Ripe for the sociological picking

Virtual worlds like Second Life are proving to make ideal virtual laboratories for social study. According to BBC News, a review by the Science Journal pinpoints the advantage virtual worlds have over real world studies: convenience and scale.

In the real world, social scientists have trouble securing funding and finding subjects fast enough. Meanwhile, virtual worlds are accessible and relatively cheap.

Further, research reveals users treat virtual worlds much like the real world. In Second Life, for instance, users keep about the same distance apart as people stand in the real world.

In World of Warcraft, a large-scale study exploring alternative government regimes is being conducted, an attempt that would be next-to-impossible to conduct in the real world.

Ongoing conflicts in WoW between players of different groups vying for resources can be seen as an experiment on how individuals can cooperate in producing public goods.