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Real-World Geopolitical Influences on In-Game Financial Behaviour
Abstract
This paper explores how real-world geopolitics can influence financial decision-making in virtual environments. The study primarily focuses on trading dynamics in a pandemic simulation game. The players manage resources and trade with each other to save their population. We compared two groups: one playing with made-up country names (control) and another with real country names (test). The players were not permitted to communicate outside of the resources the game provides and were finally ranked based on the number of months survived and trade volume. Our findings reveal two distinct player archetypes, one focusing on maximising trade volume and a second focusing on resource conservation. Real country names compared to color-coded labels seem to delay the perception of competition and reduce overall trade volume, suggesting increased immersion and a more conservative approach towards resource management. Observations from gameplay footage reveal instances of potential bias, with players forming diplomatic ties based on national identities. The data collected suggests that real-world geopolitics can influence financial behaviour in virtual environments as hypothesised. It also explores virtual environments to study how political narratives and dynamics affect human decision-making. The findings offer practical insights for game developers regarding fostering player engagement, mitigating bias, and creating fair economies. While parallels with real-world resource trading and allocation during pandemics were noted, further analysis would be required to explore these connections.
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Games involving virtual worlds are popular in several segments of the population and societies. The online environment facilitates that players from different countries interact in a common virtual world. Virtual worlds involving social and economic interactions are particularly useful to test social and economic theories. Using data from EVE Online, a massive online multi-player game simulating a fantasy galaxy, we analyse the relation between the real-world context in which players live and their in-game behaviour at the country level. We find that in-game aggressiveness to non-player characters is positively related to real-world levels of aggressiveness as measured by the Global Peace Index and the Global Terrorist Index at the country level. The opposite is true for in-game aggressiveness towards other players, which seems to work as a safety valve for real-world player aggressiveness. The ability to make in-game friends is also positively related to real-world levels of aggressiveness in much the same way. In-game trading behaviour is dependent on the macro-economic environment where players live. The unemployment rate and exchange rate make players trade more efficiently and cautiously in-game. Overall, we find evidence that the real-world environment affects in-game behaviour, suggesting that virtual worlds can be used to experiment and test social and economic theories, and to infer real-world behaviour at the country level.
This study examines the level of politicization and polarization in COVID-19 news in U.S. newspapers and televised network news from March to May 2020. Using multiple computer-assisted content analytic approaches, we find that newspaper coverage is highly politicized, network news coverage somewhat less so, and both newspaper and network news coverage are highly polarized. We find that politicians appear in newspaper coverage more frequently than scientists, whereas politicians and scientists are more equally featured in network news. We suggest that the high degree of politicization and polarization in initial COVID-19 coverage may have contributed to polarization in U.S. COVID-19 attitudes.
Public discussions of political and social issues are often characterized by deep and persistent polarization. In social psychology, it’s standard to treat belief polarization as the product of epistemic irrationality. In contrast, we argue that the persistent disagreement that grounds political and social polarization can be produced by epistemically rational agents, when those agents have limited cognitive resources. Using an agent-based model of group deliberation, we show that groups of deliberating agents using coherence-based strategies for managing their limited resources tend to polarize into different subgroups. We argue that using that strategy is epistemically rational for limited agents. So even though group polarization looks like it must be the product of human irrationality, polarization can be the result of fully rational deliberation with natural human limitations.
The number of online game players continues to grow, as well as the number of hours spent in online world. World of Warcraft (WoW) is one of the most popular Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG). It is set in an elaborate fictional world, in which players achieve goals through interaction and mutual communication. The present study verified differences in experiencing loneliness (UCLA Loneliness Scale) and social anxiety (Social Phobia Inventory) in WoW players in online and real world (offline) since these two worlds and the functioning of the players in them differ. In the sample consisting of 161 players, it was found that players experience a significantly lower degree of loneliness and social anxiety in online than in real world. The lower degree of loneliness experienced was also associated with playing with friends and known people, with guild membership, as well as frequent communication with teammates through VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services. The results suggest that WoW is a highly social environment that encourages cooperation, communication and friendship.
Using students’ process data from the game-based Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) iSTART-ME, the current study examines students’ propensity to use system currency to unlock game-based features, (i.e., referred to here as spendency). This study examines how spendency relates to students’ interaction preferences, in-system performance, and learning outcomes (i.e., self-explanation quality, comprehension). A group of 40 high school students interacted with iSTART-ME as part of an 11-session experiment (pretest, eight training sessions, posttest, and a delayed retention test). Students’ spendency was negatively related to the frequency of their use of personalizable features. In addition, students’ spendency was negatively related to their in-system achievements, daily learning outcomes, and performance on a transfer comprehension task, even after factoring out prior ability. The findings from this study indicate that increases in students’ spendency are systematically related to their selection choices and may have a negative effect on in-system performance, immediate learning outcomes, and skill transfer outcomes. The results have particular relevance to game-based systems that incorporate currency to unlock features within games as well as to the differential tradeoffs of game features on motivation and learning.
Almost universally, wealth is not distributed uniformly within societies or
economies. Even though wealth data have been collected in various forms for
centuries, the origins for the observed wealth-disparity and social inequality
are not yet fully understood. Especially the impact and connections of human
behavior on wealth could so far not be inferred from data. Here we study wealth
data from the virtual economy of the massive multiplayer online game (MMOG)
Pardus. This data not only contains every player's wealth at every point in
time, but also all actions of every player over a timespan of almost a decade.
We find that wealth distributions in the virtual world are very similar to
those in western countries. In particular we find an approximate exponential
for low wealth and a power-law tail. The Gini index is found to be g=0.65,
which is close to the indices of many Western countries. We find that
wealth-increase rates depend on the time when players entered the game. Players
that entered the game early on tend to have remarkably higher wealth-increase
rates than those who joined later. Studying the players' positions within their
social networks, we find that the local position in the trade network is most
relevant for wealth. Wealthy people have high in- and out-degree in the trade
network, relatively low nearest-neighbor degree and a low clustering
coefficient. Wealthy players have many mutual friendships and are socially well
respected by others, but spend more time on business than on socializing. We
find that players that are not organized within social groups with at least
three members are significantly poorer on average. We observe that high
`political' status and high wealth go hand in hand. Wealthy players have few
personal enemies, but show animosity towards players that behave as public
enemies.
The article focuses on the politicization of international authority as a thus far little understood development in world politics. We first define the concept and show that there is an empirical trend towards politicization of international institutions. We then argue that the increasing authority of international institutions has led to their politicization and we relate this hypothesis to alternative explanations. The validity of the authority–politicization nexus is illustrated by the rise of international authority in parallel to politicization. We go on to distinguish different policy functions such as rule definition, monitoring, interpretation, and enforcement in order to show that especially those international institutions with a high level of authority meet with strong contestation of their competencies. We conclude the article by exploring various avenues for future politicization research.
The Indian public has traditionally had very little say in the making of foreign policy. However, they do have views on foreign policy and the media and elites play an important role in influencing them. What do Indians think about the US, the most important power in the world and about the bilateral relations between New Delhi and Washington? Have the views of Indians on the US evolved over the years and what do Indians think about India’s future ties with the US? This article examines these questions and traces historically Indian views of the US and how they have evolved over the years. The article uses available data from opinion polls and studies based on opinion polls. A descriptive analytical approach is used for the study. Keywords: Perception, Public opinion, USA, India, Survey
The academic debate on whether gameplay has a positive or negative effect on players’ psychosocial well-being has yet to cease. To resolve this debate, this study focuses on multiplayer social network games (MSNGs), the affordances of which may lead to the coexistence of augmentation and displacement effects. To unpack the conditions under which gameplay has a positive or negative relationship with psychological well-being, this study distinguishes between co-player interaction modes (in-game social interactions vs. social media interactions) and between co-players’ identity types (offline friends/acquaintances vs. guild members). An online survey was conducted with 300 gamers in China. The results revealed that more in-game interaction with co-players was positively associated with players’ loneliness, whereas more social media interaction with co-players was negatively related to players’ loneliness, regardless of the co-players’ identities. However, players who played with offline friends/acquaintances did engage in more social interactions than those who played with guild members, especially social media interactions. Moreover, the effect of playing with friends/acquaintances or guild members on players’ loneliness was fully mediated by in-game social interactions and social media interactions. That is, the psychosocial influence of gameplay heavily depends on the exact social interactions that players are involved in rather than on general time spent in games, and the augmentation and displacement effects possibly coincide within one game.
With the increasing integration of distributed energy resources, localized peer-to-peer energy transactions are receiving more attention since they could absorb more distributed renewables locally and stabilize the power grid. To better study the trading behavior and provide guidance for a viable local market design, different game-theoretical frameworks including cooperative and non-cooperative games are established and compared in this study. For the cooperative grand coalition, the maximum social welfare is guaranteed, the Shapley value and bargaining based approaches are implemented for further profit redistribution. It is shown that the asymmetrical bargaining power can be critical in the final payment clearing and it is equivalent to the Shapley value allocation if prosumers bargain based on their marginal contributions. Non-cooperative trading is formulated by using a Stackelberg bilevel model in which the upper level has the privilege in internal price setting. However, system optimum is not obtained due to competition, and the selfish leader could take away 89% of the collective benefit by price-gap based arbitraging. Aiming for a long-lasting trading market, a virtual benevolent leader and a uniform price structure in which purchase price equals selling price are tested. Experimental results indicate that maximum social welfare and a fairer profit allocation can be achieved with a uniform price structure, regardless of the selfish or benevolent attitude.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw disruptions at an unprecedented global scale with deep societal impacts in cities, countries and regions. Moreover, in a time of global urgent need for Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs), Ventilators, and other health appliances and gear, both air and sea transport were halted, disconnecting manufacturing nations with consumer nations. With steep rise in demand, and impacted supply chains, nations -which were previously hailing collaborative calls to fight the pandemic, were seen to enter into a trade war of health equipment. With borders closed, nationalist policies were on the rise coupled with fears of tech-powered surveillance states. On the commodities market, the price of oil crashed leading to uncertainties as to the future for oil producing nations as the end point of the pandemic was still unclear. Altogether, the pandemic put on test not only economic structures, but geopolitical ones, where it is seen as the biggest challenge since World War 2. This chapter surveys the impacts of the pandemic on the global political landscape and outlines concerns and questions for sustaining a peaceful shared future.
This study presents a conceptual model of how aesthetic design, avatar identification, and player co-creation behavior enhance the players' perceived authenticity of massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs), thereby increasing both the players' willingness to play and their virtual item purchase intention. In our model, authenticity is defined as the perception of genuineness that causes players to perceive people, and objects as real, and is considered a driving force of pleasurable game experience. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the model based on survey data from 393 MMORPG players. The findings show that aesthetic design, players' avatar identification, and player co-creation behavior all influence play intention and virtual item purchase intention. The empirical results indicate that players' perceived authenticity increases players' intentions to play and purchase virtual items. This study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of how perceived authenticity affects players' participation and purchase intention in MMORPGs.
Outstanding multiplayer games engage players by providing rich social interactions. Yet, it is still not clear how to purposefully design these interactions. Our paper tackles this issue by establishing a research model for social player interaction highlighting the impact of the game design, the player group, and the gaming setting. Based on that model, we investigated the influence of three particular game design patterns - player interdependence, time pressure, and shared control - on the interaction of players. For that purpose, we developed a co-located game to systematically test variations of those patterns. We analyzed the resulting player experience and social interaction by applying questionnaires and videotaping game play sessions. Results indicate that high player interdependence implies more communication and less frustration, whereas shared control results in less perceived competence and autonomy. Moreover, individual player characteristics also impact the social interaction.
Full paper is available in the ACM digital library: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3116606&CFID=998181834&CFTOKEN=69385897
Expanding and building on our previous study, the current study mainly explored the degree to which older adults' social interactions in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) are associated with four socio-emotional factors. A total of 222 older World of Warcraft players, recruited online, completed a Web questionnaire. Consistent with the findings of the previous study, older adults' socio-emotional wellbeing was associated with the quality of guild play and enjoyment of relationship. Socio-emotional wellbeing was not associated with the amount of gameplay, intensity of interaction, network level and social motivation for playing MMORPGs. In addition, the findings also indicated that a large number of older adults developed meaningful online relationships with their game friends, but that it would be difficult for them to integrate these online friends into their 'real' lives. Gerontology researchers have established that social interaction is important for successful aging. A decrease in social interaction and cognitive decline have become a normal part of ageing, leading to serious social and emotional challenges such as loneliness and depression. Due to the in-game mechanisms, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) are online communities where older adults can build and maintain meaningful and supportive relationships, but there is still a lack of understanding of whether or how these occur. This research investigated older adults' social interactions in MMORPGs and the degree to which these are associated with four socio-emotional factors-loneliness, depression, social support, and belongingness.
In this article the author examines a number of ways in which the real world economy is currently merging with practices that have been classically understood as belonging to the spheres of culture and play. The article discusses several areas in which the conceptual line between the supposedly rational technologies of finance, and the ‘less serious’ or ‘irrational’ sphere of culture, is fading as finance is progressively enlisted to serve the purposes of entertainment, including film, fiction, and computer games. In addressing areas such as these, where play is steadily entering into the realm of finance, and finance is becoming ever more ludic, the argument also focuses on various ways in which financialised subjects are currently being produced and regulated.
World politics is no longer a matter of executive multilateralism and technocratic expert decisions. What we see instead is the politicization of international institutions – a twofold process of growing resistance to and the more intensive utilization of these institutions. After providing evidence for this claim, this article develops propositions on the effects of politicization of world politics on the quality of decision making and the content of policies on both the international and national level. On the one hand, the politicization of international institutions arguably heralds a reflexive stage of global governance. The increased participation of societal actors leads to a new mode of decision making in world politics, which includes a notion of global common goods in conjunction with elements of public deliberation. By the same token, increased politicization of international institutions contradicts lamentations about the hollowing-out of national democracies and shows that political participation is in fact partly emigrating to the international level. While politicization has the inherent potential for initiating the democratization of international institutions and making new types of global policies possible, there are on the other hand several dangers associated to this process. First, it may perpetuate existing inequalities between North and South in terms of representation on the global level. Second, the politicization of world politics puts pressure on national democracy, since it moves attention away from national political matters and skews national policies towards universalist positions. Moreover, it arguably provokes the constitution of a new political cleavage, cosmopolitanism vs. communitarianism, which may possibly restructure politics in the 21st century to a large extent. These propositions on the effects of politicization will be developed with the help of empirical illustrations. However, they will not be systematically tested – the purpose of this contribution is to elaborate the analytical potential of a new concept and identify broad trends.
Quantification of human group-behavior has so far defied an empirical, falsifiable approach. This is due to tremendous difficulties in data acquisition of social systems. Massive multiplayer online games (MMOG) provide a fascinating new way of observing hundreds of thousands of simultaneously socially interacting individuals engaged in virtual economic activities. We have compiled a data set consisting of practically all actions of all players over a period of 3 years from a MMOG played by 300,000 people. This large-scale data set of a socio-economic unit contains all social and economic data from a single and coherent source. Players have to generate a virtual income through economic activities to ‘survive’ and are typically engaged in a multitude of social activities offered within the game. Our analysis of high-frequency log files focuses on three types of social networks, and tests a series of social-dynamics hypotheses. In particular we study the structure and dynamics of friend-, enemy- and communication networks. We find striking differences in topological structure between positive (friend) and negative (enemy) tie networks. All networks confirm the recently observed phenomenon of network densification. We propose two approximate social laws in communication networks, the first expressing betweenness centrality as the inverse square of the overlap, the second relating communication strength to the cube of the overlap. These empirical laws provide strong quantitative evidence for the Weak ties hypothesis of Granovetter. Further, the analysis of triad significance profiles validates well-established assertions from social balance theory. We find overrepresentation (underrepresentation) of complete (incomplete) triads in networks of positive ties, and vice versa for networks of negative ties. Empirical transition probabilities between triad classes provide evidence for triadic closure with extraordinarily high precision. For the first time we provide empirical results for large-scale networks of negative social ties. Whenever possible we compare our findings with data from non-virtual human groups and provide further evidence that online game communities serve as a valid model for a wide class of human societies. With this setup we demonstrate the feasibility for establishing a ‘socio-economic laboratory’ which allows to operate at levels of precision approaching those of the natural sciences.All data used in this study is fully anonymized; the authors have the written consent to publish from the legal department of the Medical University of Vienna.
As mathematical modeling of infectious diseases becomes increasingly important for developing public health policies, a novel platform for such studies might be considered. Millions of people worldwide play interactive online role-playing games, forming complex and rich networks among their virtual characters. An unexpected outbreak of an infective communicable disease (unplanned by the game creators) recently occurred in this virtual world. This outbreak holds surprising similarities to real-world epidemics. It is possible that these virtual environments could serve as a platform for studying the dissemination of infectious diseases, and as a testing ground for novel interventions to control emerging communicable diseases.
Simulation models are of increasing importance within the field of applied epidemiology. However, very little can be done to validate such models or to tailor their use to incorporate important human behaviours. In a recent incident in the virtual world of online gaming, the accidental inclusion of a disease-like phenomenon provided an excellent example of the potential of such systems to alleviate these modelling constraints. We discuss this incident and how appropriate exploitation of these gaming systems could greatly advance the capabilities of applied simulation modelling in infectious disease research.
This paper describes a classroom exercise that resembles trading in the 'pit' of some financial and futures markets. Playing cards are used to induce supply and demand functions. Instructions and helpful hints are provided. The exercise facilitates an understanding and appreciation of the robustness and efficiency of the textbook model of perfect competition. Copyright 1996 by American Economic Association.
This paper shows that the quality scores in sponsored search auctions can be optimally chosen to extract all the advertisers' surplus. The reason for the full extraction result is that the quality scores may effectively set all the bidders' valuations equal to the highest valuation, which induces intense bidding competition.
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