FORUM Leveraging insights from mainstream gameplay to inform STEM game design: great idea, but what comes next? Melissa Biles Received: 31 August 2012 / Accepted: 31 August 2012 / Published online: 22 September 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 Abstract This response to Leah A. Bricker and Phillip Bell’s paper, GodMode is his video game name, examines their assertion that the social nexus of gaming practices is an important factor to consider for those looking to design STEM video games. I propose that we need to go beyond the investigation into which aspects of games play a role in learning, and move on to thinking about how these insights can actually inform game design practice. Keywords Videogames Á Social networks Á Learning Á Peer-to-peer interactions Á Expertise The idea of exploring the potential of triple-A video games to provide insights into the educational game development process is a solid foundation from which to approach this new evolving industry. As a gamer myself, I find there are many memes (Dawkins 1989) that can be drawn from games developed by the major game publishers and applied towards improving the type of educational video games that are currently being produced. When a paradigm obviously works effectively to draw millions of players into an im- mersive game environment and results in a detailed knowledge base around the game constructs; there must be something that can be extricated in terms of the knowledge production process. After all, the various types of learning theories are basically complex ways of conceptualizing processes of knowledge production. Leah Bricker and Phillip Bell presented a case study of one player, Steve, and the social networks and contexts of his gaming practices. I found this focus interesting because, while the article did not outline any straightforward applications toward game development, the Lead Editor: C. Milne. Forum response to Bricker and Bell (2012). ‘‘GodMode is his video game name’’: Learning and expertise development in technology domains. doi:10.1007/s11422-012-9410-6. M. Biles (&) CREATE Lab, New York University, New York, NY, USA e-mail: mlb414@nyu.edu 123 Cult Stud of Sci Educ (2012) 7:903–908 DOI 10.1007/s11422-012-9453-8