Serious scientific games are games whose purpose is not just fun. In the field of science, the serious goals include crucial activities for scientists: outreach, teaching and research. The number of serious games is increasing rapidly, in particular citizen science games (CSGs), games that allow people to produce and/or analyze scientific data. It is possible to build a set of rules providing a guideline to create or improve serious games. We present arguments gathered from our own experience (Phylo, DocMolecules, the HiRE-RNA contest and Pangu) as well as examples from the growing literature on scientific serious games.
Science has an enormous impact on society; therefore, understanding and participating in science projects is important for citizens. The involvement of nonscientists in the realization and design of science projects is called citizen science. Citizen science has become more abundant during the past decade . One good example of a citizen science project is GalaxyZoo, which engages participants in classifying galaxies and has produced numerous publications—48 by 2014 .
This way of developing a research program is on the rise; one striking example is the game Foldit [2–3]. The Foldit project is an online 3D jigsaw puzzle in which players are invited to shake and wiggle the 3D structure of proteins to find their most stable conformations . Since its release in 2008, the project has brought remarkable results from a biological point of view [2–3], but it was also useful to collaboratively develop new algorithms to solve a particular scientific problem . Indeed, a very recent study showed that the results of players for model refinement tasks can be compared favorably with those of professional researchers . Similarly, Mazzanti et al. developed the HiRE-RNA contest and showed that novice players are able to fold RNA structures without much prior knowledge .
The success of citizen science initiatives is at least partly related to the ability of groups to perform many tasks better than the sum of their individuals, the “wisdom of crowds effect.” Many studies have gathered information on the determinants of collective intelligence , particularly thanks to controlled experiments in “crowd wisdom” . These studies have shown that key variables need to be scrutinized, such as information network structure , communication between users , and social influence . Based on these fundamental observations and our own experience, we present 10 simple rules to create or improve citizen science games (CSGs) in this developing field. We focus on the computational molecular biology area, in which CSGs are especially frequent. We share experience from our own Phylo, DocMolecules, HiRE-RNA, and Pangu projects and compare it to several other initiatives such as FoldIt and EteRNA. Such games may fall into multiple categories such as collecting scientific data, sorting it, or solving problems.
Rule 1: Define a (serious) goal
The most synthetic definition of a serious game is that of video game designers Sande Chen and David Michael: a game “in which education (in its various forms) is the primary goal rather than entertainment” . The work of Julian Alvarez, Damien Djaouti, and Olivier Rampnoux  further defined a serious game as a device, digital or otherwise, whose initial intention is to consistently combine utilitarian aspects with playful means. Such an association is aimed at an activity or a market other than entertainment alone. Therefore, a purpose needs to be clearly defined in terms of science, outreach, and teaching. A good game may address all three aspects. Knowing that professional video game production can cost millions of dollars, funding should also be taken into consideration from the very beginning of the project. The funding impacts all aspects of the project. Thus, having a clear idea helps designers to be realistic about the goals that can be achieved.
Is it to produce scientific data?
Many CSGs have a simulation component that allows the players to interact with and/or produce scientific data. Therefore, CSGs should lead to discoveries that can ultimately be published in the scientific literature. The scientific relevance of the results of gameplay increases the player’s interest and motivation.
We note that up to now, most of the publications on the various CSGs mainly concern the games themselves, discussing the quality of data generated, impact on motivation, etc. This outcome is expected, as most of the initial publications were proof of principle. So far, only a few games generated actual scientific results on the subject they were meant to study. One intriguing common point among the first projects that published data or results obtained using data generated by players on open-ended questions (e.g., Phylo, Foldit, Eyewire , and EteRNA) is that they all involved pattern-matching tasks. However, although serious games date back to before the 1980s, such games with a scientific twist are relatively young, such that conclusions are difficult to make.