Citation

Son S, Kang AR, Kim HC, Kwon T, Park J, Kim HK. PLoS One 2012; 7(4): e33918.

Affiliation

Multimedia and Mobile Communications Laboratory, School of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0033918

PMID

22496771

PMCID

PMC3319537

Abstract

Rapid advances in modern computing and information technology have enabled millions of people to interact online via various social network and gaming services. The widespread adoption of such online services have made possible analysis of large-scale archival data containing detailed human interactions, presenting a very promising opportunity to understand the rich and complex human behavior. In collaboration with a leading global provider of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), here we present a network science-based analysis of the interplay between distinct types of user interaction networks in the virtual world. We find that their properties depend critically on the nature of the context-interdependence of the interactions, highlighting the complex and multilayered nature of human interactions, a robust understanding of which we believe may prove instrumental in the designing of more realistic future virtual arenas as well as provide novel insights to the science of collective human behavior.

Language: en