Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Virtual epidemics

An epidemic, Corrupted Blood, swept through World of Warcraft. The effects and behaviors of players has now been used in research.
Researcher Professor Nina Fefferman, from Tufts University School of Medicine, said: "Human behaviour has a big impact on disease spread. And virtual worlds offer an excellent platform for studying human behaviour.

"The players seemed to really feel they were at risk and took the threat of infection seriously, even though it was only a game."

She acknowledged that a virtual setting might encourage riskier behaviour, but said this could be estimated and allowed for when drawing conclusions.
I wonder what other real world situations would benefit from MMORPG research?

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