Players Perception of the Chemistry in the Video Game No Man’s Sky

Abstract

Background No Man’s Sky (NMS) is a sci-fi videogame about survival and exploration where players fly spaceships, search for elements, and use them to build, trade, and survive. Despite evolving around scientific concepts, NMS isn’t a serious game, and not all the scientific content in the game is presented with evidence. Theory and Method Looking at the interceptions between videogames and science, and moving to how science communication, both in theory and practice, can be explored within the videogame’s paradigm, a survey was developed to better understand how NMS players perceive the scientific content in the game. Aims Are players aware of the scientific content and how it is presented in NMS? Can they decipher it, question it and understand it under real-world rules? With the data collected from 124 respondents from 23 countries, we aim to better understand how an entertainment videogame can potentially help scientists, educators, and science communicators reach a growing, evolving, vibrant, diverse, and demanding audience. Results Players seem aware of the scientific content in NMS, with a positive attitude through it. But players showed problems identifying what is right and wrong, while also pointing to the idea that every videogame that deals with science should strive to treat it with evidence. 57% of the respondents answered that NMS motivated them to know more about chemistry, with more than 35% revealing that they learned something new and understood the role of some scientific fundaments in certain real-world situations like new energy sources, biomes, or the role of carbon and oxygen. Discussion and Conclusion With the growth of the videogames’ audience, educators, science communicators, scientists, and policymakers can find in the medium – in any shape or form – a fun and interactive ally to engage with younger audiences and promote dialogues that can be transformative around scientific topics.