Day: July 8, 2009

Media professor David Myers, from Loyola University, has been studying how people interact in online games. Why is this of interest?

His study is based on finding out what happens when he starts trolling people. Myers has been studying human interaction in City of Heroes since it first launched all the way back in 2004, and with his character “Twixt” decided as part of his studies to push people’s buttons. When Myers first played City of Heroes and City of Villains, he noticed that the heroes and villains were not strictly playing by the rules, instead peacefully co-existing with each other and often taking out computer-controlled opponents instead of opposing factions. He decided to change all that with his character who would whisk player-controlled villains in front of a cartoon robot firing line for instant kills. He was not liked.

This is where things got nasty; while initially he was gently warned against rampant player-killing, warnings soon blossomed into threats, with Myers sent messages like “I hope your mother gets cancer.” Someone is a charmer. The abuse eventually became so intense – he was accused of being a pedophile and of being a racist – that people were directly threatening Myers and his family, leading him to report them to publishers NCSoft.

So, why did Myers, who is an avid videogamer outside of his work, strive to become the world’s most hated City of Heroes player? To prove that “modern-day social groups making use of modern-day technology can revert to “medieval and crude” methods in trying to manipulate and control others.” His findings? That it wasn’t the game rules that mattered in CoH, it was the hardcore community who sought to preserve their niche little “culture”.

“If you aren’t a member of the tribe, you get whacked with a stick,” he said. “I look at social groups with dismay.”