ve said Ricky, except that our economy is doing quite well, which would indicate good management (at least, that’s how it was interpreted when the Coalition were in charge).

    • amy says:

      11:56am | 23/09/11

      it is rather pathetic that somone would let other people stop them from doing what they want

    • Ricky says:

      12:29pm | 23/09/11

      Chris L.
      I understand that our economy is progressing rather well when comparing to other countries but look at all the wasted money on our schools that could’ve easily been saved, the insulation issue Labor caused and lying about the Emissions Tax. I hate both parties but I notice Liberal always stabilizes our balance sheets.

      Amy.
      Yes I understand your statement perfectly as it is true. I think people need to understand that here in Australia we have the freedom to live life how we choose and if that is playing games or playing sport then there shouldn’t be any criticism towards that individual.  Then again if someone played sport people would cheer them because that’s the “normal” thing to do.

      These are signs of “old fashioned” views and I think those individuals need to understand that technology is not going to leave it will stay.  I can’t wait for another decade to pass and see the views of society at that period of time smile

    • Kipling says:

      09:20am | 24/09/11

      As a gamer I have heaps of lives…
      grin

    • neo says:

      10:26am | 23/09/11

      I killed Rag last night.

      WoW is great for your memory and reaction skills, and sometimes maths too raspberry Primarily, of course, it’s entertainment, just like watching TV, but unlike TV, it does not degrade you, but actually improves your mind..

      Reply

    • Shenanigans says:

      11:04am | 23/09/11

      is he still as much of a pain in the arse as he was in vanilla?

    • Keith Hammersmith says:

      03:33pm | 23/09/11

      no.  Guilds took him down the within 48 hours of release, in fact im certain some guilds took him down the same day.  Heroic mode took a little longer, but not that long

    • Oliver says:

      11:31am | 23/09/11

      WoW is to protein folding as the News of the World is to the Wall Street Journal, as Charlie Sheen is to Kevin Spacy, as Today Tonight is to 4 Corners.

      Get the picture?

      Reply

    • St. Michael says:

      11:15pm | 23/09/11

      ...a lot more fun to watch and laugh at?

    • skepdad says:

      12:38pm | 26/09/11

      I liked the bit where you drew nonsensical comparisons to make the point that you don’t like WoW.

    • amy says:

      12:04pm | 23/09/11

      I dont really see how this relates specifically to WOW (although there was the phenomenan of the “corrupted blood” which was an interesting look into how epidemics spread)

      anyway cant say Im a fan of the MMO style of games, but hey its good that we can put things liek this to good use

      I havnt heard from the anti-game crowd yet raspberry

      Reply

    • nerdvana says:

      02:07pm | 23/09/11

      They should probably point out the best gamers are math nerds… that’s what games really are…

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      12:42pm | 24/09/11

      Albert Einstein may be wrong after all ... but it still took a hundred years.

      Reply

    • Download oem software says:

      11:46pm | 25/09/11

      OV6JEX The author deserves for the monument:D

      Reply

    • skepdad says:

      12:34pm | 26/09/11

      I know the reference to WoW was somewhat trite and it’s more in the public consciousness than any other MMO, but those interested in the complexities of gameplay should take a look at Eve Online. Players are learning complex economic theory, social engineering, politics, media manipulation, leadership and many other real-world applicable skills. 

      Anyone who still thinks gaming is a pointless waste of time (in moderation) needs to join the current century.

      Reply
 
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