Curse

deakinresearch · Oct 05, 2010, 04:31 AM // 04:31

Good morning/evening everyone!

I'm a researcher at Deakin University in Australia. I am conducting research into finding a solution to the booming crime of virtual property theft in virtual world games and environments (WoW, AoC, Eve, Guild Wars, Second Life etc).

I am keen on hearing from the Guild Wars Community in particular!

The Survey is quite short (5 mins if that) and flows well (very little if any writing will be required). I would very much appreciate your participation and input.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/virtualpropertytheft (clickable link)

As you can see the link is legit. I have viewed forum rules and it appears it should be acceptable for me to post this here.

Thank you very much for your participation and lets all help to put an end to this crime!

FoxBat · Oct 05, 2010, 04:38 AM // 04:38

My curiosity got the better of me so I went through the survey to answer everyone's question: no it doesn't ask for your login info, character names, or even any personal info. Seems legitimate enough.

Artinnia · Oct 05, 2010, 04:47 AM // 04:47

I went through it as well, and there are no personal questions that can identify you, your characters, account or anything else. Good luck with your research!

Snograt · Oct 05, 2010, 05:59 AM // 05:59

Hmm, surveys aren't totally unheard of in these parts, but if we must, off-topic is the place for them.

Personally speaking, I'm not fond of people registering here purely to post surveys - but that's just me and doesn't necessarily reflect GWG's policy.

Mangione · Oct 05, 2010, 08:50 AM // 08:50

Just a couple of points you might want to consider.

What country do you reside in?

U.S.A. - Canada - Africa - Europe - Asia - Oceanic

WTF... Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania are not countries, they are continents... Just think of that: Afghanistan culture is very different from Japan's one, and they are different from Israel, from India and from Russia... yet they are all in Asia.
Compared to those cultures, Canada and the U.S.A. are more similar, yet you define them as "different"... and America is not just U.S.A. and Canada, you forgot the central part (like Mexico, for example), and southern one (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, for example). There are lots of MMO players in those areas too.

What is the maximum amount of virtual currency/money or 'gold' have owned in the past?

And then there are some numeric amounts. How can this be useful?
You should provide a different indicator for wealth instead of a simple number, or a scale.

100 gold in WoW can be a lot, 100 gold in GW can be the drop of a single monster, 100 credits in EVE is so small amount that can't even be considered pocket change.

So, if I tell you I got more than 5000 credits in EVE it's not because I'm filthy rich. But that's just beause I have the starting money of a newly made character.

In EVE Online you can sell legitimately about 300.000.000 credits to other players in exchange for 30 days gamecard, and not even that amount is considered a lot among the EVE community.

Hope this can be of help to further improve your survey.

Good luck!

deakinresearch · Oct 07, 2010, 01:04 AM // 01:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mangione

Just a couple of points you might want to consider.

What country do you reside in?

U.S.A. - Canada - Africa - Europe - Asia - Oceanic

WTF... Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania are not countries, they are continents... Just think of that: Afghanistan culture is very different from Japan's one, and they are different from Israel, from India and from Russia... yet they are all in Asia.
Compared to those cultures, Canada and the U.S.A. are more similar, yet you define them as "different"... and America is not just U.S.A. and Canada, you forgot the central part (like Mexico, for example), and southern one (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, for example). There are lots of MMO players in those areas too.

What is the maximum amount of virtual currency/money or 'gold' have owned in the past?

And then there are some numeric amounts. How can this be useful?
You should provide a different indicator for wealth instead of a simple number, or a scale.

100 gold in WoW can be a lot, 100 gold in GW can be the drop of a single monster, 100 credits in EVE is so small amount that can't even be considered pocket change.

So, if I tell you I got more than 5000 credits in EVE it's not because I'm filthy rich. But that's just beause I have the starting money of a newly made character.

In EVE Online you can sell legitimately about 300.000.000 credits to other players in exchange for 30 days gamecard, and not even that amount is considered a lot among the EVE community.

Hope this can be of help to further improve your survey.

Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback. This is probably the 10th version of the survey, you will always have criticism. Calm blue ocean.

deakinresearch · Oct 07, 2010, 01:12 AM // 01:12

Thanks everyone for your participation! Responses have been flooding in, pretty interesting results so far! Results will be posted once survey is finished and they are analyzed

deakinresearch · Oct 26, 2010, 01:11 AM // 01:11

Bump need more participants, aiming for 100. Only at 500 right now.

deakinresearch · Nov 08, 2010, 02:12 AM // 02:12

650 results so far, keep them coming! aiming for 1000. Thanks for the input everyone!

deakinresearch · Dec 06, 2010, 01:25 AM // 01:25

Thanks everyone for your enthusiasm in this study and great amount of responses. Has been exciting to read some of the responses so far

Close to finishing up the survey, just would love 100 more participants to get a nice even 1000. If you have any experience in virtual worlds / virtual goods / virtual property theft, would love you to participate in this study! Thanks in advance

deakinresearch · Dec 21, 2010, 01:41 AM // 01:41

Thanks guys need about 50 more participants