MMOG players roleplay labrats for economists

Some economists are planning to dabble a bit in the world of Massively Multiplayer Online Games because those worlds afford them a chance to observe players in a controlled environment, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

In a sense, the bearded academics get to play Greenspan/God as they change one variable or another to see how their human subjects react.

The Chronical quotes one economist as saying, "This is a social science petri dish.... You can see everything, and they don't know you're watching."

Mmm, kinky.

[Via
Blue's News]