On-line gaming as experimental lab for infection?

[RedRock]

Interesting article, brought to my attention by my youngest. An epidemic infection/communicable disease was put into World of Warcraft (WoW), starting at first at the highest player levels, and then filtering down into all levels and affecting the game play decisions, mimicking real life infections/epidemics. At least, that what it reads to me. Wonder if the first infection was intentional by the programmers or some hacker, after all?

arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070821-blizzard-negotiating-with-researchers-for-virtual-epidemic-study.html

[vinsanity]

Interesting article. But I do not think it would be viable for research purposes geared to monitoringthe spread of disease or human behavior in raction to the disease. As the author pointed out, if the players are not aware of the "disease" they cannot react to it. But more importantly, since it would be known to be a game, players may act completely differently from how they would react in real life to any "disease" element of a game just because they know it is a game. Sort of like when I am bored in LP waiting for players to arrive and I blow myself up with grenades or jump off of buildings. I would never do that in real life, but I know in the game I am just killing time with no real consequences.