MetaverseU: Dmitri Williams’ research
Some notes from Dmitri Williams‘ brief presentation on data extracted from EQ2 and Second Life. My laptop crashed in the middle, but here’s what I remember from it:
- People who use voice-over-IP make stronger interpersonal connections in virtual worlds, but also tend to be more insular and meet less strangers. People who use text make somewhat weaker connections but talk more to strangers.
- The older you are, the more hours you spend per week in the world. That’s right — it’s not college students who spend the most time. The graph shows a nearly linear relationship between age and hours spent per week.
- Core roleplayers: 4% of the population; 15% more with occasional roleplayers. And they tend to have more psychological problems and physical disabilities. (Don’t kill the messenger on this one, folks!)
It’s worth pointing out that these are results from very large samples; SOE generously shared terabytes worth of metrics data, and worked with him to do extensive user surveys.