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Paying for Help on Master's Thesis!


Zorean Zenovka
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My name is Jeremy Hays and I am a graduate student working on my Master’s thesis at Middle Tennessee State University. I am currently working on a research project that will be used to develop an assessment scale for addictive behaviors linked to massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. I am seeking players that are over 18 years old and spend at least 40 hours per week playing MMO games. Please note that I am not using this scale to assess you in any way. Only an email address will be asked for as identifying information for this study. The email address will be used solely to contact the 5 participants selected to win the prize. The purpose of this questionnaire is to find out if behaviors of hardcore players fit known traits of addictive behaviors and to test the questionnaire to see if it is a valid and reliable scale for detecting addictive behaviors.

At the end of the study, 5 participants will be selected at random to win $25 U.S. Dollars worth of Lindens. The winners will be contacted by January 31, 2013 via email. Only participants that fill out the questionnaire truthfully and completely will be eligible to receive compensation.
If I get at least 300 participants, I will double the number of people selected to receive payment.

The link to the questionnaire is

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MMOGS

Thank you in advance for your participation!

 

*Edited to reflect payment change from PayPal to Lindens

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I completed your survey as it is an area that interests me. However I completed the survey from the perspective of an MMO player rather than an SL user. I don't consider SL to be an MMO. i have been using SL for nearly 9 years and have gone through periods where I have spent 100+ hours logged in, but to me SL is a platform to design, create and most importantly to earn money. When I am using SL I see it as work. It's enjoyable work but normally I would much rather be off wasting my time gaming.

I have an addictive personality, I am in my late 30's now and can see the patterns in my life where my addictive tendencies have taken over. With Second Life I am purely addicted to earning money. If you took away the facility to trade L$ for USD then I would quit SL immediately. 

I have also been playing EVE online as long as I have been using SL. I have gone through long periods where my addiction to EVE has affected other aspects of my life, and there are also countless other games that have taken too much of my time and attention. 

Nowadays I still play EVE, but like with SL, I only do so as I can earn real money from it. I think with games like EVE, World of Warcraft, Entropia and any others that allow the users to convert the virtual currency into real currency you have to ask, are the people addicted to the game and the gaming experience, or are they just addicted to the money that can be generated from the MMO?

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"Took your survey.  Seems slanted to other types of MMO's other than Second Life.  Which by the way I haven't played any other MMO's in a LONG time.  Anyway, you have some "questions" that are not questions.  You're told to answer a certain way.  Forgt to post a question there? "

Thank you for taking the survey :) I looked back over the survey and personally I don't feel like it is slanted towards other types so much. My operational definition of an MMO is a persistent online world in which hundreds or thousands of players are playing together at the same time. Second Life fits that definition very well. Moreover, Second Life can have goals, such as building or scripting, that can give fulfillment. I am a builder and know I feel a sense of gratification after I finish a large building project :) 

As for your question, the answer is no. That is intentional :)

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"i have been using SL for nearly 9 years and have gone through periods where I have spent 100+ hours logged in, but to me SL is a platform to design, create and most importantly to earn money. When I am using SL I see it as work. It's enjoyable work but normally I would much rather be off wasting my time gaming."

You raise a good point here. I am certain there are people that consider SL work. I have been an avid player of SL (though haven't played in a few months) and believe that most people are there to have fun and socialize. However, it is also an interesting aspect to see if people that work within the environment also show addictive behaviors. If a player is more addicted to making money than achieving in game goals, then I would think there would still be little difference in how they answer the questions on the questionnaire. It is definitely something to look into in future research.

As for other MMOs such as EVE, WoW, and Entropia... I know that in WoW it is against the terms of service to sell in game currency for real currency. Though there are those that do it, I would not expect those people to be interested in answering my questionnaire. I think it is also against the terms of service in EVE, though it has been over a year since I last played. I haven't heard of Entropia.

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"I don't play any other virtual worlds but this one, and nothing close to 40 hours a week. 

What if people lie just to get the $25?"


Thanks for responding. :) I fully expect there to be liars. Every questionnaire, no matter what the subject matter, tend to have people respond untruthfully. It is expected by all researchers. There are analyses that can (and will) be performed on the data to weed out these responses.

One possible example (there are several tests), if most people respond to a question with "Strongly Agree" because they fit the behavior patterns of an addict, then if someone responds to "Disagree" or "Strongly Disagree", they are considered an outlier. If this happens multiple time (which it would likely do), that person is removed from the dataset. This is one reason I need so many people to respond. The more responses gathered, the more likely it is to find a trend and spot liars. :)

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Zorean Zenovka wrote:

"I don't play any other virtual worlds but this one, and nothing close to 40 hours a week. 

What if people lie just to get the $25?"

 

Thanks for responding.
:)
I fully expect there to be liars. Every questionnaire, no matter what the subject matter, tend to have people respond untruthfully. It is expected by all researchers. There are analyses that can (and will) be performed on the data to weed out these responses.

One possible example (there are several tests), if most people respond to a question with "Strongly Agree" because they fit the behavior patterns of an addict, then if someone responds to "Disagree" or "Strongly Disagree", they are considered an outlier. If this happens multiple time (which it would likely do), that person is removed from the dataset. This is one reason I need so many people to respond. The more responses gathered, the more likely it is to find a trend and spot liars.
:)

i did your survey but i dont get what you saying here

like you want people who play 40+ hours a week. thats over 6 hours a day every day. is lots of of hours that

unless you on a game where can make and sell stuff and do as a job then that just leaves RL unemployed people where that many hours left in the day is available where is possibel to not affect their RL relationships

if so then it kinda means that everyone who has a RL job and plays that many hours is either single and not affecting their RL relationships

or that for them who arent single it is affecting their RL relationships, making them outliers?

seems to me anyways that maybe you will have end up with a skew in your dataset no matter how you chop it up?

dunno just seems like to me 

+

edit: i just mean that the 40 hours requirement a bit high. maybe 20 would be better

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