The Future of Crowdsourcing Through Games

Abstract

This chapter reviews the intersection of crowdsourcing, collective intelligence, and gaming and labels these a new type of gaming experience called knowledge games. The aim of knowledge games is to invite multiple game players to participate in real-world problem solving and novel knowledge production. For instance, the classic example is that of Foldit, a game that invites players to manipulate digital representations of proteins to better understand how real-world proteins fold. This chapter describes key terms related to knowledge games, gives an overview of the initial strengths and weaknesses, discusses naming these games, and provides a nascent taxonomy for categorizing these types of games. This chapter also provides an in-depth description of two examples of knowledge games, ARTigo and Nanocrafter, to better understand what knowledge games are, to explore, open gaps, and to determine future needs in designing, using, and critiquing these games.