Roleplayers play games to cope
February 22, 2009 by Jin
Filed under Fantasy, Games, Off the Wall, Recent
Scientists have recently begun analyzing 60 TBs of Everquest 2 data given to them by Sony. In analyzing the biggest data set of human interactions ever made publicly available, scientists have already come up with a number of interesting and a few amazing findings. The data includes about 4 years worth of server logs of 400,000 players and includes follow up demographic surveys of the players.
Obviously, these aren't your average Everquest players.
Some of the more interesting initial findings:
- The average age of your typical Everquest gamer is 31
- Older players tend to play more than the kids and, while they play a lot, game time mostly displaced either TV going to the movies.
- Players seem healthy; their body mass index is better than the US average
- Players are slightly more depressed than average, but they are also less anxious
- Players tend to interact mostly with friends or friends of friends
- Geographic proximity is a strong determinant as to whether player decides to interact with another player. Scientists conclude that many players use online games as an extension of their real life interactions.
However, a couple of findings stood out among what you might statistically expect. According to Dmitri Williams, one of the scientists working with the data:
Buried among those happy, average players was a small subset of the population—about five percent—who used the game for serious role playing and, according to Williams, “They are psychologically much worse off than the regular players.” They belong to marginalized groups, like ethnic and religious minorities and non-heterosexuals, and tended to use the game as a coping mechanism.
That’s quite a statement. Are they alleging that some (many?) role players use MMOs as a social coping mechanism to escape the real world? And the link Williams draws between role players and disenfranchised minority groups will raise a number of eyebrows, including mine. I’ve known a number of role players over the years, and I’ve never bothered to inquire about their real life situations. I certainly wouldn’t have guessed that role players would use a MMO as some sort of therapy.
Hey, they look like they're coping well enough to me. I'd game with them.
The second finding that raised my eyebrows were the findings on the behavior of women players. According to Noshir Contractor, a scientist studying social networks:
Gender turned out to be a negative influence on interactions: even after their low numbers were taken into account, female players avoided interacting with each other.
A number of things could be influencing this particular behavior. I’m not scientist, so this is at best opinion. The past popular perception is that a female gamer is some sort of rare bird that one hears about but rarely see. While this notion has been disproven again and again, and women have taken to Internet-based games in signficant numbers, this stereotype still persists. In going into an environment where a woman feels she is vastly outnumbered by men, I could see how some women may be unwilling to communicate or interact with fellow players.
Online females can be reticent of interacting. Not so in the real world.
Further, while many (I’d say the vast majority) of male players are considerate, it only takes a boorish few to get a female player to retreat into her shell. I’ve seen a lonely, pathetic few who could not differentiate between a game and a single’s bar, and would constantly harp a female player for online pictures of themselves.
In any case, I’m looking forward to seeing what other findings they discover. I think the potential of this work to break stereotypes on online gamers and to study human interactions in general will be fascinating.
Source from Ars Technica
Related posts:
- Many female gamers bisexual For those of you men out there hoping to...
- Social oddities of MMOs If you’ve played MMOs as long as I have,...
- Play games, die young A new advertisement campaign by the British government strongly...
- $473,000 to play Warcraft III Jae-ho Jang is a happy man. The 22-year-old video...
- Great games of 2009 2008 was an awful year for games if your...
Interesting finds as always. However, like you said, only 5% were the affected kind. They are not saying that the masses of the minority groups do the same, but rather that there are some who use it as a way of escape. I bet most people who play MMO’s do the same, only to various extents, and they just point out the worst as a statistical standout, not necessarily to discriminate against them.
Or, perhaps, this could be a way to indirectly hint at the rising problems of society today that has forced these minority groups to escape using other methods, such as playing in a MMO. That would be extrapolation and speculation though.
These are initial findings, so I take any conclusions with a grain of salt. However, I was still surprised by the statement.
What struck me about the statement was their point that racial or religious minority players were often “psychologically worse off”. I’d be curious to see if they reveal more details on what they mean by that. I’ll definitely follow up on this study and post what I find here.