Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: Millions Went To Video Game ‘Research’
Topline: When a federal grant makes national headlines for being wasteful, the government usually gets the hint and caps spending on the project.
But in 2008, the National Science Foundation responded to critics of its $100,000 Chinese video game research study by … investing another $2.9 million into the project, or $4.3 million in 2024 dollars.
That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.
Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname "Dr. No" by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. He included projects that he couldn't stop in his oversight reports.
Coburn's Wastebook 2008 included 65 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $1.3 billion, including the $100,000 spent studying video games.
Coburn revisited the grant in his Wastebook 2010 once the government had spent another $2.9 million.
Key facts: Bonnie Nardi, an anthropologist at the University of California at Irvine, first became interested in the game “World of Warcraft” while visiting China, where she noticed teenagers playing it differently than Americans.
What likely should have remained a personal interest quickly became a federally funded project.
Nardi published her “World of Warcraft” research in a 2010 book about “night elf priests,” in which she bragged about her three years of “participatory research” (read, playing video games).
Before the book was even released, the NSF gave Nardi and her colleagues another $2.9 million to study “game-based virtual worlds.”
The study was published in 2012. It’s 122 pages long and includes contributions from 30 video game “scholars.”
UC-Irvine even has a dedicated Institute for Virtual Environments and Computer Games and offers an undergraduate major in the subject.
Supporting quote: The lead author of the study Nardi contributed to said it was “a sign of distinction and a compliment” to be included in Coburn’s Wastebook in 2010.
“They absolutely don’t get what we’re doing, whereas anybody who works in the field gets what we’re doing,” Walt Scacchi said.
Summary: “World of Warcraft” remains hugely popular with an estimated 124 million players last year. The game has earned over $9.23 billion since it came out in 2004 — but on the back of entertainment value, not federal waste.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
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