On the Relationship between Real-World Conditions and Online Player Behavior: The Case of EVEOnline

Release Date: October 21, 2020

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240196

Explanation

Games such as virtual worlds are very popular. These online environments have become a tool that facilitates players from different countries to interact with each other in a common virtual world.

Such virtual worlds that include social and economic interactions are very useful for testing social and economic theories.

This study used data from EVEOnline with the goal of analyzing the relationship between the real-life situation in which players live and their in-game behavior at the country level.

Aggression towards non-player characters was found to be positively related to the actual level of aggression as measured by the country-level Global Peace Index and the Global Terrorism Index. However, for in-game aggression against other players, the opposite was true.

This seemed to act as a safety valve for aggression against real players, and the ability to make in-game friends was also positively related, almost exactly as in reality.

In-game trading behavior was found to be dependent on the macroeconomic environment in which the player lives, with unemployment and exchange rates causing players to trade more efficiently and carefully in-game, and overall the content of the study finding evidence that the real-world environment influences in-game behavior.