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As the world ends, will you lock arms and sing "Kumbayah" or embark on a path of law-breaking, anti-social behavior?
A new study, based upon the virtual actions of more than 80,000 players of the role-playing video game ArcheAge, suggests you'll be singing.
The study, conducted by a University at Buffalo-led team of computer scientists, will be presented next month at the International World Wide Web Conference in Australia. It found that despite some violent acts, most players tended toward behavior that was helpful to others as their virtual world came to an end.
Researchers acknowledge that the results have limitations -- namely that they are based upon a video game, not real life. Nevertheless, researchers argue that the study offers a realistic view into the behavior of people in an end-times scenario that is useful to both the game industry and other research communities.
"We realize that, because this is a video game, the true consequences of the world ending are purely virtual. That being said, our dataset represents about as close as we can get to an actual end-of-the-world scenario," says Ahreum Kang, postdoctoral researcher at UB's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the study's lead author.
What would happen if the world was ending? As with most questions in life, Nicolas Cage has already supplied us with the answer.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:48PM (7 children)
You know what I can do when a video game world ends? Go play a different video game.
You know what I can't do when the world ends? Go to a different world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:57PM (3 children)
Meh, I'd say you're dumb for making such a comment when the author said "We realize that, because this is a video game, the true consequences of the world ending are purely virtual. That being said, our dataset represents about as close as we can get to an actual end-of-the-world scenario."
We have evidence of what happens when there is a disaster, but true Armageddon? Nope.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:32PM (2 children)
The point would be how the "researchers" minimize something which completely invalidates the data.
The world is ending is my game. I don't feel fear, pain, regret, or worry about people I know and/or love.
I'll just sit there, watch if it looks cool, and do whatever cool shit my character can do.
Ask the People in Banda Aceh what they did when the waves came in. Ask those who couldn't escape the March 11th Tsunami. How many remained calm, knowing that they had a small chance to survive? How does that change for the ones who don't have that hope? Will they peacefully drown or be asphyxiated, or will they get seared alive by a nuke, crushed by a comet? Can they put a bullet in their brains to avoid the pain?
This study is irremediably flawed, and the title totally bullshit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:38PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:27PM
I'll agree with the "remain calm" being bullshit, people wouldn't be "calm". I liked this section of the article:
As the game ended, anti-social behavior such as murder did increase. However, the acts were conducted by a small percentage of the overall population. Researchers found that most players exhibited prosocial behavior such as strengthening existing social relationships and forming new ones.
So it isn't so much that they remain calm, but that they don't go crazy destroying things. I can totally see this, in a panic such as the mentioned example of War of the Worlds the people didn't loot or fight each other for the most part, they remained "calm" and tried to escape. I think the more general idea is that humans don't lose their humanity and turn into shitlords just because there will suddenly be no consequences. Our humanity goes quite a bit deeper than the letter of the law.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:45AM (1 child)
It raises an interesting question: If the world was really doomed from some kind of enormous, unsurvivable asteroid strike, and assuming we could actually get everybody to agree to do something about it [theonion.com] then could we, with the world's powers and resources all working in co-operation, actually make a viable bid to colonise space?
If we stopped all the major wars and poured everything into space tech, could we have a self-sustaining moonbase and/or fleet of O'Neill cylinders within a few years? Whatever we built would need not only the ability to provide for all of its own needs indefinitely, but the ability to harvest resources and expand to account for a growing population, and eventually return to what's left of Earth and try to rebuild there. I very much doubt we could get the whole human race off the planet [xkcd.com], but a few thousand (along with plenty of frozen eggs & sperm) would probably be enough to give the human race a fighting chance at long-term survival.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:24PM
plenty of frozen eggs & sperm
and a pan to fry them in
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday March 24 2017, @05:43AM
Dumb indeed.
People feeling contented after shooting a hundred enemies and the occasional friend, Video Game Study Suggests.
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