6 ms·

Professor griefs gamers, feigns surprise at reaction

54 points by abennett 17y ago

jemmons 17y ago
Thank you! This saves me from commenting on the original now.
pyropenguin 17y ago
This summed up exactly what I thought of the original article. I have to wonder what the result of this will be on his credibility as a professor and how it will reflect on Loyola University in the long run. Reporting on common sense that is akin to running into a lion den and hitting one with a stick only to result in a mauling should not be newsworthy, let alone require the writing of a book. Edit -> Link to the original article in case you missed it. http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/loyola_university_professor_be.html http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/loyola_university...
- marcusbooster 17y ago
  Reiterating common sense is not scholarship, systematically measuring it is.
- Xichekolas 17y ago
  Link to the discussion on HN about the original article: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=690551 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=690551
jswinghammer 17y ago
I think you could summarize this article as "Gamer dislikes griefers, thinks gaming is serious business". It sounds like it was partially on the game designers to limit this griefing activity and make this character able to be killed. The professor's purpose was to study this community and in doing so he put it under stress and watched it react. I think this is valid research given that no one was actually hurt-just annoyed. It seems like this guy should be more upset with the developers who did nothing (that's cited in the article) to stop this.
- jcl 17y ago
  It may be a valid and interesting result, but I don't think it was ethically collected. I'd love to hear how these human subjects were briefed or compensated for this study. It's pretty clear the professor was subjecting them to unexpected emotional stress without their consent. It may also be valid and interesting to find out what happens if you flip people off in traffic, or pay for your restaurant bill in pennies, or taunt preschoolers when you beat them in a game, but it doesn't mean it's ethical to just go out and do it, even if there's nothing explicitly saying it's illegal.
zacechola 17y ago
The original study is entirely valid research and fascinating to boot. I'm looking forward to reading the book.
madair 17y ago
I'm with the professor on this one. If you can't play-act like a villain, or a villainous hero, in a game about heroes and villains, then what the hell is the fantasy world of gaming giving other than all the worst weaknesses and faults of the real world? Have any of the detractors stopped to think that perhaps their sense of community and socializing isn't what all gamers want? Societies values are not always intrinsically good. The fantasy world of gaming gives a person the chance to transcend normal forces and values, within the rules of the given fantasy world. It is entirely fitting that this experiment was done in a world of heroes and villains. The majority want to claim a moral prerogative to insist on status quo, just like in the real world, when far fewer of the foundational reasons for the status quo exist. Your real world nor fantasy world freedoms, life, limb, rights are not affected by a rule-abiding player who entered a fantasy world to play out their fantasy of heroes and villains. The genuine and rule-abiding fantasy players rights are impinged by the majority rule. A summary of wrongs here, (1) death threats conducted in the real world against a player who played the intended fantasy in the fantasy world (2) support by the majority of enforcing real world rules as if they had the same weight and imperative in the game world which was being used by design (3) Editorializing in the title of this post, and not least (4) a direct accusation of dishonesty which constitutes a personal attack in the title of this post. If we transcend mob rule and the establishment for a moment, step into the realm of ethics and what is truth, necessary and unnecessary social norms and rules versus individual rights, we find a sad sad tale of the majority wanting to forcing their way on every individual in an mis-balanced sense of societies rights and needs. Kill my karma, if you must, establishment supporters, but it's the professor, not the establishment, who has my support.
- xenophanes 17y ago
  I don't think you understood the situation. It sounds to me like he was killing his own teammates -- who literally couldn't attack/fight his character -- using glitches/bugs. He just wasn't roleplaying a villain. Normally when a villain tries to kill you, you can at least fight him. He was killing people for which "PvP mode was not enabled".
  - madair 17y ago
Tichy 17y ago
What I don't get is why the game developers did not fix the loopholes in the system. I am also skeptic of the research motives. "People get angry if you annoy them" - hope it wasn't funded with tax payer money...
- spudlyo 17y ago
  They since have. I believe chapter 13 of CoH/V addresses many of these PvP issues.
- xenophanes 17y ago
  Fixing all the loopholes is hard. Blizzard didn't want to mess up the game when they made the telekinesis skill in diablo 2, but it turned out to be a big problem. Similarly they didn't want you to be able to PK people with no warning, but various methods of doing that emerged. Now for Diablo 3 they're so worried about people screwing with each other that the game gives everyone separate item drops, but something like that is too big a change to just go back and "fix the loopholes" in diablo 2.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    I believe that. Not even sure how long that professors griefing was allowed to continue. It sounds as if he primarily had one trick he used, which should have been fixed after a while. Or if it can't be fixed "physically", then maybe there should be rules and misbehaving players should be evicted. I hope they won't fix Diablo 3 so much that it becomes boring.
lutorm 17y ago
At least at the UC, I suspect this sort of research would require human subjects approval, just like if you want to interview random people or put them through some form of test. You can't just harass people who have not agreed to it in the name of "research" anymore in a MMORP than you can on the street. I think someone at Loyola needs to think about ethical guidelines for research here.
petercooper 17y ago
I had the same problem on GTA4. In multiplayer there's a "GTA Race" mode which is racing but with freedom to walk around, use weapons on other racers, etc. There's also a vanilla "race" mode with no weapons that's just about racing. So I enjoyed playing GTA Race, blocking up the track and mass killing the other racers - you get points and it's the point of that mode - to either dodge violence or to cause it. Instead people whined about how they "just wanted to race" yet for some reason they wouldn't bother to use the proper Race mode. Basically, people are idiots.
marze 17y ago
Whatever your opinion on griefing is, it can sure be humorous. This link was in the comments from on NOLA article, "FANSY THE FAMOUS BARD": http://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm http://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm
smelendez 17y ago
The irony here comes from the professor simultaneously trying to impose his own social norms on the players he's antagonizing. When someone says something like "if you do that again, I'll kill you" in the context of playing a game, it's ridiculous to interpret it as a bona fide death threat.
scotty79 17y ago
Professor was suprised that there are two distinct set of rules, game rules and social rules, and that by breaking social rules you can anger people? Somebody should go to his office and pee on his desk explaining to the professor that he is not breaking any game rules (in that case called 'physics'). Professor could be also suprised by revelation that in real world also two distinct set of rules exist. Maybe he could write about this afterwards.

54 points by abennett 17y ago

Thank you! This saves me from commenting on the original now.

This summed up exactly what I thought of the original article. I have to wonder what the result of this will be on his credibility as a professor and how it will reflect on Loyola University in the long run. Reporting on common sense that is akin to running into a lion den and hitting one with a stick only to result in a mauling should not be newsworthy, let alone require the writing of a book. Edit -> Link to the original article in case you missed it. http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/loyola_university_professor_be.html http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/loyola_university...

marcusbooster 17y ago
Reiterating common sense is not scholarship, systematically measuring it is.
Xichekolas 17y ago
Link to the discussion on HN about the original article: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=690551 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=690551

jswinghammer 17y ago

I think you could summarize this article as "Gamer dislikes griefers, thinks gaming is serious business". It sounds like it was partially on the game designers to limit this griefing activity and make this character able to be killed. The professor's purpose was to study this community and in doing so he put it under stress and watched it react. I think this is valid research given that no one was actually hurt-just annoyed. It seems like this guy should be more upset with the developers who did nothing (that's cited in the article) to stop this.

jcl 17y ago
It may be a valid and interesting result, but I don't think it was ethically collected. I'd love to hear how these human subjects were briefed or compensated for this study. It's pretty clear the professor was subjecting them to unexpected emotional stress without their consent. It may also be valid and interesting to find out what happens if you flip people off in traffic, or pay for your restaurant bill in pennies, or taunt preschoolers when you beat them in a game, but it doesn't mean it's ethical to just go out and do it, even if there's nothing explicitly saying it's illegal.

zacechola 17y ago

The original study is entirely valid research and fascinating to boot. I'm looking forward to reading the book.

madair 17y ago

I'm with the professor on this one. If you can't play-act like a villain, or a villainous hero, in a game about heroes and villains, then what the hell is the fantasy world of gaming giving other than all the worst weaknesses and faults of the real world? Have any of the detractors stopped to think that perhaps their sense of community and socializing isn't what all gamers want? Societies values are not always intrinsically good. The fantasy world of gaming gives a person the chance to transcend normal forces and values, within the rules of the given fantasy world. It is entirely fitting that this experiment was done in a world of heroes and villains. The majority want to claim a moral prerogative to insist on status quo, just like in the real world, when far fewer of the foundational reasons for the status quo exist. Your real world nor fantasy world freedoms, life, limb, rights are not affected by a rule-abiding player who entered a fantasy world to play out their fantasy of heroes and villains. The genuine and rule-abiding fantasy players rights are impinged by the majority rule. A summary of wrongs here, (1) death threats conducted in the real world against a player who played the intended fantasy in the fantasy world (2) support by the majority of enforcing real world rules as if they had the same weight and imperative in the game world which was being used by design (3) Editorializing in the title of this post, and not least (4) a direct accusation of dishonesty which constitutes a personal attack in the title of this post. If we transcend mob rule and the establishment for a moment, step into the realm of ethics and what is truth, necessary and unnecessary social norms and rules versus individual rights, we find a sad sad tale of the majority wanting to forcing their way on every individual in an mis-balanced sense of societies rights and needs. Kill my karma, if you must, establishment supporters, but it's the professor, not the establishment, who has my support.

xenophanes 17y ago
I don't think you understood the situation. It sounds to me like he was killing his own teammates -- who literally couldn't attack/fight his character -- using glitches/bugs. He just wasn't roleplaying a villain. Normally when a villain tries to kill you, you can at least fight him. He was killing people for which "PvP mode was not enabled".
- madair 17y ago

Tichy 17y ago

What I don't get is why the game developers did not fix the loopholes in the system. I am also skeptic of the research motives. "People get angry if you annoy them" - hope it wasn't funded with tax payer money...

spudlyo 17y ago
They since have. I believe chapter 13 of CoH/V addresses many of these PvP issues.
xenophanes 17y ago
Fixing all the loopholes is hard. Blizzard didn't want to mess up the game when they made the telekinesis skill in diablo 2, but it turned out to be a big problem. Similarly they didn't want you to be able to PK people with no warning, but various methods of doing that emerged. Now for Diablo 3 they're so worried about people screwing with each other that the game gives everyone separate item drops, but something like that is too big a change to just go back and "fix the loopholes" in diablo 2.
- Tichy 17y ago
  I believe that. Not even sure how long that professors griefing was allowed to continue. It sounds as if he primarily had one trick he used, which should have been fixed after a while. Or if it can't be fixed "physically", then maybe there should be rules and misbehaving players should be evicted. I hope they won't fix Diablo 3 so much that it becomes boring.

lutorm 17y ago

At least at the UC, I suspect this sort of research would require human subjects approval, just like if you want to interview random people or put them through some form of test. You can't just harass people who have not agreed to it in the name of "research" anymore in a MMORP than you can on the street. I think someone at Loyola needs to think about ethical guidelines for research here.

petercooper 17y ago

I had the same problem on GTA4. In multiplayer there's a "GTA Race" mode which is racing but with freedom to walk around, use weapons on other racers, etc. There's also a vanilla "race" mode with no weapons that's just about racing. So I enjoyed playing GTA Race, blocking up the track and mass killing the other racers - you get points and it's the point of that mode - to either dodge violence or to cause it. Instead people whined about how they "just wanted to race" yet for some reason they wouldn't bother to use the proper Race mode. Basically, people are idiots.

marze 17y ago

Whatever your opinion on griefing is, it can sure be humorous. This link was in the comments from on NOLA article, "FANSY THE FAMOUS BARD": http://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm http://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm

smelendez 17y ago

The irony here comes from the professor simultaneously trying to impose his own social norms on the players he's antagonizing. When someone says something like "if you do that again, I'll kill you" in the context of playing a game, it's ridiculous to interpret it as a bona fide death threat.

scotty79 17y ago

Professor was suprised that there are two distinct set of rules, game rules and social rules, and that by breaking social rules you can anger people? Somebody should go to his office and pee on his desk explaining to the professor that he is not breaking any game rules (in that case called 'physics'). Professor could be also suprised by revelation that in real world also two distinct set of rules exist. Maybe he could write about this afterwards.