Epistemic Games: Can this work in MMOG environment?

I have read Shaffer's book on How computer games help children learn and for Dr M's class, two required readings are by him which talk about epistemic games and their links to COP and informal learning. Great idea and nice work, I must say.



Said that, often games for learning are meant for certain audience and by that I mean very specific group of people. Take for example the Whyville.net by Kafai (I am great fan of Kafai and I see Whyville as an ambitious attempt and Kafai is leading the way to push the boundary of research on games in education beyond educational gains into the socio-cultural issues - like race and cheats, that I feel receive little attention) and River City by Harvard Uni as examples and oh yes, local game projects by Dr CYS, you find they share one thing in common - while they are meant or have potential to be multi-user, these games are hardly open beyond students in their experiments.

I wonder whether there is a minimum number of players limit where beyond it, community dynamic comes in and affect players' game play. What would impact interactions and conversations that would determine community dynamic when this happens. Can spontaneous and unintended community events (like players demonstrations and unrests) and social phenomenon (like grief play) happen if the number of players are large enough. How will they impact on the design of the games? Can epistemic games work under these conditions?

While I am confident that Shaffer, folks at Harvard Uni and Dr CYS, have thought through about social aspect of game play, I wonder whether the social structures they have created for their games will stand good and continue to promote interactions that are favourable for learning regardless the number of players.

Well, I can only be certain if I ask them. I know Shaffer will be coming to Singapore soon. Perhaps I will ask him this question.