Misinformation and Disinformation in Online Games | Hacker News Reader

Misinformation and Disinformation in Online Games

digital.lib.washington.edu

34 pointsinfodocket12 comments

I wrote a short paper about propaganda and spy antics in Eve Online in 2009: http://memeover.arkem.org/2009/12/information-operations-in-...

Though if you're after Eve Online war stories I'd instead recommend the books and podcast Empires of Eve (not by me): https://www.empiresofeve.com/

...in which a UW grad student determines that a sufficient supply of buzzwords can translate a KotOR obsession into a dissertation.

Yeah holy crap, this didn't actually get published anywhere did it?

It's a doctoral dissertation. Typically this means that it itself is not published in a peer-reviewed journal, but was reviewed and accepted by the person's dissertation committee. That being said, dissertations typically contain information that the candidate has previously published during the pursuit of their degree.

You can find the author's published works here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m0y4wxsAAAAJ&hl=en...

AAA game publishers such as EA, Ubisoft and Activision have already translated such obsession into multi-billion dollar pseudo-gambling businesses. I think more scrutiny on these are welcome.

It's SWTOR, not KOTOR. KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic) usually refers to the two solo games by Bioware and Obsidian, whereas SWTOR (Star Wars: the Old Republic) is the MMO where the study took place, also by Bioware.

a curious bit, if you don't skip the world "online" in the next sentence, quoted from her dissertation:

<< 180 minutes of naturalistic observation, collection of 72 online artifacts >>

She talks about game artifacts. Collected in a game field trip, is a fun idea, I have to say.

Runescape, the online RPG lots of kids play have a complex Economy, if you analise, and interesting phenomenons occur.

(using "s" for latin plural, lets evolve English a bit)

idea for a game: The Charles Darwin of 2099, collect frozen shrimp on Europa, the moon.

Runescape has a pretty old player-base at this point, mostly because the only people who play it any more are people who played it when they were younger

I want until the topic is dead to confess I was too overly old to play already when the player base was all most kids. haha

So, even for today standards, I would be the oldest there. But they banned my acc by mistake and I never cheated so I never will play anymore, i mean, only after I buy the company if I feel inclined and fire whoever the inconpetent who banned my acc.

Really never never cheated...All hand-made sweat Grinding...Its was unfair and very saddening.

But will never write email

will fire :D just joking. but no email.

Cheers, friend!

>using "s" for latin plural, lets evolve English a bit

...collection of LXXII artifactorum...

Perhaps off topic from the paper but it's clear there is at least one category of game that gives the user a particular world view.

People who have played Civilization have a very distinctive view of world history and social forces generally. I'm sure Sid Meyer was just maximizing fun and it's certainly not propagandist. But maybe it shows that abuse is theoretically possible. (Although it's hard to think historical simulations have audiences big enough worth targeting.)

Oh my god , that was funny man... Don't know why remembered me the good short Lannister. He is a master of humor, I have to say. I imagined him saying "artifactorum"

But maybe I was wrong, phenomenons or phenomena, this probably greek and not latin, but with "s" is easier :D

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