New WoW-based personality test!
 

Virtual game is a 'disease model'.


I am definitely type C. I read about Ebola. One of the ways it spreads to other people is by forcing the infected into a violent fit, causing the sufferer to thrash about infected blood and vomit. Can you imagine how good it would be to time one of these fits just after you run into the centre of a crowded church or other village gathering place? Awesome.

And if I was HIV positive I would be one of the pranksters who'd put my used needles in cinema seats with a 'welcome to the world of AIDS' note on it. That'd be a lark.

Which one are you?

I can't believe researches spend money on this type of shit to be honest.

I know. All you have to do is watch a crowd and see what they do when something terrible happens. Or....maybe read a newspaper!

But, in a ha-ha response:

I'd help people, get infected, flee from the city, and find a new area to infect.

See--I can accomplish all 3!

Not only that, but they're doing research on a BUG in the game that was fixed patches ago.

Instead, maybe they should've pooled their money together and put it towards accomplishing that in real life. Then, maybe, they'd've had something interesting to put in the papers:

Scientists cure cancer; say video game was influence

Instantaneously absolving video games from any future slander.

Its kinda funny though, and I like that scientists are always trying to prove video games are cooler than you think! How many people would have gone out and bought the game after reading about the chaos.

I read about this in the Economist last week. I wouldn't exactly say that it's a waste of money, and there have been much more worthless researches than this. It doesn't really take millions of dollars to spread a virtual disease and observe it, and you can't do something like that in real life. It seems like a good way of researching behaviour models.

And if you say 'fuck that, everyone already knows what would happen, we don't need any actual data,' the only thing I can do is roll my eyes. Yes, let's just do away with the field of social studies and go by our best guesses.

Haha. Awesome. :3:

But I did already knew that would happen, especially in a game, where there are little to no consequences. I think it's something any reasonably perceptive person would have noticed.

Well aren't you quite the genius. You knew 'that' would happen? What is 'that,' exactly? I would imagine the full research is a little deeper than 'some people try to infect others, some don't.'

Well let me put another way then. I, reasonably perceived that in a game where the harshest penalty is a game over screen that some people would like to help, other's would say 'who the fuck cares' and move on and some people would be dicks and go out of their way to harm people.

I know you can't release a disease on actual people and watch the results but real life aren't video games. People act differently in games than they do in real life. Personally I would be of those who infected others, would I do so in real life? No.


So I can't imagine this being relevant, it might as well have said to me "In video games some people are dicks".

As a study, it has no ecological validity. Real life situations would spark different reactions to virtual ones.

Unless of course the study was into how people react differently in a virtual situation to a real life one. Something extremely relevant in say, the nuclear power industry where all meltdown training and the like must be conducted through virtual reality simulations and similar. The effectiveness of VR training can be better justified if other studies have shown that people react online as they would off. Also, as someone else already suggested, gathering data from a virtual event that already happened is helluva cheaper than going out and conducting field tests.

They should study the effects of the Baron Geddon bomb (when pets could get it) in a populated area. SUICIDE BOMBER, OH NOES!

Umm... All I can say is that's ... interesting. Since I have never played WoW I don't know how serious people can take the game. I guess a situation like this really shows you how addictive and serious people take that game. Almost like its real...