Longevity of MMOs is key attraction for NASA game

Speaking to Gamespot, NASA Learning Technologies project manager Dr Daniel Laughlin has revealed that the Agency is developing an MMO partly because of the problems of limited shelf life and sequelitis associated with more traditional games.

"Even a really good title in a couple of months is going to be stale, and you're going to find it on the discount rack," he said.

"The MMOG comes with that built in, as long as you can keep expanding, updating, and putting in new material, it can stay fresh. Everquest turned nine this year, and there are still people playing Everquest. Civilization II came out on consoles around 1998, and there's nobody playing that anymore."

He added: "If we did an educational game that used NASA content, or a game that had NASA content, and we went with a stand-alone console game, then next year, we'd be out looking for how do we do NASA Game 2. Also, another element to that is that while you do get communities built up around stand-alone games, the vibrancy of the MMO community seems to be stronger to me, and we are looking particularly for communities to grow up around this."

The game, which as yet has no release date (or developer) is designed to get "the kidz" interested in science. Interesting read, that.