Crossroads - Spring 2011

ity. The opposite pattern ( dissortativity) of well-connected nodes preferentially connecting to poorly connected nodes and vice versa has been found in a number of ecological, biological, and technological networks. In other words, while assortativity is observed in networks characterized by sociality and collaboration, dissortative patterns appear to emerge in networks evolving in a context that demands resilience under selection pressures. It may be easier to attack a system where all the well-connected nodes are connected to each other than a system where well-connected nodes are insulated from each other through poorly-connected nodes.

The concepts of assortativity and dissortativity also highlight a tension that exists in clandestine networks like gold farming trade networks [ 7]: should collaboration and efficiency be prized despite the heightened risks of detection or should resilience trump efficiency and flexibility? Our analysis (see Figure 2) demonstrates a very notable distinction. Affiliates and non-affiliates nodes clearly have assortative mixing patterns in which characters with many trading partners have a tendency for their neighbors to also be well-connected. However, the identified farmers exhibit a clear dissortative pattern. The CAVIAR network also exhibits a strong dissortative pattern and provides evidence of the mapping of online behaviors back to offline behavior; clandestine networks in both online and offline trafficking contexts preferred to insulate well-connected individuals from each other. Furthermore, a number of individual affiliate accounts are well outside of the typical range and are approximated much better by the gold farmer trend line. This suggests assortativity metrics may be useful for identification or prediction of not only gold farmers, but other well-connected members of clandestine organizations.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CRIMINAL AC TIVIT Y IRL As MMOGs grow in scale and complexity, these exciting worlds and the novel player interactions within them assume increasing social relevance. In

“MMOGs potentially
provide a window
into our
understanding of
offline behavior that
is otherwise difficult
or impossible to
study.”

particular, gold farming offers a case in which people are willing to pay a premium to enhance their experience in their leisure activities. However, the production of virtual wealth outside of community norms and rules offers a striking example of how illicit goods, clandestine organizations, and law enforcement demands and limitations also impinge on these game worlds. Given these parallels, MMOGs potentially provide a window into understanding of offline behavior that is otherwise difficult or impossible to study.

Obviously the notion of markets, property, and regulation within MMOGs raise a variety of complicated questions. What rights, if any, do players have over the digital artifacts they create and develop? What are the offline social, cultural, and technological contexts in which virtual economic production occurs? How should communities in online worlds respond to potentially exploitative phenomenon like inflation, arbitrage, and monopolies? How aggressively should administrators pursue deviants and traffickers to balance community stability with player privacy?

Very similar questions have preoc-
cupied social scientists, philosophers,
and political leaders since well before
the advent of the Internet. Indeed, it is
reassuring that despite how digitized
and distributed these virtual worlds
may be, MMOGs are still very human
systems that evince the same struggles
and debates that have preoccupied so-
cieties for ages. While the consequenc-
es of players’ trials and tribulations
within MMOGs may not directly affect
the “real world,” these online worlds
are still very real sites for social inter-
action, organization, and economic
trade. In that respect, MMOGs provide
truly exciting platforms to both under-
stand how human behavior unfolds
using immaculately documented data
as well as how to design technology to
support and enhance social and eco-
nomic interactions for both the online
and offline world.

Biographies

Brian Keegan is a Ph. D. student at North western University’s School of Communication. He studies team assembly mechanisms under boundary conditions of online organization. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad is a Ph. D. student in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He studies computational trust in virtual worlds and online reputation systems. Dmitri Williams is an associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. He studies the social practices and implications of online communities and video games. Jaideep Srivastava is a professor in computer science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He uses web mining to study online databases and multimedia systems to model human interactions. Noshir Contractor is the Jane & William White Professor of Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University. He studies the factors that lead to the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of dynamically linked social and knowledge networks in communities.

References

1. Williams, D. The mapping principle and a research frame work for virtual worlds. Communication Theory, 202010), 451-470.

2. Castronova, E., Williams, D., Shen, C., Ratan, R., Xiong, L., Huang, Y. and Keegan, B. As real as real? Macroeconomic behavior in a large-scale virtual world. New Media & Society 11, 5 (2009), 685.

3. He ek s, R. Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on “Gold Farming”: Real World Production in Developing Countries for the Virtual Economies of Online Games. Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Mancester, 2008.

4. Lehtiniemi, T. How big is the RM T market any way. Virtual Economy Research Network, (Mar. 2 2007).

5. Ahmad, M. A., Keegan, B., Srivastava, J., Williams, D. and Contractor, N. Mining for Gold Farmers: Automatic Detection of Deviant Players in MMOGs, 2 009.

6. Keegan, B., Ahmad, M., Williams, D., Srivastava, J. and Contractor, N. Dark Gold: Statistical Properties of Clandestine Networks in Massively Multiplayer Online Games. IEEE, 2010.