How a Video Game Mini-Game has Contributed to Scientific Progress Without the Players Knowing

A not-so-trivial mini-game in Borderlands 3

If you've ever played Borderlands 3, you may have noticed an arcade game that you can play. A little non-violent break like so many in video games. However, this virtual machine that can be found in this third opus is not a mini-game like any other. Named Borderlands Science, this machine allows players to simply connect bricks of four different shapes and colors…But for what purpose? Players' playing time is converted into data and is used to improve research and help cure diseases. More precisely, this arcade game allows us to map billions, or at least a few, of the microbes that live in our intestines.

That was several years ago. If you heard about it back then, chances are this science mini-game slipped your mind completely. So, four years later, what is the situation? Did it really help scientists and advance research? The answer is a big yes! It's a big victory and the researchers wanted to congratulate the players.

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Borderlands Science is a big success

In an official press release, McGill University said how the 4.5 million people who participated in this mini-game helped scientists.

These players helped trace the evolutionary relationships of more than a million different types of bacteria that live in the human gut, some of which play crucial roles in our health. This information represents an exponential increase in what we have discovered so far about the microbiome. By lining up rows of tiles that represent the genetic building blocks of different microbes, humans have been able to accomplish tasks that even the best existing computer algorithms have accomplished.

In other words, if you played this mini-game, you surely contributed to scientific research. Today, data continues to be transmitted to researchers in order to guarantee them more effective assistance for as long as possible.. This is not the first time that video games have contributed to research, notably with World of Warcraft which unintentionally helped study pandemics. In the future, it's likely that more projects like Borderlands Science will emerge, putting players at the center of important scientific research.