Sony opens complete EverQuest 2 database to researchers
by James Egan 
Feb 16th 2009 at 3:00PM
Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Culture, MMO industry, News items, Academic, Education
The players of EverQuest 2 might be pleased to learn that their gameplay may further science. They may be less enthused, however, to learn that a complete record of their interactions with one another is being studied by researchers. Following a session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ars technica's John Timmer reports, "With the cooperation of Sony, a collaborative group of academic researchers at a number of institutions have obtained the complete server logs from the company's EverQuest 2 MMORPG." That's right. This is everything you've ever done in the game, but it's all in the name of science.
The researchers are among those who believe that massively multiplayer online games can be used to model real world collective behavior. The task ahead of them is a daunting one, with close to 60 TB of data to pore over. "The end result is a log that included four years of data for over 400,000 players that took part in the game, which was followed up with demographic surveys of the users. All told, it makes for a massive data set with distinct challenges but plenty of opportunities," Timmer writes.
Also notable is how cooperation of this nature between a game developer and the academic community could provide some tangible benefits for both parties. Timmer writes, "There was also talk about the potential for a symbiotic relationship between game designers and researchers. [Researcher] Srivastava's work on customer churn, for example, could prove highly valuable for developers that rely on retaining subscribers, and many of the studies that the speakers were interested in doing could provide valuable feedback on how users were actually interacting with various features of the game."
As interesting as this undertaking is, it does perhaps raise some privacy concerns. Have a look at Timmer's article at ars technica for a much more detailed write up of academia's interest in EverQuest 2, and let us know -- how do you feel about this newfound partnership between Sony and the academic community?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Punkrockdiva said on 4:14PM 2-16-2009
Just when you think the scumbags of SOE couldn't do anything else worth hating them for, now they're giving away (yeah right, I'm sure SOE's getting something out of it) all of your personal experiences.
Talked with your guildies about something personal that's been depressing you? SOE gives it to a third party. Give someone your phone number thorugh /tells because you wanted to talk to the person over the phone? SOE gives that number to a third party.
They truly are the biggest pieces of garbage in the gaming industry. If a company like Verizon or Comcast tried to give away your phone conversations to a third party, they would be all over the front page news for infringing on privacy.
Reply
UltimateQ said on 5:10PM 2-16-2009
Maybe... Just maybe you shouldn't divulge such personal information in a game. Though I can understand chatting with guildies about things that might have you a bit depressed, only an idiot would give out personal information like phone numbers or anything of the like, in a video game.
Meanwhile said on 3:34PM 2-16-2009
What gave you the impression that your in-game activities were private? I guess you haven't read the EULA/TOS.
Reply
Denzel said on 4:11PM 2-16-2009
As a professional data analyst I would use the data to:
1. predict who was likely to cancel their subscription
2. build a predictive model to identify gold seller accounts
3. build another model to identify gold buyers
4. identify community influencers through their interactions with others
5. cluster customers into similar behaving groups for the purpose of understanding behavioural trends (think Bartle test using real rather than claimed behaviour)
6. use econometrics to predict network usage patterns
7. maybe some influence and sentiment analysis of the free text
All of these analyses are pretty simple to conduct apart from the last one. The data would need some flattening and interactions categorised - which would be 80% of the effort.
Reply
Graill said on 8:48PM 2-16-2009
The Bartle test has and always will be a joke. Because "someone" says this is the way things happen doesnt make it so, the creator of the test needs to learn this. I love how folks flock to "trendy ideas" with big words, must make them feel important.
As for the "Analyst" part, what does anyone hope to gain by reading player chat logs and the like, by showing how ignorant and banal people can be when they are behind a monitor?
There are plenty of studies showing subscription trends and server population migrations, why do something like this again, to waste my taxpayer money? It certainly isnt coming from a rich private grant.
The waste and ignorance of the people conducting this study simply reflects a want for some type of job security to get paid so they dont hit the street and souplines, wasteful and uneeded. Spend the money and time on something worthwhile like improving your community.
Jason said on 6:37PM 2-16-2009
I think a study of cybersex in EQ2 needs to be performed...
Reply
UltimateQ said on 9:32PM 2-16-2009
I totally remember all of that too! Wow! I had nearly forgotten it, I don't remember very many details except that it was a hot topic for a while.
Teknologist said on 10:23PM 2-16-2009
Ultimate Q, that is not the point. Just because you shouldn't be doing something in a virtual world doesn't mean SOE should exacerbate the problem; which you give no opinion about interestingly enough. At least the personal information a player gives out to someone in-game is going to someone known to an extent that isn't a third party to the company that you actually did business with.
My opinion. All of this information shouldn't be dumped to a third party, and I am happy to say that I didn't release any personal information over Planetside(yes I know it wasn't Planetside's information but what if more is given out? Say to expand the research from RPG players to FPS players) Information such as this should only be released with the expressed consent of the players involved. You know, like a voluntary online survey or poll.
You know the phrase, a penny for my thoughts. this is an outrage to think that being the customer of a company gives them the right to hand off the information of my interactions, behavior, and chat bubbles using their service so that they and their third party cohorts don't need to pay for my thoughts.
Just because it's soo easy and tantalizing to copy copyrighted files doesn't mean I do it(well I used to, but now I don't!). So, just because it's soo easy and tantalizing for SOE to collect and hand off information doesn't mean it's right for them to do it.
Reply
UltimateQ said on 10:40PM 2-16-2009
I didn't say it was right, or that they should do it. To be honest, in today's world I'm surprised anyone thinks anything is private.
There are good things that can definitely come from it. Such as stated earlier it can help spot potential gold sellers. If my analyzing my conversations and behavior can help spot gold sellers, I'm willing to hand off the information.
Because as I said earlier, I don't give out personal information in games for lots of reasons. The most I'll give is my name and possible location, because its a fun conversation starter. Such as, "It's nice and toasty here in Florida, How bad does it suck where your at?". You get the general idea.
But I don't disagree with you, I believe that whatever someone does in the game is their business.
Ada said on 11:04PM 2-16-2009
I'm a gamer and a researcher and am totally fine with this release of information. Part of the reason people share personal feelings is because they have a mask of anonymity. That paradox is worth further study.
I also don't see how it isn't helping the community to understand how people act in games (responding to a poster above) - what makes them happy, what they find interesting/banal/monotonous/tedious/fascinating/addictive, etc. As a designer, it would be amazing to see how one's plans or those of another's are actually being interpreted and whether or not they evolve through human use.
Further, it isn't about how many phone numbers someone can scam from the database. (And yes, why are you giving phone numbers out online if you care that much about it? Everything is logged.) It's about understanding more about how we interact as humans, about what drives us when moral, cultural, religious factors are somewhat removed, about what elements of humanity exist across cultural boundaries, across individual identities. It's about finding out what individuality means when everyone can be anyone and how important it is to people. What do they do to become unique? How important is it to them?
There are thousands and thousands of questions to answer and this database is a superb start to being able to answer them. Even the very shame present in some of these comments is more than fascinating. What do you do when you think no one's watching? Why is it so easy to ignore server logs, but so hard to let it go when some academic right read about your late-night escapades to get in the raid?
Just fascinating.
Reply
Jay said on 6:05AM 2-17-2009
OMG
Doe that mean the steamy sex /tell I had with my cute Half Elf boyfriend will get out... that people will see the perverted things we did with Hoaroans?
Reply