Studying the Plague in WoW

Nimrod writes 'NPR has a piece on studying the 'Plague' in the virtual world, World of Warcraft. From the piece: 'Spread of virus or disease has a lot to do with human behavior ... Hardest part about researching human behavior is that people often act differently in an emergency than they imagine they will... Peoples reaction to the plague in World of Warcraft were remarkable realistic... Some decided that once they were infected, I really don't care anymore about anyone else, I'm going to teleport in the game to a crowed urban center and infect as many people as I can.' We've discussed this before, but as it has been picked up by the major news outlets it appears to be accumulating commentary about how virtual behavior mimics societal trends. The NPR piece goes into more depth on the subject.

Comments

Windows Media, RealPlayer required

[Anonymous Coward]

You might have wanted to mention that you're linking to an audio file, and one that requires either RealPlayer or Windows Media Player at that.

Because without those, all the piece says is:

A recent outbreak of a "plague" in a popular online game has scientists considering how the virtual world may provide clues to what people would do in real-world pandemics. In the role-playing game World of Warcraft, a "corrupted blood" spell killed characters and affected players in unexpected ways.

Which is actually less informative than the Slashdot post.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of World of Warcraft, you should probably have already mentioned that Blizzard has announced that the as-of-yet unnamed expansion pack will be playable at BlizzCon.

Re:And The Band Played On

[Elwood P Dowd]

Patient Zero (the french canadian flight attendant was bi, not gay) had no way of knowing he had HIV: No one knew what HIV was. He was the first known case.

Right?

Re:Barebacking.

[Wyatt Earp]

I've seen it in the States as assualt with a deadly weapon and unlawful endangerment.

Map of states with laws on it.
http://tinyurl.com/9jsg6

Re:It's all just a game

[Red Flayer]

Somewhere in the replies I read something along the lines of, "Most people knowingly infected with a diesease would not purposefully act to hurt others". I find this comment laughable(Granted, it's slightly out of context). How many of you go to work sick? You know your sick but yet you still go.

The difference is the intent. I go to work when sick so I can get my work done, not to purposely infect others. Although, at times, I am very tempted to direct my coughs into a specific office...

Many of the intentional plague vectors in WoW were having a lark... I'm sure it didn't bother their consciences much because the net effect is so small -- just a bit of annoyance for those they infected.

What's interesting, though, is that this is an example of sociopathic behavior, just to a smaller extent. Someone who knowingly and willingly transmits a plague in real life is a sociopath. WoW (and other MMORPGs) are showing us that quite a few people exhibit sociopathic tendencies to a certain degree -- like all the grievers who play.

The reason that these tendencies are over-represented in MMORPGs is twofold:
(1) There are only very small, underdevloped social structures, so negative repercussions for these acts are practically non-existant. This is why MMORPGs have in-game moderators and guilds -- to create the social structures which are otherwise lacking.

(2) Negative repercussions to the player (not the character) are almost nil. Risk/Reward for sociopathic actions becomes balanced in favor of Reward. Some games have tried to rebalance this by increasing the presence and power of in-game moderators, or better use of formal complaint channels, but most game companies do not want to destroy a revenue source by banning a player.