Virus!

The fiasco of the unplanned World of Warcraft epidemic (ref. TN, see [1.], [2.]) as a story has spread far over the internet in the past few weeks.  National Public Radio (NPR) offers the latest perspective with an audio round-up ('Virtual' Virus Sheds Light on Real-World Behavior) that hints provocatively at deeper themes.

Against a backdrop of the next pandemic and bird-flu and the other viral unknowns, the NPR story considers whether the virtual world can be the next tool in study of epidemiology and of disease and panic in populations.  They may very well be.  But there are questions.

At Ludium I the Sysland team wrestled hard in early discussion on the 'simulation' question: to what degree can one trust a model when compared to the real thing.  The gamer dynamic was in play too.  Do gamers  'game the game' and might that distort the interpretation of the virtual world model further?

Julian in the SOPIII Workshop Dinner ("Reporting from the Front Panel") suggested it best, wryly  - when can you trust the players in a game?  After all, to some of those spreading the  virus the plague turned out to be much-about-fun and without real consequence those on the receiving end could shrug if off (and we too won't touch permadeath) .  A number of students at the Ludium thought it would be fun to play the "bastard" in the DisasterVille proposal (Sysland team) - the team proposal that sought to probe informational chaos in crowds in urban disasters.

It will be interesting to see whether epidemiology studies can be directly performed in virtual worlds (versus looking at  meta-questions about information flow or what-not).    I suspect factors such as  "gameyness" and the degree to which  "emotional connectedness" exists, however, will require careful scrutiny.