What I read
According to the “Corrupted Blood: How Epidemiologists Use World Of Warcraft To Save Lives” by Callie Stewart (2015), epidemiologists found a way to predict the complex outcomes of pandemic disease more accurately by studying how World of Warcraft players reacted to the virtual plague that once accidentally wiped away millions of players’ avatars throughout the game. The users’ reactions to the virtual plague can display human behavior under the outbreak of pandemic disease that is the key to predict pandemics, while the complex mathematical models cannot. So epidemiologists are working with World of Warcraft creator to create pandemics in other games, for further data collection and research.
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My response
I am really surprised by how World of Warcraft (WoW) can reflect human behavior under a real pandemic disease. But what surprised me more is how the virtual disease spread and how players reacted to the incident.
“Corrupted Blood”, the virtual plague in the game was designed to stay only inside one specific domain, but with a coding accident, it leaked through the pets and teleportation then spread to everywhere in the game. Let’s think about laboratory experiments in the real world, what if those viruses accidentally leak out? Compare teleportation with airplane, isn’t it very easy to have pandemics in reality?
After the plague started in the game, some players just wanted to see the world burn so they intentionally transmitted the disease to other players. A lot of players wanted to witness the incident so they went in the plagued area and caught the disease. Realising that there are these kind of people in the real world make me scared. Imagine how easy we can get infected. (Anyway, I might be one of those who went in the plagued area and die by my own curiosity.)
I might sound paranoia, but yes I am happy that the epidemiologists find a new way to fight against pandemic disease! I like how gaming makes better changes to the world so I have a good reason to keep playing them.
“Corrupted Blood”, the virtual plague in the game was designed to stay only inside one specific domain, but with a coding accident, it leaked through the pets and teleportation then spread to everywhere in the game. Let’s think about laboratory experiments in the real world, what if those viruses accidentally leak out? Compare teleportation with airplane, isn’t it very easy to have pandemics in reality?
This is not the setting in the game. These skeletons are avatars that died from the plague.
After the plague started in the game, some players just wanted to see the world burn so they intentionally transmitted the disease to other players. A lot of players wanted to witness the incident so they went in the plagued area and caught the disease. Realising that there are these kind of people in the real world make me scared. Imagine how easy we can get infected. (Anyway, I might be one of those who went in the plagued area and die by my own curiosity.)
I might sound paranoia, but yes I am happy that the epidemiologists find a new way to fight against pandemic disease! I like how gaming makes better changes to the world so I have a good reason to keep playing them.
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My question
If WoW’s virtual plague incident can reflect human behavior under a real pandemic disease, can the way we play game reflect ourselves? (when the game we play = game that allows us to interact with other players e.g Garena RoV, PUBG and LINE Let’s Get Rich)
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Reference
- Stewart, C. (2015, November 19). Corrupted Blood: How Epidemiologists Use World Of Warcraft To Save Lives. Retrieved from http://allthatsinteresting.com/corrupted-blood
Thank you for this interesting news. I was amazed by that fact that World Warcraft can be used for studying how people behave under a situation of plague too. And this reminded me about avian flu outbreaks in Thailand in 2004. As I could remember it, people around me in were highly sensitive to the pandemic bird flu. They were highly aware of avian flu decease. So in some cases, I thought they did overreact to the other people--like they didn’t respect to the other people. This happened when I at a seminar session where there were 15 to 20 people attended. A woman who sat at the front row suddenly got a runny nose because of the very cool air from air condition in the seminar room. While the presenter there was giving talks, she began to sneeze and continued to sniff. And the reaction of those people in the seminar room was changing their seats and sitting far from her as far as they could. They thought that she would have been infected by bird flu. So to answer your question, I think people would react in the different way when they are in real situation especially in pandemic situation. I think they would avoid and protect their life rather than explore to dangerous situation.
ReplyDeleteI saw the interesting picture and read the article. I think you may talk about the game, but I'm wrong. Did you describe the plot of a film named Resident Evil? The laboratory viruses accidentally leak out, sealing off the plague area. Finally, the plague spreads through conveyance. I like this kind of movie. But if it happened, I will be certainly far away from the plague.
ReplyDeleteThis also amazed me. People might act differently as it is the real world and lives. I'm curious too, how people would behave under that circumstance. Like when I watched Zombies movies, the worse and most scary thing was living people not those deads. Everyone fought for supplies, shelters, medicines, weapons or power. Somebody would do everything to survive without caring of others even killing or torture people's lives. Sometimes, it was not for surviving but to take control and gain more power.
ReplyDeleteWow! A game can sometimes be very useful. Besides its entertainment, I am very surprised that the game can use to predict the complex outcome of pandemic disease and even complex mathematical models cannot. This article reminds me that everything has its own value. We should find the pros or good points of the work or anything that we do, because everything has a good point. It depends on you to find it or not! (Like this game that might save people' lives in the future.)
ReplyDelete