Game-Based Discovery: Harnessing Mini-Games within Primary Games for Scientific Data Collection and Problem Solving

In the popular video game Batman: Arkham Knight, produced by Rocksteady Studios and released in 2015, the primary protagonist of the game is Batman, a vigilante dressed as a bat, fighting crime from the shadows in the fictitious city of Gotham. The game involves a real-world player who takes up the role of Batman to solve a peculiar side mission wherein they have to reconstruct the clean DNA sequence of a human and separate it from mutant DNA to manufacture an antidote to cure the villain. Although this is undoubtedly a fascinating part of the game, one that was absent in previous Batman games, it showcases an interesting notion of using mini-games embedded within primary games to achieve a particular real-world research objective. Although the DNA data used in this case was not real, there are multiple such instances in video games where mini-games have been used for an underlying motive besides entertainment. Based on popular case studies incorporating a similar method, this study characterizes the methodology of designing mini-games within primary games for research purposes into a descriptive framework, highlighting the process's advantages and limitations. It is concluded that these mini-games not only facilitate a deeper understanding of complex scientific concepts but also accelerate data processing and analysis by leveraging crowd-sourced human intuition and pattern recognition capabilities. This paper argues for strategically incorporating miniaturized, gamified elements into established video games that are mainly intended for recreational purposes.