MindArk has recently been selected by NASA as one of three finalists to present to Entropia Universe to NASA Learning Technologies and the Innovative Program office on November 7th at the Goddard Space Flight Center.  The goal of the project is to create an exciting and interactive MMO educational game to enhance the real world education of teens in high school and college in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields.  Saber Astronautics, Nocturnal Entertainment, and Big World and Virtual Heroes and Project Whitecard will also be presenting.

As we talked about in the e-for-all in Los Angeles wrap up, Entropia Universe is a proprietary tech platform for interoperable virtual worlds.  Each world within the Entropia Universe has it’s own unique planet and associated characteristics.  These varied free-to-play worlds each contain secure micro-transaction marketplaces, highly developed media (with a CryEngine 2 graphics overhaul currently in the works), transaction methods for both real and virtual items, and full MMO features including social interaction between players.  Players spend PEDs, the Entropia in-game currency, on customizing and equipping their avatars at an exchange rate of 10:1, PED:$ respectively.

Swedish Based developers MindArk have been working on the Entropia Universe for over 10 years at a cost of over $40M.  Hitting the streets in 2003, MindArk’s flagship planet, Calypso has been turning a profit since 2004, and served at a fine-tuning platform for further planet developments.  The Entropia Universe now boasts approximately 780,000 registered accounts from over 200 countries globally.  In 2007, the Universe was responsible for over $400M of secondary market (player-to-player) trading.

“We are thrilled and honored to present Entropia Universe to NASA and to have been selected from over 100 interested parties which were present at the NASA MMO Workshop in April. It is an acknowledgement of our concept and progress, and shows the versatility of the platform we have spent a decade developing,” says MindArk CEO Jan Welter Timkrans.

MindArk Director of Special Projects, Christian Bjoerkman, continues, “this opportunity to build the NASA MMO is very much in line with our strategy to enhance the learning aspects of the Entropia Universe Platform. It is a perfect way for us to work in collaboration with top academics and scholars to create a stimulating, challenging and educational experience.”

NASA Learning Technologies sent out feelers at a workshop back in April in order to evaluate which companies and projects would be best suited to their desire to create a STEM-based MMO title.  Their goal is to create a fun, interactive and educational game that will enhance NASA’s educational goals.

To learn more about the STEM-MMO project, visit NASA at: http://ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/mmo/
To learn more about MindArk visit them at: http://www.mindark.com/
To learn more about Entropia Universe visit them at: http://www.entropiauniverse.com/

MindArk Entropia Universe Trailer

Tags: Christian Bjoerkman, cryengine 2, entropia universe, goddard space flight center, Jan Welter Timkrans, mindark, nasa, nasa learning technologies, social interaction, transaction methods, virtual heroes, virtual worlds

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