The Virtual Worlds Exploratorium

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The Virtual Worlds Exploratorium

• Marshall Scott Poole
• Department of Communication
• National Center for Supercomputing Applications
• I-CHASS
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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Principal Investigators

• Principal Investigators
• Dmitri Williams, University of Southern
  California
• Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University
• Marshall Scott Poole, University of Illinois
  Urbana-Champaign
• Jaideep Srivastava, University of Minnesota, Twin
  Cities
• Affiliated Faculty
• Scott Caplan, University of Delaware
• Edward Castronova, Indiana University

• Research Assistants
• Brooke Foucault, David Huffaker, Searle Huh,
  Brian Keegan, Gina Walejko, Annie
  WangNorthwestern University
• Jae Eun Chung, Rabindra Ratan, Cuihua Shen, Li
  Xiong, Nick Yee, USC
• Muhammad Ahmad, Nishith Pathak, UMN
• Iftekhar Ahmed, UIUC
• Database Development
• Dora Cai, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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Supported by

• U.S. National Science Foundation
• Small Grants for Emerging Research (SGER)
• Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS)
• Army Research Institute
• SONY Online Entertainment (SOE)
• National Center for Supercomputing Applications,
  UIUC
• Annenberg School for Communication, USC

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Online Games

• Massive Multiplayer Online Games an important
  genre (MMOGs)
• 16 million subscribers to MMOGS
• 67 teens play online games
• Several MMOGs have several hundred thousand
  players

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Research Potential

• MMOGs are of interest in their own right
• Psychological, social, economic impacts
• Castronova-Synthetic Worlds
• MMOGs may be a mirror of the real world
• Networks
• Economics
• Group Processes
• Conversation
• Conflict
• Learning

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A Unique Opportunity

• Previous work
• Experiments
• Ethnographies
• Surveys in separate sites
• VWE Project
• Proprietary in-game player data
• Survey of players from game

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The Game

• Everquest 2 (EQ2)
• About 175,000 players
• Dozens of servers worldwide
• Successor to Ever Quest

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http//www.youtube.com/watch?vG3VamwcAlzs
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EQ2

• Basics
• Fantasy based
• Create character
• Never ending quest for advancement and
  exploration
• Underlying Storyline Conflict between good and
  evil factions
• Band with other characters
• Quests to kill monsters
• Craftwork
• Socializing

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EQ2

• Characters
• Races
• Adventurer Classes
• Three General archetypes Damage-dealers,
  Damage-mitigators, Damage-healers
• Different capabilities, weaknesses, strengths
• Develop differently
• Artisan classes
• Tradeskills

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Adventurer Classes

• Fighter
• Warrior (Berserker, Guardian)
• Crusader (Paladin, Shadowknight)
• Brawler (Monk, Bruiser)
• Scout
• Bard (Troubadore, Dirge)
• Predator (Ranger, Assassin)
• Rogue (Swashbuckler, Brigand)
• Priest
• Druid (Fury, Warden)
• Cleric (Templar, Inquisitor)
• Shaman (Mystic, Defiler)
• Mage
• Sorceror (Wizard, Warlock)
• Summoner (Conjuror, Necromancer)
• Enchanter (Illusionist, Coercer)

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Artisan Classes

• Craftsman
• Carpenter
• Provisioner
• Woodworker
• Outfitter
• Weaponsmith
• Armorsmith
• Tailor
• Scholar
• Alchemist
• Jeweler
• Sage
• Tinkerer
• Transmuter

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EQ2

• Guilds
• Long term groupings
• Hierarchical
• Comprised of mixes of races, classes, characters
• Have own bank, hall, chat system
• Units
• Groups 4-6 players going on manageable quests
• Raids up to 24 players on major quests
  multi-team units

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EQ2

• Performance Metrics
• Success in quest
• Building character attributes Strength, stamina,
  agility, intelligence, wisdom, health, armor
• Acquiring various items
• Exploring areas
• Rising in guild
• Guild one is invited to join
• Currency through selling items (made or otherwise
  acquired)
• Barters

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EQ2

• Communication tools
• Tells - akin to instant messaging
• Chat channels--for guilds, ad hoc groups,
  recruitment functions, general banter
• Friends and ignore lists
• Side audio channelscell, internet phone, etc.

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Game Server Data

• Housed on Linux server which has 8 CPU, 16GB RAM
  and 15TB disk storage
• 1.4 Terabytes of data 5 months of game data from
  four servers
• Anticipate receiving additional data
• Big tables! 13 have over a million rows 6 over
  100 million rows economy table over 1 billion
  rows

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Game Server Data

• Unobtrusive
• Complete
• 23 tables with 57 relations and over 500
  variables
• Three types of tables
• State Information demographics, skills,
  abilities at one point in time
• Game Logs Action records such as kills and
  points earned or barters
• Chat Logs
• 1.5 years to build relations in our database, fix
  data, etc.

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Survey

• During time logs collected players invited to
  participate
• Reward Greatstaff of the Sun Serpent
• N 7000 (reached in two days)
• Open about goals To learn about users
• 25 minutes
• Participants were identified by unseen account
  number

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Survey

• Measures
• (1) demographics, including age, gender, race,
  household income, education, and religion
• (2) general game playing behavior (how often they
  play, who they play with, etc.) and motives for
  game playing
• (3) experiences in EQ2 (e.g., have you ever sold
  something in EQ2?) and typical priorities and
  behaviors when playing the game
• (4) media use, including their hours of
  television viewed per week, how often they read a
  newspaper, and their Internet connection speed
• (5) physical health, as measured by body mass
  index (BMI, calculated from self reports of
  weight and height), exercise habits (How many
  days a week do you engage in vigorous
  exercise?), and physical impairment (Do you
  have a physical condition that impairs your
  ability to carry out ordinary daily
  activities?)
• (6) social attitudes, including beliefs about
  community and trust
• (7) personality characteristics, such as
  loneliness and happiness.

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Investigations Underway

• Economics of EQ2
• Networks
• Teamwork and Group Performance
• Interpersonal Dynamics
• Computer Science

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Who Plays and What Are They Like?

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Who Plays, How Much, And Why?

• Replacing self-selected survey work, adding basic
  use patterns
• It aint a bunch of kids
• Average age is 31.16 (US population median is 35)
• More players in their 30s than in their 20s.

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Some oddball findings

• EQ2 players have lower Body Mass Index than US
  Population, i.e. they are physically healthier
• EQ2 players have higher levels of depression,
  lower levels of anxiety than US population
• Healthiest group vs. US Pop is older women
• Women are- More intense players in terms of
  time and commitment- Older (33 vs. 30)- More
  likely to be disabled- Disproportionately likely
  to be bisexual (14 vs. 2.8 for US) or
  physically impaired (14.4 vs. 7.3 for US)

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Whos Hardcore?

• Men play more other games, but it was the women
  who were the most dedicated and intense satisfied
  EQ2 players
• Women 29.32 hours/week
• Men 25.03 hours/week
• Likelihood of quitting no plans to quitwomen
  48.66, men 35.08

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The self-reported play issue

• Actual play was
• Women 29.32 hours/week
• Men 25.03 hours/week
• Self-reported play was
• Women 26.03 (3 hours less than actual)
• Men 24.10 (1 hour less than actual)
• Implications for prior research!

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Trust in Virtual Worlds

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Trust in Virtual Worlds

• Trust and feeling part of a community is very
  important in the early 21st century
• Online worlds offer potential for community
• Community depends on trustworthiness of online
  worlds
• Do participants have a sense of trust in EQ2?
• Does trust work the same way in EQ2 as in RL?

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Trust in Virtual Worlds

• Sources of Trust
• 1. Personality Generalized Trust (Rotter)
• 2. Institutions Within Online World (e.g. guilds
  in EQ2)
• 3. Communication
• Amount
• Self-disclosure
• Private versus public messages
• Modality

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Trust in Virtual Worlds

• H1 Levels of generalized trust will be
  positively related to online trust
• H2a Players trust their guild members more than
  others in the game
• H2b MMO players trust others in the game more
  than others online

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Trust in Virtual Worlds

• H3a Amount of small talk is positively related
  to trust of guildmates and others in the MMO
• H3b Self-disclosure is positively related to
  trust of guildmates and others in the MMO
• H3c The higher the proportion of all messages
  that a player publicly sends to a guild, the more
  this player trusts guild members.
• H3d People who use voice chat in the game more
  frequently are more likely to trust others a) in
  their guild and b) in the game the game and in
  their guild compared to people who use voice chat
  less frequently.

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Trust in Virtual Worlds

• Measures
• Survey
• Self-disclosure index of subjects responses to
  questions about a variety of relatively sensitive
  topics they might have discussed while playing.
  These covered how much they talked about dating
  or married life, parenting, sex, religion, and
  politics Five Point Likert Scale
• Small Talk When you are online talking to other
  players, how much small talk (e.g. talk about
  the weather, short conversations about how you
  are doing, etc.) goes on? Scale None at
  all, Very little, Some, A lot, I am not
  in a guild, and Dont Know.
• Voice Chat Use How often do you use a voice
  system (e.g. TeamSpeak, Ventrilo) to talk to
  other players? Scale Never, Rarely, less
  than once a month, Once a week, About once a
  day, but not always, and Always

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Trust in Virtual Worlds

• Measures
• Behavioral
• Public and Private Messages The number of
  private (to individual players) and public (to
  guild) messages each player sent was derived from
  Sonys databases. The proportion of all messages
  that players publicly sent to a guild was
  calculated by dividing the number of public guild
  messages by the sum of the number of private
  messages and public guild messages. Higher values
  mean that a player sent a higher proportion of
  public messages.

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Trust in Virtual Worlds

• Findings
• H1 Levels of generalized trust will be
  positively related to online trust
• Supported Correlations of generalized trust with
  other forms of trust (online, EQ2, guild) are
  significant
• H2a Players trust their guild members more than
  others in the game
• Supported Trust of guild members is
  significantly greater than trust of others in the
  EQ2
• H2b MMO players trust others in the game more
  than others online
• Supported Trust of others in EQ2 is
  significantly higher than trust of others online,
  

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Trust in Virtual Worlds

• H3a Amount of small talk is positively related
  to trust of guildmates and others in the MMO
• Supported Small talk significantly predicted
  trust of guildmates (medium effect size)and
  others in EQ2 (small effect size) coefficients
  in the predicted direction.
• H3b Self-disclosure is positively related to
  trust of guildmates and others in the MMO
• Supported Self-disclosure significantly
  predicted trust of guildmates (small effect size)
  and others in EQ2 (small effect size)
  coefficients in predicted direction.

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Trust in Virtual Worlds

• H3c The higher the proportion of all messages
  that a player publicly sends to a guild, the more
  this player trusts guild members.
• Supported Players who sent a greater proportion
  of public guild messages reported higher levels
  of trust in guild members as well as other
  players.
• H3d People who use voice chat in the game more
  frequently are more likely to trust others a) in
  their guild and b) in the game the game and in
  their guild compared to people who use voice chat
  less frequently.
• Not Supported

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Trust in Virtual Worlds

• Conclusions
• Trust in online world exhibits similar patterns
  to what would be expected in RL
• Institutions like guilds serve an important
  function in MMOs in that they provide a basis for
  trust
• MMOs engender trust and may be a basis for
  community
• Communication has a role in generating trust in
  online worlds

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Expertise in Virtual Worlds

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Expertise in Online Worlds

• Important factor influencing effectiveness and
  accomplishment in the MMO
• In MMOs there are precise metrics defining
  expertise and changes in expertise.
• What can expertise in the MMO tell us about
  expertise in RL?

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Expertise in Online Worlds

• Expertise f(Motivation, Effort, Time,
• Personal Characteristics)

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Expertise in Online Worlds

• RQ1 What is the relationship between age, gender
  and game expertise?
• H1a Players who are high on achievement
  motivation in game playing will have higher
  levels of expertise.
• H1b Players who are high on social motivation
  will have lower levels of expertise.
• H1c Players who are high on immersion motivation
  will have higher levels of expertise.

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Expertise in Online Worlds

• H2a Players who spend more time playing the game
  will have higher levels of expertise.
• H2b Players who focus their game time on
  completing quests will have higher levels of
  expertise.
• H3a Players who are more extroverted will have
  higher levels of expertise.
• H3b. Players who are more aggressive will have
  higher levels of expertise in the game.

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Expertise in Online Worlds

• Measures
• Game focus Amount of time players spend doing
  quests as opposed to other game activities such
  as utilizing trade skills or socializing with
  other players. It was calculated by dividing the
  total number of quests that players completed by
  the log-transformed play time.
• Aggression The AQ Physical Aggression subscale.
  On 9 statements, survey participants were asked
  to indicate the degree of their agreement on a
  7-point scale ranging from Strongly Disagree
  (1) to Strongly Agree (7). An illustrative
  statement involving physical aggression was If
  somebody hits me, I hit back. The average score
  across the 9 items was calculated as the players
  score on physical aggression.

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Expertise in Online Worlds

• Results
• H1b Players who are high on social motivation
  will have lower levels of expertise.
• Not Supported Social motivation significantly
  predicts expertise coefficient is positive, not
  negative as expected (small effect size)
• H1c Players who are high on immersion motivation
  will have higher levels of expertise
• Not Supported Immersion motivation significantly
  predicts expertise coefficient is negative, not
  positive as expected (small effect size)

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Expertise in Online Worlds

• H2a Players who spend more time playing the game
  will have higher levels of expertise.
• Supported Time spent playing significantly
  predicted expertise coefficient was in predicted
  direction (large effect size)
• H2b Players who focus their game time on
  completing quests will have higher levels of
  expertise.
• Supported Focus on quests significantly
  predicted expertise coefficient was in predicted
  direction (large effect size)

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Expertise in Online Worlds

• H3a Players who are more extroverted will have
  higher levels of expertise.
• Supported Extroversion significantly predicted
  expertise coefficient in predicted direction
  (small effect size)
• H3b. Players who are more aggressive will have
  higher levels of expertise in the game.
• Supported Aggression significantly predicted
  expertise coefficient in predicted direction
  (small effect size)

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Take Aways

• Expertise in EQ2 follows similar patterns to what
  would be expected in real life
• Need to sort out two types of expertise
  accomplishment of character (experience) and
  skill
• Next steps Learning curves

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Cautions What Can We Learn About Leadership and
Human Behavior from Virtual Worlds?

• It depends on the nature of the world
• In EQ2, there are specific types of groups that
  can be led
• Reeves et al Organizational and strategic
  challenges facing players who serve as game
  leaders are familiar ones
• recruiting, assessing, motivating, rewarding, and
  retaining talented and culturally diverse team
  members
• identifying and capitalizing on the
  organizations competitive advantage
• analyzing multiple streams of changing and
  incomplete data

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Types of Work Teams

• Advice/Involvement Make decisions, plans, etc.
• Production/Service Make things
• Project/Development Create plans, products
• Action Do things with clearly specified goals

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Characteristics of Action Teams

• Specialized roles
• High levels of interdependence
• Short term goal
• Clear feedback
• Recognition Primed Decision Making

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Longer Term Organizations?

• Guilds
• Definite leaders
• Status Structure
• Recruitment
• Guilds have status themselves

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• Questions???