Study: Whyville Has Cheat Sites! Cyberbullying & Cheating in Online Worlds a Surprising Problem

Alana Semuels has an article this week in the Los Angeles Times detailing the surprising level of cyberbullying and cheating kids engage in while online. Despite chat safeguards in place in such kid-friendly worlds like Club Penguin (owned by Disney), Neopets (owned by Viacom), and Whyville (owned by Numedeon), kids often engage in cheating activities and bullying behavior. One example: account passwords are pilfered, often given by the victims in promised exchange for more virtual money or accouterments.

Even heavily restricted chat functions present levels of monitoring difficulties, as youngsters find creative ways to bypass profanity filters. Whyville flags children exchanging personal information such as their real names or phone numbers. The company blocks about 10 accounts a day due to violations.

Semuels notes UCLA doctoral student Deborah Fields and Dr. Yasmin Kafai wrote a paper on the topic for the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA 2007). The paper is an analysis of cheat sites designed for Whyville, examining 257 sites and following one in particular over the course of eight months.

According to the paper and Whyville staff, Whyville veterans often haze newcomers by demanding rent, even though apartments there are free. Other players have figured out a combination of keyboard commands that allows them to jump into the virtual cars of strangers, which is normally allowed only through invitation. Users have claimed that elections for the Whyville Senate were rigged through stuffing of virtual ballot boxes.

Some players took advantage of an outbreak of Whypox – a virtual plague that causes avatars to sneeze and break out in boils – by selling cures that turned out to be fake.

Cheating and online thievery can go to extremes at times, such as the recent case of a teen in Habbo stealing €4000 worth of virtual furniture.

So the question arises: Are kids who figure out ways to part others of their virtual cash displaying tendencies toward larceny, or are they simply more intelligent than those who part with their cash? Certainly deception is not good, but convincing others to invest in a for-profit scheme seems a reasonable exercise. This makes for a very interesting field of study.

References:
Fields, D. A., & Kafai, Y. B. (under review). Stealing from grandma or generating cultural knowledge? Contestations and effects of cheats in a teen virtual world. Paper submitted to DiGRA07. [Online]. Available: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kafai/paper/
whyville_pdfs/DIGRA07_cheat.pdf

Semuels, A. (2008, July 2). In virtual worlds, child avatars need protecting – from each other. Los Angeles Times. [Online]. Retrieved July 4, 2008 from http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/02/business/fi-kidssafe2

Case Study in the Making: Cautious Nintendo Results in Low Forecasts, Few Wiis

Here’s an article in today’s Wall Street Journal by Yukari Iwatani Kane and Nick Wingfield profiling Nintendo, and its extra-cautious corporate outlook.

While Nintendo’s problem [the Wii shortage] illustrates how tough it is for companies to try to predict demand for a product, even in the second year, it also is emblematic of the Japanese company’s native caution. In the past two years, for example, Nintendo has set earnings forecasts so conservative that they achieved them in just nine months.

Nintendo started out as a small family business more than a century ago making traditional Japanese playing cards, and has undergone difficult transitions in its business to survive. Since it started making videogame consoles, the company has seen its fortunes rise with its Nintendo Entertainment System in the 1980s, and then fall in the 1990s as it lost share to rivals Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp.

Christopher Tang over at UCLA is given a nice quote, explaining that when faced with questions of flooding the market with a product, or predicting demand on the low side, it probably is better to go with the latter. But, consumer anger builds if the shortage continues too long. In the past, console shortages eased up after the holidays, but the Wii remains in tight supply now for the second year.

Japanese toy maker Bandai Co. is a cautionary tale. In the late 1990s, it had a huge success with its Tamagotchi virtual pets, but unanticipated demand led to shortages in stores around the world. Then, when the company focused too much on meeting demand in Japan, consumers overseas were frustrated. By the time Bandai was able to step up production and make more Tamagotchis available overseas, knock-offs flooded the markets and few people wanted the real thing. Bandai ended up cutting its pretax profit forecast by 95% in 1998.

Business schools will no doubt use Nintendo’s management decisions as case study fodder.

References:
Kane, Y.I., & Wingfield, N. (2007, December 7). Nintendo plays it a Wii bit cautious. The Wall Street Journal, p.B1. [Online.] Available: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119697501146616201.html

Online Gambling: Regulations vs. Research

Speaking in broad generalizations, I’ve often noted the things Europeans seem to abhor versus the things Americans generally abhor. This is often expressed legislatively. Americans like gun ownership. Europeans don’t. Americans like the death penalty. Europeans don’t. Europeans are okay with women doffing their tops at the beach. Americans generally aren’t okay with that. Europeans think nothing of children sipping wine at dinner, or letting a teen quaff a pint. Americans are shocked with the notion, and prohibit legal drinking until age 21. Europeans are okay with online gambling. Americans are not.

It’s this last generalization that has cropped up recently again, as we Americans seek to align commerce with our brethren across the pond. Previous commercial alignment has resulted in soda being sold in one and two liter bottles over here, where we stubbornly cling to the English measurement system whilst the rest of the world goes Metric. Another example is Microsoft’s recent agreement to abide by European anti-monopolist regulations.

Most recently, the Europeans have expressed their ire at American regulations on online gambling. First, US regulators let it be known that gambling sites were discouraged on American soil. The Caribbean, however, has several island nations a short plane ride away, with governments more amenable to profitable online sites. Next, the US passed a law stating that online gambling simply cannot take place at all on American soil. Gambling sites responded by continuing to take credit card payments on the sly, and the fun continued. Finally, the US cracked down on the card companies, arrested some site operators who happened to be passing through American airports, and generally put the kibosh on online gambling.

The EU and Caribbean nations such as Antigua have brought a complaint against the US law to the World Trade Commission, and continue to argue against what they see as overly restrictive US regulations. Namely, this coalition contends Americans should have the luxury of gambling online if the site is not based in the US. The US law essentially violates the rights of offshore gambling sites, they say.

There’s little doubt that gambling can lead some down the path of ruin. Europeans who’ve read Dostoevsky’s The Gambler surely know this. Ironically, legal gambling has become more accessible to Americans down through the years. When I was growing up, folks had to travel to Las Vegas or Atlantic City to legally gamble. Now with the proliferation of state lotteries and casinos on reservations, riverboats, and elsewhere, legal gambling in the real world is far more widespread than it ever was in the past.

The interesting thing about gambling from an academic perspective is that money influences things in ways nothing else can. It’s one thing to pretend to invest in the stock market, or place a virtual bet. It’s quite another to use your own money from your own account.

Gambling also fuels ongoing research into addiction, such as Fong’s work at UCLA. It’s true that people can get “addicted” to almost anything. I’ve long argued there is a difference between chemical addictions and behavioral addictions. Unfortunately, most news journalists make little difference between the two, and we’ve read stories equating videogame players with heroin addicts, etc.

There is something about interacting with a video screen that truly focuses people. I recall reading about the introduction of television at the 1939 World’s Fair. One writer remarked that folks did not have enough time to sit around and watch the contraption. Once World War II was over, and RCA could get about the business of transforming radio networks to television networks, people found plenty of time to sit down and watch television.

Combining true interaction, beyond yelling at the set, was advanced by Willy Higginbotham at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958 when he hooked up a couple of paddle wheels to play virtual tennis on an oscilloscope. About the same time, Ralph Baer was thinking about interactive games for television, and he began developing schematics and a prototype in 1966.

Since then, this interactive element with the screen has caught fire in ways nobody foresaw. Now, people around the world can play online with one another in everything from simulated card games to mock battles with virtual monsters. Video poker and gambling ported to online environments combine the attention-grabbing aspects of videogames with the allure of gambling.

Online gambling creates a strong pool of research material because it combines two highly interactive elements to which players can become “addicted” (a better term is “overuse,” especially for online time or videogame play). I think we’ll see some interesting papers coming out of UCLA and elsewhere in the near future. In the meantime, folks wanting to gamble online in the comfort of their homes will have to wait, if they live in America. Or, they can hop a flight over to Europe and gamble online whilst on the beach. There, they can go topless as well. Maybe have a drink, if they’re underage.

A Visit to (Virtual) Ancient Rome

ScienceDaily reports on Rome Reborn 1.0, a project to create a virtual reproduction of Ancient Rome, ca. 320 AD. The 10 year project started at UCLA, is now housed at U. Virginia, and has involved researchers and institutions throughout Europe and the US.

Bernard Frischer, director of the project, has been widely quoted across the web: “’Rome Reborn 1.0′ is the continuation of five centuries of research by scholars, architects and artists since the Renaissance who have attempted to restore the ruins of the ancient city with words, maps and images.”

Visitors to Rome Reborn 1.0 will be reminded of a three dimensional gaming environment. They can navigate in all directions and enter buildings. Video clips and papers about the project are available at the home site, http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/. Also check out the Digital Roman Forum over at UCLA.

UCLA Study to Tackle Online Gambling, Gaming

The Daily Bruin reports on an ambitious survey slated for the following school year that will examine UCLA students’ online gambling and video playing habits. Timothy Fong, codirector of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program is quoted:

“The genesis of this study came about after we started to see more students and younger patients with Internet gambling and video game addictions … It led us to wonder how big of a problem this was.”

Other questions in the survey will seek to identify popular games and pinpoint the differences in game players and online gamblers.

Most people who are gambling online or playing video games have no problems at all and lead normal and balanced lives, but for some, it can cause problems when done in excess.

“Many lose the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy and even begin to prefer fantasy,” said Dr. Richard Rosenthal, codirector of the program. “They just cannot stop playing.”

Daily Bruin author Seda Terzyan then proceeds to interview students who have habitually gambled online. Although Congress passed an anti-online gambling bill last year that prohibits banks and credit card companies from processing payments to online gambling companies, loopholes abound and UCLA students report ongoing activity.

With no current regulation on these sites or by the school, there is no way of knowing the fairness of the games, no way to protect compulsive gamblers and no way to determine who is playing, Fong said.

Then the article turns controversial, and Terzyan reports on potential bias in the study.

Though compulsive gaming was recently rejected as a mental illness or addiction by the American Medical Association, the diagnosis for it is essentially identical to the criteria used to diagnose pathological gambling, Rosenthal said.

There is a progressive failure to control the impulse to gamble, followed by disturbances in personal and family life – it works the same way for gaming, he added, stating that an addiction is essentially the loss of control.

In many ways, he added, compulsive video gaming can be viewed as the purest form of addiction, since it does not require a substance as seen in chemical dependency, nor does it require the rewards of monetary loss and gain present in gambling addiction.

Terzyan offers additional anecdotal evidence of video game addiction, interviewing World of Warcraft players who have spent several hours at a time on the game.

On a personal note, I know I am engaged in an uphill battle against the concept of labeling video games as addictive. Nonetheless, here is my stance: the term “addiction” should be reserved for chemical dependencies. Behavioral attributes that affect ones’ life should be termed “overuse.” When the Council on Science and Public Health (CSPH) presented its report to the AMA on research in violence and video games, the term video game “overuse” was used. At the very least, some sort of differentiation needs to be made clear, such as indicating chemical addictions versus behavioral addictions.

OK, enough soapboxing. I’ll look forward to reading the results from Rosenthal and Fong’s study.

References

Terzyan, S. (2007, July 9). Addictions for the Internet generation. Daily Bruin. [Online]. Available: http://www.dailybruin.com/news/2007/jul/09/addictions_internet
_generation/