Vanished was an eight-week long “curated game” modeled on ARGs and developed by MIT and the Smithsonian to draw middle-schoolers into thinking like a scientist. In an effort to understand how to attract and retain players throughout the run of future curated games, we will examine gender differences in engagement and which factors were positively associated with longer play times. Girls (who were nearly half our players) favored social and narrative based tasks, while boys favored achievement/social ranking based tasks. For both genders, accessing social data about other players and scoring high numbers of achievement points were positively associated with continued play. We recommend that designers of future curated games or other multiplayer educational games carefully design compelling narratives, “networked publics” and achievement systems that reward “science newbies” as well as experts in order to engage and retain players.
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