Bainbridge William Sims
Division of Information and Intelligent Systems, National Science Foundation, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22230, USA.
Science. 2007 Jul 27;317(5837):472-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1146930.
Online virtual worlds, electronic environments where people can work and interact in a somewhat realistic manner, have great potential as sites for research in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, as well as in human-centered computer science. This article uses Second Life and World of Warcraft as two very different examples of current virtual worlds that foreshadow future developments, introducing a number of research methodologies that scientists are now exploring, including formal experimentation, observational ethnography, and quantitative analysis of economic markets or social networks.
在线虚拟世界是一种电子环境，人们可以在其中以某种逼真的方式工作和互动。作为社会、行为和经济科学以及以人类为中心的计算机科学的研究场所，它具有巨大的潜力。本文以《第二人生》和《魔兽世界》这两个截然不同的当前虚拟世界为例，它们预示着未来的发展趋势，介绍了科学家们目前正在探索的一些研究方法，包括正式实验、观察性人种志以及对经济市场或社交网络的定量分析。
