Video Game Everquest 2 Provides New Way to Study Human Behavior, Says U of Minnesota...

Video Game Everquest 2 Provides New Way to Study Human Behavior, Says U of
Minnesota Researcher

MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Can researchers study the
populations of online video games, like Everquest 2, just as they study
traditional communities like Miami, Pittsburgh or Minneapolis? A research
study by a University of Minnesota computer scientist and colleagues from
across the country shows that online, interactive gaming communities are now
so massive that they mirror traditional communities. These findings are
creating a new evolution of social science research where researchers are able
to study human behavior using the game.

The research team analyzed three years of data (over 60 terabytes) from the
complete server logs and click-streams of Sony's popular PC game EverQuest 2.
The data tracked every action performed in one of the world's most popular
massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. Everquest 2 has more than 300,000
players who average 26 hours per week playing the game. Because of the intense
level of involvement and multi-player environment of the game, the researchers
were able to study human behavioral dynamics using the game as a proxy.

The researchers used the virtual world to model the social and behavioral
dynamics of individuals, groups, and networks within large communities. Their
study presented evidence that the social sciences are at the threshold of a
fundamental shift not only in our understanding of the social and behavioral
sciences, but also the ways in which we study them.

The research team includes University of Minnesota computer science and
engineering professor Jaideep Srivastava; Northwestern University professor
Noshir Contractor; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign professor Scott
Poole; and University of Southern California assistant professor Dmitri
Williams. They recently presented their findings at a 90-minute symposium
"Analyzing Virtual Worlds: Next Step in the Evolution of Social Science
Research" at this year's annual meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest meeting of scientists.

This interdisciplinary research project was funded by the National Science
Foundation and the U.S. Army with cooperation from Sony.

Multiplayer online games and virtual worlds have become increasingly popular
and have communities comprising millions. They allow social scientists to
study, theorize and model the social and behavioral dynamics of individuals,
groups, and networks within large communities. The researchers described how
this research offers new insights as well as challenges and opportunities for
advancing social, behavioral, and computational science.

For more University of Minnesota Experts and News, go to
http://www1.umn.edu/news/

SOURCE University of Minnesota

Ryan Mathre of University of Minnesota, University News Service,
+1-612-625-0552, mathre@umn.edu