A viral Twitter thread compares the pandemic in the game “Word of Warcraft” with the current corona crisis.
In a viral Twitter thread, researcher Jen Keane compares a pandemic that occurred in the “World of Warcraft” universe (“WoW”) in 2005 with the current COVID-19 pandemic.
–
The “WoW” pandemic began with a debuff called “Corrupted Blood”, which is said to have only affected a very limited number of players. A debuff is an effect that makes the players weaker in the game.
As Keane explained on Twitter: “The debuff was contagious, killed lower level players quickly (in a few seconds), and should only be a problem when fighting this new boss in a specific area. But there was a bug that resulted in pets taking the effects of the debuff outside of this area. “
–
The animals could be summoned by characters in other parts of the game, which spread the debuff throughout “WoW”. “Once out in the world, the tainted blood spread quickly,” continued the scientist. “NPCs (non-player characters, the preprogrammed game actors with whom the players can interact) in the game could become infected, but not die, so that they were effectively added as asymptomatic distributors.
–
Chosen for you
Gamers ignored “quarantine”
The researcher further explained in her tweet that the players behaved in a similar way to us in the real pandemic.
- Some gamers tried to heal others
- some players warned their fellow gamers which areas were unsafe
- and others maliciously tried to spread the “virus”.
The creators of the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) decided that some gamers should go into “voluntary quarantine” to stop the spread. But some gamers did not stick to it because they did not take the pandemic seriously. The “WoW” pandemic could only be resolved with the help of server resets and software patches.
–
For Keane, it was like a study she could watch online that showed her how people behave during such a situation: “It was a fascinating random case study of the sociological side of an epidemic or pandemic, as many behaved like that they would in real life, “Jen explained.
“Because epidemics and pandemics are a social problem – people’s perception of risk, their understanding of science, their trust in the media and government, etc. play a role in how much they will change their behavior in response to a pandemic. And that then has a real impact on the spread, “the scientist tweeted.
–
Chosen for you
“WoW” pandemic helped with corona research
Keane noted that the finding about the 2005 “WoW” pandemic is not new – the “Washington Post“published an article back in April 2020 about the fact that the Americans did not yet know how the corona pandemic could affect daily life.
The article said, among other things, that the spread of “Corrupted Blood” was also the epidemiologist Dr. Nina Fefferman, who was playing “World of Warcraft” at the time of the incident. She turned to her colleague Dr. Eric Lofgren, with whom she published a paper in 2007 dealing with complex models of human behavior during a pandemic. Fefferman said that the incident helped her to research COVID-19 and to inform those around her.
–
The paper appeared in the September 2007 issue of the medical journal “The LancetThe work deals with what Fefferman referred to as “the full range of behaviors we see in the real world” and reflected in the “WoW” characters.
–
–
