Learning from MMORPGs

MMORPG's may have more to tell us about ourselves then we realize. Already, social scientists have been studying how people interact in these games. Since the interactions between MMORPG players are real, even if the environments are virtual, psychologists and sociologists are able to use MMORPGs as tools for academic research. Sherry Turkle, a clinical psychologist, has conducted interviews with computer users including game-players. Turkle found that many people have expanded their emotional range by exploring the many different roles (including gender identities) that MMORPGs allow a person to explore.

Economist have gotten in on the act too because many MMORPGs feature living economies. Virtual items and currency have to be gained through play and have definite value for players. Such a virtual economy can be analyzed (using data logged by the game) and has value in economic research; more significantly, these "virtual" economies can have an impact on the economies of the real world. One of the early researchers of MMORPGs was Edward Castronova, who demonstrated that a supply-and-demand market exists for virtual items and that it crosses over with the real world.

More recently, in World of Warcraft, a temporary design glitch attracted the attention of psychologists and epidemiologists across North America, when a" disease of a monster began to spread unintentionally—and uncontrollably—into the wider game world. Blizzard had implemented a new dungeon which included a spell effect called 'Corrupted Blood'. It was a spell that did damage to you, and if you came near other players, the spell effect passed on to them. The spell was intended to exist only in one dungeon, but there was a bug and it got out. Players went back into towns and were spreading it to other players.

Blizzard got calls from the CDC - the Center for Disease Control - saying: "Hey, what's all this about the disease in your game? We want to look at the simulation data - it might help us in a real-world situation." The Center for Disease Control used the incident as a research model to chart both the progression of a disease, and the potential human response to large-scale epidemic infection.