A tipster informs us that researchers at the University of Texas at Austin are conducting a study to try to determine the "personalities and motivations" of people participating in World of Warcraft and other online games. And they're asking for our help! So if you have 10 or 15 minutes of free time, why not go fill out their MMORPG Survey? (Or if learning about the personalities and motivations of yourself and fellow players doesn't interest you, there's another study running at the university that seeks to understand how people interact in online environments. However, I've got to warn you, that one will take 20 to 30 minutes of your time.) The survey itself looks like a standard personality test, and, I have to say, is pretty uninteresting. However, I'm quite interested in seeing what sort of results they come out with in the end -- and if you're as curious as I am participating will only lead to more varied results in the end.
Update: There is a great deal of discussion in our comments about the possibility of this site being a scam of some sort. While I agree that the domain name of the site is fishy, the content looks completely legitimate. (And, yes, I did run through this on my personal computer before passing it on to you.) With the original and subsequent e-mails we've received about the site, I would say it's legitimate. However, I have removed the link to the site pending further verification.
Update 2: After trading e-mails with Austin Harley (yes, through a valid University of Texas mailing address), one of the researchers involved in the study, I am convinced that this is, in fact, a valid project. Of the odd hosting arrangement, he says:
A good friend of mine offered to build a web page for my site and link it to an already functional database he had. He said this would be easier on him than building one off a webpage on the utexas server so I happily agreed since he was really doing me a huge favor. I had no idea so many people were worried about a potential scam or that my site would cause such a stir.
Update 3: To further assure anyone's concerns, I have talked to a member of the UT faculty overseeing this project, who, again, assures me that this is a legitimate study.
Researchers at the University of Texas studying World of Warcraft [Updated]
Posted Jun 28th 2007 6:58PM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends
Tags: mmo, mmorpg, psychology, research, study, university of texas, UniversityOfTexas, world of warcraft, WorldOfWarcraft, wow
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
6-28-2007 @ 7:05PM
Krick said...
Um.... does anyone else find the domain name suspicious? Are you SURE this is the UofT?
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 7:27PM
Sarah said...
It says Oldsmar Fire Services (which owns the domain) is a fire extinguisher sales service in Florida??? And this has to do with a college survey in Texas how???
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 7:56PM
cwolf267 said...
The keyloggers strike again!
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6-28-2007 @ 8:02PM
actown said...
Is it really a keylogger? I just did it.
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 8:08PM
Sarah said...
For god's sake no one else click on it. It's obviously not a real college survey, the address would have ended in .edu. I don't know about you but I want to keep my characters and my credit safe thank you.
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 8:10PM
James said...
Good point on the gold; how are they going to give that out?
As for the contacts listed on the second page, neither of the students are on the graduate student page directory page at UT Austin, which is troubling. They could be undergraduate students, however. Jody Jensen at UT Texas is real, and her contact info can be Googled.
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6-28-2007 @ 8:11PM
James said...
WoWInsider, I, and I think many others, would appreciate a comment or something on this. Can you verify this link as legitimate? Where did you find it?
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6-28-2007 @ 8:15PM
Ugkul said...
Yes really really suspicious, and even tries to give in game gold. Also why would it need to know your character name and server name?
Just sends warning bells all over.
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6-28-2007 @ 8:16PM
Worriednow said...
I did it too.
Please tell me its not a logger. Luckily Im not on my Game compy. These links should really be checked out before posted because I have come to trust the bloggers here and I went there cause I enjoy doing surveys for schools. I remember how hard it was to find subjects when I was in school.
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6-28-2007 @ 8:21PM
Bryan said...
I confirm that this is a very non-legit site. After I finished the form I had my WinPatrol program detected "VlhsU22.dll" as an added hook under the Internet Explorer folder and subname.
I WOULD NOT ADVISE ANY ONE ELSE TO SUBMIT!
Regards
Bryan
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6-28-2007 @ 8:23PM
FlupKe said...
damnit I just did the thing, didn't read the comments..
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 8:24PM
Sarah said...
I wish someone from wowinsider would comment or take the link down before more people click on it.
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 8:25PM
JS said...
Can a keylogger be installed without executing any .exe files or downloading anything? The website seemed straightforward enough without extra downloading or loading of anything that i could see....I mean my char name and server are available on the armory how can that be dangerous?
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 8:26PM
BigDan said...
I haven't gotten a warning yet. Any idea whether it makes a difference if you are using Firefox?
Im gonna go scan one more time. Bah I hate getting sent to these problems.
Especially on my work pc.
Later.
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 8:28PM
FlupKe said...
I scanned my computer and it didn't find anything. Good think I never use that IE crap.
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 8:29PM
actown said...
im using firefox and my anti-virus dident say anything. They could be using IE exploits.
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 8:34PM
Jonathan Moore said...
I completed the survey and then read the comments. So I ran Ad-Aware and Spybot and both didn't find anything. I also did a full search for the "VlhsU22.dll" file and did not find the file. I guess using Firefox saved me on this one.
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6-28-2007 @ 8:36PM
Adam said...
Email Address listed in survey:
please contact Jody Jensen, Ph.D., Chair, The University of Texas at Austin Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects at (512) 232-2685 or the Office of Research Support and Compliance at (512) 471-8871 or email: orsc@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
FROM UTS WEBPAGE:
The UTS Web Server is mainly used by the UT community to publish personal web pages.
Yea.....faculty would have THAT kind of email address.....
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 8:46PM
BigDan said...
I just ran virus scan as well and it didn't find it either.
Yay Firefox FTW!!!
Reply
6-28-2007 @ 9:24PM
avikbhattacharya said...
I freaked out when they asked my my primary character name, why do they need that info ?? Then I looked at the URL , and it has absolutely NO connection to the UT system. Please please wowinsider - I'm a devoted reader of your blog , PLEASE don't ruin my experience here by posting links that are potentially dangerous. The "25 in game gold peices thing" was VERY suspicious too and asking for your main toons name is totally a no-no. If they're academics studying your gaming patterns they have no need for that info.
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