杏吧原创

Why use online games to study our responses to catastrophic events?
You can鈥檛 go into the middle of a real-life disaster area and ask people: 鈥淲hat are you doing? How do you feel?鈥� They鈥檙e too busy trying to survive. And in the aftermath of an event, it鈥檚 difficult to ask survivors questions like: 鈥淒id you betray other people or let them die so that you could survive?鈥� Ethical considerations aside, you can鈥檛 be sure they would tell you the truth. Immersive virtual worlds provide ways to test human behaviour in controlled 鈥渓ife-threatening鈥� situations.

What sort of games are you looking at?
I鈥檝e been , an immersive game with over a million users. It鈥檚 a survival game set in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested country. Players have to find food, weapons or medical supplies while their lives are under constant threat from zombies or hostile players. Unlike in a lot of games, when your character dies in DayZ, it stays dead. If you want to continue playing, you have to start from scratch in a random place with none of your previously gathered gear. When you鈥檝e invested time in your character, you don鈥檛 want it to die, so you don鈥檛 mess around 鈥� just like in a real situation.

How do you examine players鈥� behaviour and feelings?
We go into the game and look at what they鈥檙e doing in real time, interview them, or read about their experiences in . Betrayal and selfish behaviour are common. Players sometimes express guilt, or ask on forums whether their actions were justified or ethical, leading to many conversations about ethics and behavioural norms. Say someone shoots their friend in the leg so that a zombie will attack them, giving the shooter the chance to run away. Later they may feel guilty, and if they spot a new person in the game they might give them food or weapons, even if this leaves them with less for themselves.

Can 鈥渧irtual anthropology鈥� really yield broad insights into our behaviour?
I think so. It鈥檚 not the case that you have the real world on one hand, and virtual communities disconnected from any real-life concerns on the other. When I was studying virtual communities in Second Life, I interviewed a girl who鈥檇 just broken up with her virtual boyfriend. She asked me: 鈥淚f it鈥檚 all a game, why are my tears real?鈥� People invest a lot emotionally in these games, so it makes sense to study them. It鈥檚 not like you鈥檙e playing Super Mario and just killing mushrooms.

How would you rate your own chances, come the zombie apocalypse?
I would like to think I鈥檇 be a hero, but I鈥檇 probably run like everyone else and try to save my own life. But that鈥檚 why studying behaviour using virtual spaces is important: by understanding how people react to catastrophes, we can optimise ways of educating them about appropriate reactions. In Japan, people are trained from childhood on how to react to earthquakes, and there are fewer casualties as a result.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淟ife in a zombie apocalypse鈥�