Papers by Dmitri Williams
Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media
Gold farming and real money trade refer to a set of illicit practices in massively multiplayer on... more Gold farming and real money trade refer to a set of illicit practices in massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) whereby players accumulate virtual resources to sell for “real world” money. Prior work has examined trade relationships formed by gold farmers but not the trust relationships which exist between members of these organizations. We adopt a hypergraph approach to model the multi-modal relationships of gold farmers granting other players permission to use and modify objects they own. We argue these permissions reflect underlying trust relationships which can be analyzed using network analysis methods. We compare farmers’ trust networks to the trust networks of both unidentified farmers and typical players. Our results demonstrate that gold farmers’ networks are different from trust networks of normal players whereby farmers trust highly-central non-farmer players but not each other. These findings have implications for augmenting detection methods and re-evaluating theori...
Communication Research, 2015
This study applies theories of computer-mediated communication and human-computer interaction to ... more This study applies theories of computer-mediated communication and human-computer interaction to the study of transactive memory systems (TMS; how small groups coordinate expertise, for which communication is the central mechanism) in video game teams. A large-scale survey ( N = 18,627) of players from the small group video game League of Legends (LoL) combined with server-side data provided by Riot Games (the creators of LoL) was conducted to look at the relationship between TMS and win/loss outcome as well as the role of team size and past team member acquaintanceship on the formation of TMS, using social presence as a mediator. Results found that TMS was highly predictive of the likelihood of a team winning a game, and that while past team member acquaintanceship predicted TMS, team size did not. Furthermore, only two dimensions of social presence, copresence and perceived comprehension, were related to TMS. These two dimensions fully mediated the relationship between past team m...
Channels matter: Multimodal connectedness, types of co-players and social capital for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena gamers
Computers in Human Behavior, 2015
ABSTRACT The study aimed to examine the roles and interactions of (1) multimodal connectedness an... more ABSTRACT The study aimed to examine the roles and interactions of (1) multimodal connectedness and (2) three types of co-player networks in online gamers’ social capital acquisition. Over 17,000 players of the popular game League of Legends were surveyed on their playing partners, the media channels used, and social capital. Combined with behavioral data from server logs, the results showed that multimodal connectedness (i.e., the number of communication channels used for social interaction among players) was positively associated with one’s bridging and bonding social capital. The frequency of playing with an existing offline friend was positively associated with one’s bridging and bonding social capital; the frequency of playing with an online friend first met in the game was positively associated with one’s bridging social capital; the frequency of playing with a family member was not a significant predictor of one’s social capital outcomes. Moreover, multimodal connectedness magnified the positive relationships found between social capital outcomes and playing with online and offline friends.
2009 International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, 2009
We examine the social behaviors of game experts in Everquest II, a popular massive multiplayer on... more We examine the social behaviors of game experts in Everquest II, a popular massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMO). We rely on Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM) to examine the anonymous privacy-protected social networks of 1,457 players over a five-day period. We find that those who achieve the most in the game send and receive more communication, while those who perform the most efficiently at the game show no difference in communication behavior from other players. Both achievement and performance experts tend to communicate with those at similar expertise levels, and higherlevel experts are more likely to receive communication from other players.
Computers in Human Behavior, 2015
While many video game researchers have built scales to tackle the motivations that people have fo... more While many video game researchers have built scales to tackle the motivations that people have for playing video games, these scales are often limited by their focus on specific game genres or player cultures as well as their lack of behavioral validation. The present research offers a new scale for player motivations and then examines its validity across two distinct gaming genres and cultures, drawing from server-side data combined with survey data of 18,627 players of the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena League of Legends and 18,819 players of the Chinese Massively Multiplayer Online Game Chevalier's Romance Online 3. Six types of player motivations were found: socializer, completionist, competitor, escapist, story-driven, and smarty-pants. Consistent with previous research on player motivations, this typology offers new insights into why people play video games and how player motivations can be used to infer players' in-game behaviors.
The Evolving Virtual Relationships: A Longitudinal Analysis of Player Social Networks in a Large MMOG
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2011
Abstract: How do social networks formed in MMOGs change over time? Are online relationships merel... more Abstract: How do social networks formed in MMOGs change over time? Are online relationships merely random, short-lived encounters or lasting and substantive connections? This study aims to examine the dynamic processes of relationship formation, maintenance, and demise in online worlds. Drawing from the theoretical framework of organizational ecology and network evolution, this study focuses on the effects of three sets of evolutionary factors in the context of social relationships formed in the online game EverQuest II (EQII): ...
2011 IEEE Third Int'l Conference on Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust and 2011 IEEE Third Int'l Conference on Social Computing, 2011
Although trade in illicit items and services is prevalent in many economic systems, collecting re... more Although trade in illicit items and services is prevalent in many economic systems, collecting reliable data and making empirical claims about this activity is difficult. Using anonymized behavioral logs from a massively multiplayer online game, we analyze the items exchanged by players later banned for gold farming. We simultaneously analyze clandestine social networks of deviant players in MMOGs as well the network of contraband items that are sold by these players. The insights from the network analysis are used to build predictive models for identifying deviant players in the clandestine networks. We show that the results obtained from our proposed approach are far superior to the state of the art for such clandestine networks. Additionally we observed that the contraband networks contain certain type of objects which are not found in their "normal" counterparts.
Virtual space eliminates the constraints of physical distances on communication and interaction. ... more Virtual space eliminates the constraints of physical distances on communication and interaction. In this study, we examine the impact of offline proximity and homophily of players on their online interactions in EverQuest II. The results show that spatial proximity as well as homophily still influence players' online behavior.
Gold farming refers to the illicit practice of gathering and selling virtual goods in online game... more Gold farming refers to the illicit practice of gathering and selling virtual goods in online games for real money. Although around one million gold farmers engage in gold farming related activities [18], to date a systematic study of identifying gold farmers has not been done. In this paper we use data from the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMO) EverQuest II to identify gold farmers. We pose this as a binary classification problem and identify a set of features for classification purpose. Given the cost associated with investigating gold farmers, we also give criteria for evaluating gold farming detection techniques, and provide suggestions for future testing and evaluation techniques.
Gold farming is a set of illicit practices in which players in massively multiplayer online games... more Gold farming is a set of illicit practices in which players in massively multiplayer online games gather and distribute virtual goods for real money. Using anonymized data from a popular online game to construct networks of characters involved in gold farming, we examine the trade networks of gold farmers, their trading affiliates, and uninvolved characters at large. Our analysis of these complex networks' connectivity, assortativity, and attack tolerance indicate that farmers exhibit distinctive behavioral signatures which are masked by brokering affiliates. Our findings are compared against a real world drug trafficking network and suggest similarities in both organizations' network structures which reflect similar effects of secrecy, resilience, and efficiency.
Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, 2013
The term 'Gold Farmer' refers to a class of players in massive online games (MOGs) involved in a ... more The term 'Gold Farmer' refers to a class of players in massive online games (MOGs) involved in a set of interrelated activities which are considered to be deviant activities. Consequently these gold farmers are actively banned by game administrators.The task of gold farmer detection is to identify gold farmers in a population of players but just like other clandestine actors they not labeled as such. In this paper the problem of extending the label of gold farmers to players which are not labeled as such is considered. Two main classes of techniques are described and evaluated: Network-based approaches and similarity based approaches. It is also explored how dividing the problem further by relabeling the data based on behavioral patterns can further improve the results
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011
Humans form groups and congregate into groups for a variety of reasons and in a variety of contex... more Humans form groups and congregate into groups for a variety of reasons and in a variety of contexts e.g., corporations in offline space and guilds in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). In recent years a number of models of group formation have been proposed. One such model is Johnson et al's [10] model of group evolution. The model is motivated by commonalities observed in evolution of street gangs in Los Angeles and guilds in an MMOG (World of Warcraft). In this paper we first apply their model to guilds in another MMOG (EQ2) 1 and found results inconsistent from the model's predictions, additionally we found support for the role of homophily in guild formation, which was ruled out in previous results, Alternatively, we explore alternative models for guild formation and evolution in MMOGs by modifying earlier models to account for the existence of previous relationships between people.
Proceedings of the 3rd International Web Science Conference, 2011
Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) maintain archival databases of all player actions and ... more Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) maintain archival databases of all player actions and attributes including activity by accounts engaged in illicit behavior. If individuals in online worlds operate under similar social and psychological motivations and constraints as the offline world, online behavioral data could inform theories about offline behavior. We examine high risk trading relationships in a MMOG to illuminate the structures online clandestine organizations employ to balance security with efficiency and compare this to an offline drug trafficking network. This data offers the possibility of performing social research on a scale that would be unethical or impracticable to do in the offline world. However, analyzing and generalizing from clandestine behavior in online settings raises complex epistemological and methodological questions about the validity of such mappings and what methods and metrics are appropriate in these contexts. We conclude by discussing how computational social science can be applied to online and offline criminological concerns and highlight the "dual use" implications of these technologies.
New Media & Society, 2009
A large-scale content analysis of characters in video games was employed to answer questions abou... more A large-scale content analysis of characters in video games was employed to answer questions about their representations of gender, race and age in comparison to the US population. The sample included 150 games from a year across nine platforms, with the results weighted according to game sales. This innovation enabled the results to be analyzed in proportion to the games that were actually played by the public, and thus allowed the first statements able to be generalized about the content of popular video games. The results show a systematic over-representation of males, white and adults and a systematic under-representation of females, Hispanics, Native Americans, children and the elderly. Overall, the results are similar to those found in television research. The implications for identity, cognitive models, cultivation and game research are discussed.
New Media & Society, 2009
This article proposes an empirical test of whether aggregate economic behavior maps from the real... more This article proposes an empirical test of whether aggregate economic behavior maps from the real to the virtual. Transaction data from a large commercial virtual world — the first such data set provided to outside researchers — is used to calculate metrics for production, consumption and money supply based on real-world definitions. Movements in these metrics over time were examined for consistency with common theories of macroeconomic change. The results indicated that virtual economic behavior follows real-world patterns. Moreover, a natural experiment occurred, in that a new version of the virtual world with the same rules came online during the study. The new world's macroeconomic aggregates quickly grew to be nearly exact replicas of those of the existing worlds, suggesting that `Code is Law': macroeconomic outcomes in a virtual world may be explained largely by design structure.
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2010
This study examines how trust is related to online social institutions, self-disclosure, mode of ... more This study examines how trust is related to online social institutions, self-disclosure, mode of communication, and message privacy in a popular MMOG, Everquest II. The findings, based on survey and behavioral data from over 3,500 players, illustrate how MMOGs may support trust development. Trust was higher within closer social circles: trust was highest in teammates, followed by other players across the game, followed by others online. Selfdisclosure was positively related to trust of teammates and others in the game, while voice chat was only related to teammate trust. These findings indicate that social structures and communication processes contribute to trust development in MMOGs, supporting the claim that these online spaces provide social support that is unavailable in other societal realms.
Journal of Communication, 2009
Several hypotheses regarding the importance of gender and relationships were tested by combining ... more Several hypotheses regarding the importance of gender and relationships were tested by combining a large survey dataset with unobtrusive behavioral data from 1 year of play. Consistent with expectations, males played for achievement-oriented reasons and were more aggressive, especially within romantic relationships where both partners played. Female players in such relationships had higher general happiness than their male counterparts. Contrary to stereotypes and current hypotheses, it was the female players who played the most. Female players were also healthier than male players or females in the general population. The findings have implications for gender theory and communication-oriented methods in games and online research-most notably for the use of self-reported time spent, which was systematically incorrect and different by gender.
Games and Culture, 2006
A representative sample of players of a popular massively multiplayer online game (World of Warcr... more A representative sample of players of a popular massively multiplayer online game (World of Warcraft) was interviewed to map out the social dynamics of guilds. An initial survey and network mapping of players and guilds helped form a baseline. Next, the resulting interview transcripts were reviewed to explore player behaviors, attitudes, and opinions; the meanings they make; the social capital they derive; and the networks they form and to develop a typology of players and guilds. In keeping with current Internet research findings, players were found to use the game to extend real-life relationships, meet new people, form relationships of varying strength, and also use others merely as a backdrop. The key moderator of these outcomes appears to be the game's mechanic, which encourages some kinds of interactions while discouraging others. The findings are discussed with respect to the growing role of code in shaping social interactions.
Focused on the prize: Characteristics of experts in massive multiplayer online games
First Monday, 2011
This study is the first large–scale multi–method attempt to empirically examine the characteristi... more This study is the first large–scale multi–method attempt to empirically examine the characteristics leading to development of expertise in EverQuest II, a popular massively multi–player online role–playing game (MMOs). Benefiting from the unprecedented opportunity of obtaining game log data matched with survey data, the project investigated the relationship between player motivations and in–game behavior, personality characteristics, and demographic attributes with game performance and achievement, which we refer to as game “expertise.” Players who were high on achievement motivation or social motivation had higher game expertise, while those high on immersion motivation had lower expertise. Game experts were also characterized by focusing their game time on completing tasks. Younger players showed a slim advantage over older players. Male and female players exhibited similar expertise levels in this MMO.
Uploads
Papers by Dmitri Williams