The "corrupted blood" disease spread rapidly within the popular online World of Warcraft game, killing off thousands of players in an uncontrolled plague.
But, there are ethical/methodological problems in using virtual reality to study such behaviors. For example, one reason the WoW players' behavior in the game was similar to real behavior is that the WoW players cared about their characters because they had an investment in them. Thus, it would be unethical to release a disease in a virtual game of such stakes. If the players don't care about the virtual world, then their behaviors would more likely to be artificial - and not as useful to the researcher.
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