Science Discovers That MMOG Players Are Jerks

After years of intense study, a Loyola University professor playing City of Heroes has used the power of science to prove that MMOG players are jerks.

David Myers, a media professor at Loyola, began playing City of Heroes when it launched in 2004. The game allows players to take on the roles of superheroes and villains battling computer-controlled opponents and, eventually, each other. But what he found was that instead of duking it out in a kind of massive, online episode of the Super Friends, players of both sides were simply hanging out, shooting the breeze and occasionally beating up on mobs. To Myers, this unexpected turn of events presented an opportunity.

He created "Twixt," a hero who could teleport enemies anywhere in the game, and set out to battle the forces of evil. He did so with great success, bringing peace to the city but also annoyance to his fellow players. The game is ostensibly built around an epic clash of heroes and villains but he was "gently informed" by other players that they didn't actually play that way; Myers ignored the warning and continued his crusade.

Villains began attacking him in groups, but his cleverly-designed character and skill with the game allowed him to consistently defeat his enemies, which naturally only made them angrier. Forum discussions and in-game conversation went from critical to abusive; he was accused of using racist slurs and being a pedophile, and some users attempted to find and publish his real name and address. Myers reported the abuse to NCsoft, which did what it could to stop it; while he feels the company acted appropriately, he said, "The abuse was so widespread they couldn't completely stop it." Nor could they control messages posted on forums operating outside of the game, he added.

Fortunately, nobody ever succeeded in tracking down Myers or his family and in 2008 he revealed his identity in a paper entitled "Play and Punishment: The Sad and Curious Case of Twixt." He said that while most gamers are adults, his time in City of Heroes was like a "bad high school experience" in which rules matter little when they come up against a "deeply-rooted culture."

Myers said his experiment showed that despite our advances and technology, humans can quickly revert to "medieval and crude" methods when they want to exert control over others. "If you aren't a member of the tribe, you get whacked with a stick," he said. "I look at social groups with dismay."

I've never played City of Heroes so I have no idea what the environment is actually like and with only Myers' side of the story to go on it's impossible to know if, in spite of his credentials, he may have glossed over some less-than-attractive aspects of his own gameplay style. The idea of opposing factions gathering socially in PvP areas is also rather odd, although the relatively small number of City of Heroes players may help account for the insular and less competitive nature of the community. The only thing we know for sure is this: Myers may be a scientist but most of us had this figured out a long time ago.

Source: NOLA

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Well that is an interesting story, smaller MMOGs have tightly knit communities so they are more likely to be hostile to outsiders whereas because of the large playerbase of games like WAR,WoW,Lineage 2 and Guild Wars, the jerks behave differently.

Wow...It's actually pretty sad
I feel bad for the guy =/ so much abuse from a dam game

And these so called "adults" in these type of games & moments are no better than a spoiled 7 year old.

By the way, Did we REALLY need science to tell us that MMOG players are mostly jerks?

That's a goddam tragedy right there. Being tracked down and hunted and abused for playing the game the way it was supposed to be played

So weird and outside the norm, this story. And so peculiarly interesting at the same time. Word up for Professor Gamer!

If I could, I'd buy CoH/CoV and grind up a hero just to be this chaps sidekick.

Strange, I played that game for three months around the time it got released and I never had any problems with anyone, mind you the villains part of the game wasn't out yet.

He must have been doing something pretty bad to piss people off like that, maybe kill stealing, or consistently killing players.

curse you, internet! look at what you've done! You made a monster... A monster, I say!

Actually that's pretty pitiful. Imagine what psychological state the other players must have been in to get that worked up over a video game... I suspect it meant much more to them than a simple game, and in conclusion I have deduced that they are lifeless friendless people who play that game all the time, doing nothing else. Hooray logic! It's the cool way to insult people!

This makes me so angry. How can they be angry at someone for playing the game the way it's supposed to be played.

...He could've just asked, you know.

But it is a shame that people had to be such massive dicks, let alone taking it far enough to harass him out of game.

I put all the blame on the specific MMO, go on WoW, join a PVP server, then kill all the alliance (cause they suck) and sure you'll get yelled at by the alliance, but the horde will label you a hero.

Really its not surprising to hear such things because in many areas of gaming, egos come first over rationalized thinking.

From what this article says, yes, it's extremely tragic, and all of these players seem to be dickheads. But! I do however get the feeling that there's things unaccounted for. Left out details and such. You can't be so severely abused for doing everything right. Something must be wrong. Either he's been informed erroneously of what he was doing wrong, or he's simply leaving things out.

Nontheless, dicks are quite prominent in the MMO crowd.

We REALLY needed science to come to this conclusion? I mean, come on..

The thing is you cant exactly play the way your ment to play on MMO. People are gonna find there way into that at some point and wreck it all so Im not suprised he couldnt play it the way it said on the box.

However it is disgusting how people treated him just because he actually wanted to be a hero like the title promotes.

I've an urge to go to CoV/H forums, link this .doc and say "Jerks."

People allowed to be anonymous in any activity often turn into jerks. Not that surprising.

Wow... and I was thinking of trying CoH...
Not a chance! D:

This is why there's a variety of MMOs. Not to appease different tastes in gameplay, but to conform to different groupings. Just have to find the "tribe" for you.

On some level, yes, the people were jerks to treat him like that.

On the other hand... he built a character very explicitly around griefing people, and did so in a very nasty way. I haven't really played CoH, but from my experience in WoW, I can tell you I'd rather be killed in-zone than be somehow teleported to a different zone. Yes, he was using game mechanics, but at the same time it seems as though he would move into high-value zones, park there, and lock the other faction out.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the players asked him politely to stop, and were ignored. He was playing the game pretty explicitly to piss people off, and while the level of response he received was inappropriate, he shouldn't really have been surprised that he'd be treated as a dick when he was acting like one.

Finally, his actions probably had direct, negative repurcussions on his own side, as well... again, using WoW PvP realms as a baseline, a lot of people who get ganked by a high-level character will respond by hunting down one or several lower-level characters of that faction and ganking them in turn.

Were the people online dicks? Yes. Did he perhaps go out of his way to draw their ire? Definitely.

While I agree with his conclusion, can I suggest that he should have accounted for an extra factor in his experiment: that no-one likes a smartarse.

this was on slashdot, it's kinda sad and funny, he pvp'd some villian and the guy threatened to kill him

it's pretty sad really that people are like that but it's all part of the fact that you can't have the person you're abusing reach over and punch you in the face

you dont need science to prove that most MMO players a dicks.

Wow, that Twixt guy sounds cool... I am a CoH/CoV player and I wouldnt mind fighting with or against him, but there are some jerks on there... but I am on the British servers, we are a classy(ish) bunch... sort of. :D

traceur_:
And I'd join you.

I feel really sorry for the douchebags actually, getting angry like that and being prepared to take suck extreme measures over a fucking game. I weep for humanity.

Anonymity breeds douchebagery.

Douchebagery breeds my foot up their ass!

Malygris:
The only thing we know for sure is this: Myers may be a scientist but most of us had this figured out a long time ago.

How is it that I was thinking that the whole way through, and then I get to the end to find this?

Malygris:
He said that while most gamers are adults, his time in City of Heroes was like a "bad high school experience" in which rules matter little when they come up against a "deeply-rooted culture."

The truth is that these alternate worlds mirror our society, because the people in them are our society. They have been influenced by our world so they interact the same way, even in the virtual world, where you're meant to act differently. The result being that those who act in the way they're meant to in this virtual world get thought of as weird and annoying, and become singled out as a result.

saregos:
On some level, yes, the people were jerks to treat him like that.

On the other hand... he built a character very explicitly around griefing people, and did so in a very nasty way. I haven't really played CoH, but from my experience in WoW, I can tell you I'd rather be killed in-zone than be somehow teleported to a different zone. Yes, he was using game mechanics, but at the same time it seems as though he would move into high-value zones, park there, and lock the other faction out.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the players asked him politely to stop, and were ignored. He was playing the game pretty explicitly to piss people off, and while the level of response he received was inappropriate, he shouldn't really have been surprised that he'd be treated as a dick when he was acting like one.

Finally, his actions probably had direct, negative repurcussions on his own side, as well... again, using WoW PvP realms as a baseline, a lot of people who get ganked by a high-level character will respond by hunting down one or several lower-level characters of that faction and ganking them in turn.

Were the people online dicks? Yes. Did he perhaps go out of his way to draw their ire? Definitely.

That is mostly just speculation. How do you know that he wouldn't listen to "polite players?" The article doesn't talk about that. He didn't play to make other people angry; he played to take on the role of a superhero and fight crime. If I play a game using superior tactics, skill, and abilities and am able to defeat other players, am I in the wrong? No, I am better than them, and they are worse than me. The other players should look to him as someone to aspire to be, not someone to give death threats to.

Hope he gave credit to Richard Bartle, who DID THIS SAME RESEARCH 10+ years ago

that level of spite was unjustified, but I know I would be pissed off if some eyesore came along and teleported me to instant death every time I tried to fight him. Sounds like the professor started the whole cycle of Dickishness for Twixt.

Is it really heroic when a hero goes out and kills people all the time, regardless of what they are doing?

Is it really villainous when someone from the same tribe tries to set things straigth by taking revenge?

All I have to say is this, DUH!
First of all his study isn't exactly valid because he only used one MMO for his study.
Secondly, why did feel the need to perform a study to discover what most of us figured out on our first visit to an internet forum or message board.
...or YouTube.

Epic, people hunting him down in the game for him to then pwn them so badly they had to shout abuse if I was what guy I wouldn't care about the abuse I would just go on playing the game like he was and killing those fools.

I ran into more morons/jerks in heros/villans than any other MMORPG I have played so far at this point.

This guy is a hero. He trolls them just by playing purely by the book, dominates the servers, and then writes a paper on his trolling of them.