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Faculty Seminar on Virtual WorldsEpisode 4 - Behavior - 3/11/08
cory ondrejka - [email protected] williams - [email protected]
what are people doing?
this is an important discussion
because...
certain behaviors over-reported
certain behaviors over-reported
“sex in second life”
research gets duplicated
research gets duplicated
(uncritically duplicated)
change happens
change happens
“You are standing in the middle of a foreboding great room.” !=
not to mention
how does behavior here
how does behavior here
impact life out here
how does behavior here
impact life out here
before we talk to the expert
four stories that might help to provide context for why more
research is needed
first, let’s talk about sex
because everyone else wants to
because everyone else wants to
and everyone opines on how prevalent it is online
or, in Second Life, for example:
Information Week: 30%
James Au: 5%
Wired: “No one will know”
we study sex in the real world
and there are a host of questions about how avatars
impact real-world
trust
trust
identity
identity
doesn’t this merit serious study?
two, the new
want to know a secret?
a secret never before revealed?
sometimes, when people are online they pretend to be
a different gender
ZOMG! Alert the President!
“Mr. President, something freaky is going on...”
hope he can keep us safe
but, in all seriousness
online community research has happened before...
not to harp on this paper
but, let us, it’ll be fun...
(plus, it will let me mention Richard Bartle)
this paper says:
“Results revealed that the majority of gamers (57%) had gender swapped their game character. This included over half of all males (54%) and
more than two-thirds of females (68%).”
now, it’s not their fault that
turned that into:
“Up to 70% of female players said they chose to use male identities
while inside internet games”
which, in turn,
further modified into:
“The study discovered that 68% of women who played computer games online have chosen male characters, often to ward off
unwanted attention from men or to gain the upper hand over
opponents.”
leading to:
Richard Bartle has traced through this nicely on his blog
but it raises a host of points
including storypropagation and accuracy
what impact this has on virtual world and game research in general
but more importantly
what about Nick Yee’s work
or, for that matter, Richard’s
online gender swapping has a long history of study
how do their results fit into this history?
which brings up the third point
if this is true
“You are standing in the middle of a foreboding great room.” !=
or this, actually
“You are standing in the middle of a foreboding great room.” ==
how have behaviors changed
(or not changed)
as a result of differing representations
it seems unlikely that
text
cartoons
3d cartoons
would have the same
emotional
cognitive
community
impact
after all, no one would argue
“Seals are killed for fur”
would be nearly as impactful as
which all impacts the most important question
how does behavior here
impact life out here
so, let me turn it over to Dmitri
(sadly, don’t have Dmitri’s slides yet, so imagine a very compelling
talk inserted here)
so, what’s next?
march 25th:government,
national security,legal,and
regulatory issues
stop talking now
