Analyses of a Virtual World

TL;DR

This paper analyzes human behavior in a virtual world, specifically an MMOG, revealing similarities with real-world social structures and discussing applications of these methods to narrative analysis.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of social and behavioral analysis in a virtual environment, highlighting its potential for studying human phenomena.

Findings

Statistical similarities between virtual and real-world social structures

Virtual environments as accurate models for social behavior studies

Potential applications to oral and written narrative analysis

Abstract

We present an overview of a series of results obtained from the analysis of human behavior in a virtual environment. We focus on the massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) Pardus which has a worldwide participant base of more than 400,000 registered players. We provide evidence for striking statistical similarities between social structures and human-action dynamics in the real and virtual worlds. In this sense MMOGs provide an extraordinary way for accurate and falsifiable studies of social phenomena. We further discuss possibilities to apply methods and concepts developed in the course of these studies to analyse oral and written narratives.