BIG BROTHER AND YOUR MMOs The conditions and reactions of the event attracted the attention of epidemiologists for its implications of how human populations could react to a real-world epidemic. Anti-terrorism officials also took notice of the event, noting the implications of some players planning and perpetrating a virtual biological attack. In March 2007, Ran D Balicer, an epidemiologist physician at the Ben-Gurion University in Israel, published an article in the journal Epidemiology that described the similarities between this outbreak and the recent SARS and avian influenza outbreaks. Dr Balicer suggested that role-playing games could serve as an advanced platform for modeling the dissemination of infectious diseases.[15] In a follow-up article in the journal Science, the game Second Life was suggested as another possible platform for these studies.[16] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contacted Blizzard Entertainment and requested statistics on this event for research on epidemics but was told that it was a glitch.[9] The Corrupted Blood incident was described as a fascinating yet accidental case study of modeling disease origins and control at the Games for Health conference in Baltimore, Maryland by Gamasutra.[2] They compared it to a real-life epidemic, in that it originated in a remote, uninhabited region and was carried by travelers to larger regions; hosts were both human and animal, comparing it to the avian flu; was passed through close contact; and there were people, in this case non-playable characters, who could contract it but were asymptomatic.[2] However, there were elements that differed from a real-world epidemic, including an indicator for carriers that they have the disease and how much risk they are at, which cannot be done in the real world.[2] One aspect of the epidemic that was not considered by epidemiologists in their models was curiosity, describing how players would rush into infected areas to witness the infection and then rush out. This was paralleled to real-world behavior, specifically with how journalists would rush toward a problem to cover it, and then rush back out.[2] In August 2007, Nina Fefferman—a Tufts University assistant research professor of public health and family medicine—called for research on this incident, citing the resemblances with biological plagues. Some scientists want to study how people would react to environmental pathogens, by using the virtual counterpart as a point of reference.[17][18] Subsequently, she co-authored a paper in Lancet Infectious Disease discussing the epidemiological and disease modeling implications of the outbreak, along with Eric Lofgren, a University of North Carolina graduate student.[19] She spoke at the 2008 Games for Health conference in Baltimore, Maryland and the 2011 Game Developers Conference about the incident and how massively multiplayer online populations could solve the problems inherent with more traditional models of epidemics.[2][20] Fefferman added that the three base models have their strengths and weaknesses, but make significant behavioral assumptions. She also compared Corrupted Blood to a drug trial with mice—a real good first step. She stated, These are my mice [and] I want this to be my new experiment setup. She expressed an interest in designing new diseases, perhaps non-fatal ones, to be introduced to the game so she could study how risk is viewed, how rumors would spread, and how public health notices are handled. She added that Blizzard made such notices in the original outbreak, but kept changing its position as it could not effectively deal with the problem. She commented that she did not believe it would ruin gameplay, as World of Warcraft dealt with health challenges in combat, and that games set in medieval times had such health risk. She argued that if researchers and developers worked together, it could be fun. While Blizzard was initially excited about the proposition, it became less outwardly excited over time, though never rejected it. She has been in contact with other developers, hoping to conduct the simulation in similar games to World of Warcraft.[2] She thought that this was the only way to accomplish such a study, as epidemiologists were limited to observational and retrospective studies, because it would be immoral to release an infectious disease into the population. She added that a computer model would be insufficient as well, as it uses mathematical rules to approximate human behavior. Doctor Gary Smith, professor of Population Biology and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, commented that very few mathematical models of disease transmission take host behavior into account, but also questioned how representative of real life a virtual model could be. He stated that while the characteristics of the disease could be defined beforehand, the study is just as observational as one conducted on a real-life disease outbreak. However, he added that one could argue that the proposal could give an opportunity for a study that epidemiologists may never have.[5] Neil Ferguson, director of the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling at Imperial College, London, felt skeptical of the idea, commenting that such a study could not properly mimic genuine behavior. Using the zombie plague used to promote World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King before its release as an example, players would intentionally become infected to gain zombie powers. He added that characters could also regenerate, meaning there was low risk in becoming infected. He felt that while online games such as World of Warcraft could be set up to help scientists study epidemics, it will always be limited as their primary use is for entertainment.[14] Model for terrorism research[edit] In an analysis of the Corrupted Blood incident, Charles Blair, deputy director of the Center of Terrorism and Intelligence Studies, said that World of Warcraft could provide a powerful new way to study how terrorist cells form and operate. While his organization already uses computer models to study terrorists tactics, Blair explained that because World of Warcraft involves real people making real decisions in a world with controllable bounds, which could provide a more realistic models for military intelligence analysts. For example, one self-confessed virtual bioterrorist in World of Warcraft commented about how quickly people got smart about doing the most damage to the largest number of people.[6] Yale University terrorism expert Stuart Gottlieb admitted that while the outbreak was interesting and relevant to the times, he would not base a counter-terrorism strategy on a video game. Gottlieb expressed skepticism that analyzing the incident could shed light on the complex underlying causes of terrorism in the real world, as the stakes for both terrorists and civilians are lowered in a virtual setting. However, as commented by the editor of the article, the biggest weakness for using a game as an analytical tool is that death in World of Warcraft is a nuisance at most. [6] Blizzard has maintained a position that World of Warcraft is first and foremost a game, and that it was never designed to mirror reality or anything in the real world. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 23:58:34 +0000
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