Virtual World Shrinks (not the size type)

Virtual World Experiments

Interesting article on CNET, regarding the use of virtual worlds to conduct psycological experiments that are not legal or ethical in the real world, and find that people will still behave in largely the same way.

So based on that, where will things continue to? Studying group dynamics in guilds in WoW? Probably reasonable, or at least interesting. Watching business dealings and the creative process in Second Life? Why not?

As virtual worlds grow, and become populated with a wider variety of people, it would seem that their usefulness as a test group also grows. And artifical environments are already used for a variety of other simulations, so why not this?

Antemeridian