Experiment in Glitch Greed Undone by Glitch Generosity

Here's an interesting social experiment conducted in Glitch, the next gen web MMO which has a large following of SLers: A player recently acquired a Walloping Big Diamond, a high value virtual item, then pretended to leave it out in the open as a gift to another player, who pretended to be AFK. Would the diamond get grabbed by a random passerby? Here's what happened instead:

In most online games, it's not unreasonable to expect any item that isn't nailed down to be gone within approximately 0.02 seconds, so I was interested to see how Glitch would fare. As such, the goal of the experiment was to see how long it would take before someone came along and take the diamond.The first random person to come along stopped to read the note, and then carried on without taking the diamond. The second random person to come along stopped to read the note, and then attempted to get Zoi's attention. [That's the player pretending to AFK -ed]... And just like that, our experiment was a bust. Our attempt to measure human selfishness had been quickly thwarted by human kindness, a heart-gladdening result if ever there was one.

Much more interesting emergent moral behavior recounted here. Hat tip: Angel Slocombe.

Comments

[Hitomi Tiponi]

I must put some time aside to try Glitch. I was attracted by it's cuteness and quirkiness (even the trailer is different) and now I find it has nicer people in it as well!

[Nickola Martynov]

A few years ago I lived on a busy thoroughfare in a large urban environment. Distracted one day, I left my wallet and keys on the front walk near the public sidewalk. When I came back, there was a man standing there guarding them. He said he tried the door but got no answer, so he waited, figuring I'd be back looking for them soon.

[Adeon Writer]

I'm reminded of this magic trick/social experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxYCh_p2Mjs

[Kala Bijoux]

Not all people in Glitch are so nice. I put out drinks for my neighbors, outside their doors, and as I put the last one down, someone came in and picked all of them up. She was level 30 so it wasn't like she didn't know better or even need them. Still, the majority of people I've bumped into there are really nice.

[Senban Babii]

It's unreasonable to base any form of conclusion on a test population of just two people.

It may even be the case that a significant number of players might not have even known you could take the diamond. There are all sorts of issues here that mean any conclusion is worthless. You'd have to conduct the experiment on a far wider scale. I'd suggest running comparative experiments across other virtual environments too.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

A result without statistical rigor is not necessarily a result without meaning.

[Pussycat catnap]

Luck of the draw.

Everywhere you go you will find good people and bad people.

Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't.

Only real conclusion you can draw is that, well...

Everywhere you go you will find good people and bad people.

Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't.

[shockwave yareach]

When you have the samplesize up to 200 or more, let us know. 2 people is much too tiny to base any sort of conclusions.