- NEWS
- Hundreds mourn fallen Marine 17 minutes ago
- Auld Dubliner tries to break world record
- Clerk tackles woman trying to steal diamond rings 16 minutes ago
- Mrs. Claus banned from Christmas parade 2 hours & 34 minutes ago
- SPORTS
- UCLA takes advantage of Arizona State 3 hours & 51 minutes ago
- Bruins tailgate: 11-21-09
- Fundamental error sinks Ducks 54 minutes ago
- Ducks are running on empty 1 hour & 14 minutes ago
- BUSINESS
- ENTERTAINMENT
- LIFE
- TRAVEL
- OPINION
UCI study: ‘Egregious example of wasteful spending’
December 29th, 2008, 6:30 am · 28 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
The $100,000 federal grant bestowed upon researchers at University of California at Irvine - to study how gamers from the U.S. and China play the video game World of Warcraft, - has been branded an outrageous waste of taxpayer money in a recent report.
The federal grant will help inquiring minds understand why Americans go to greater lengths than the Chinese to modify the popular online game, produced by Blizzard Entertainment of Irvine. (Great detail on the study and researchers here, thanks to the Register’s Sciencedude.)
“American and Chinese video game playing habits have been too long overlooked by mainstream science, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF),” the report says. “To remedy this, NSF gave University of California at Irvine a $100,000 grant to study the differences in how gamers from the U.S. and China play World of Warcraft, a popular online video game that allows opponents to do battle on the planet Azeroth. The key difference scientists discerned to date: ‘the Chinese tend to play a ‘more challenging’ version of the game.’”
Titled “2008: Worst Waste of the Year“ and issued by controversial U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, it’s a blistering, 45-page romp through oddities in the federal budget, from $9.4 million to search for life on other planets (California) to the $367,000 in federal funds misspent by a Texas school district (officials became suspicious when the district “did not provide lesson plans or other documentation to show how rental of an inflatable alligator and an under-the-sea water slide supported reading instruction”).
Oh, it goes on. “Politicians in Washington outdid themselves in 2008, wasting taxpayer money in ways and amounts once thought unimaginable - all without blushing,” says the report. “So outrageous was the spending, an outside observer would be forced to think that not only do Americans love to pay taxes, but that the federal budget was in a state of perpetual surplus.
“This report is an attempt to pull back the curtain on 65 examples of wasteful Washington spending worth more than $1.3 billion, and by doing so, provide a mechanism to hold Congress accountable for fiscal responsibility. It is time for Washington to stop recklessly spending other peoples’ money and burdening future generations with insurmountable national debt.”
It’s not all laughs; 2008 was a record year for the federal budget. “Total federal spending approached $3 trillion, while Congress ran up the budget deficit to $455 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office - the largest in the nation’s history.”
And things are just going to get better, right?! Happy New Year!
More Watchdog:
- Before he was on D.A.’s staff: Spitzer was lawyer for indicted Broadcom billionaire
- No more free tickets, but OC Fair turns the other cheek
- Of giving and getting taken
- A kinder, gentler, ambitious Irvine - pockets bulging with cash
- Firestorm over displaced kettle promises Hollywood ending
- Nuclear regulators: Concerns over San Onofre remain
- Generosity waned in OC even as incomes grew, IRS figures show
- Snowball Express goes squeaky clean after shaky start
- Amnesty International: Tasers too lethal for police use
- County workers get 800 job cuts, supervisors get remodels
- Victimized twice? State crime victims program spends oodles on itself
- Trustees delay vote on whether to raise their own pay 67%
- Parking ticket purgatory ensnares Tustin man - over car he no longer owns
- Splish, Splash, You’re Taking A Bath
- Free, cool stuff! OC Archives’ generosity irks history buffs
- AIG to OC workers: Thanks for the bailout, happy holidays, you’re fired
28 Comments
Leave a Reply
-
ADVERTISEMENT
-
Follow this blog:
-
More from OC Watchdog reports-
ADVERTISEMENT
You can follow this blog: on 
I think there is some value in studying online gaming.
“to search for life on other plants”
Yeah, it would help if the people on this one weren’t effing brain dead.
For every dollar Oklahoma taxpayers pay in federal taxes, they get $1.36 back in federal spending.
For every dollar Texas taxpayers pay in federal taxes, they get 94 cents back in federal spending.
For every dollar California taxpayers pay in federal taxes, we get 78 cents back in federal spending.
Therefore, the senator from Oklahoma should think twice before throwing stones at Ca and Tx, when we are paying more than our share to keep Oklahoma afloat.
What a sheer waste. People starving, dying and we gotta study life on other planets and a bunch of whack jobs playing games.
Our tax dollars at work? No, USA at its worst
I wanna see a study done on the difference between gamers here in the U.S. and gamers in Cambodia when playing Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe. That’s a study we need stats from so we can have a better world. Can we throw maybe $5 billion at this study?
‘Legitimate’ studies of almost anything are probably not a waste of money. The merits of one study over another is a valid way to choose. The basic problem here is the in place mechanism for congress to ‘distribute’ federal money to their districts. Greed and/or quid pro quo comes into play. The way representatives and senators ‘represent’ their districts/states needs to be changed.
Simply log rolling. The WOW guys (whose offices are on the UCI campus, in a corporate office that belongs to UCI) wanted to know. Why pay for it themselves…? Get the American suck… uh, “Taxpayers” to fund their little exercise in expanding profits.
Good for business, bad for us.
I’m pretty sure the point of this study isn’t to get information about the latest item drops in WoW, but to gain insight into the habits/culture of Chinese versus Americans, specifically in the area of online games. Maybe there’s a good reason for it.
Also, if you are going to complain about $9.4 million to search for life on other planets, you better be raising holy hell about the Mars rovers that have been doing so for the last five years. By the way, they were only supposed to last 3 months. Sometimes a few hundred million dollars is actually an incredible bargain.
I bet you professor nardi is pleased with this article hahaha
Egregious? I think not. NSF is reputable and trustworthy and I’m sure thought through this proposal carefully.
As a researcher, adjunct professor and someone trained in clinical-health and social psychology, I think the grant was well directed. These proposals for research are very well crafted and “word-smithed”. I am not so sure as to what qualifies UCI to conduct this research per se, but the research proposal question UCI outlined to get the grant does holds merit. However, in my review, the entire “virtual gaming environment” should be subject to investigation via careful scientific scrutiny and hypothesis testing using time-tested scientific principles.
When the American culture spends an inordinate amount of time online and the amount of money exchanged via this superficial virtual environment exceeds 150 million dollars alone for WoW you bet this is worth looking in to.
My insight from my own gaming experience and research suggests the following to consider and contemplate: Does this game [WoW] draw the number of old and new subscribers alike due to personal, family or communal entertainment, provide cortical stimulation to stave off boredom, help create new/fake/alternative identities and relationships due to lack of real-world social skills,cultivate fraud, scams and schemes, help create artistic/perceptual-sensational skills and intelligence, studies involving virtual economy, Auction-House style supply-chain management, and supply and demand or educate us on alternative forms of communication, organizational behavior (guilds) and player versus player (combat operation in the open field, role-play or player vs. environment strategy (defined closed area operations) or in-group cooperation and cohesiveness. And finally, look at the global after market or add-on business this game generates in addition to jobs to support it, i.e., virtual currency (legitimate versus the dark side, i.e., hacking, invasion of privacy, data mining, trojan virus and key logger intrusion). Should I mention the potential negative (or positive if any) health considerations this game poses?
I believe all of these topics posed have great potential research question have value to us personally. And, I’ve only covered a fraction of the questions I would want to research. Unfortunately, I did not receive this grant but certainly would like to have such an opportunity to do so to compare such results with the Asian counterparts.
The gaming industry is huge. I don’t understand why it’s not studied more.
Why did the author of this article call Senator Coburn “controversial.” Is he controversial for writing that report or because he is against wasteful government spending. Or because he is a conservative Republican. Perhaps he is controversial because the author just says that he is.
Journalism school teach this kind of writing?
How about studying how tax dollars are wasted on stupid crap?
If the Federal Govt wants to give a California school money, let them. We all cry when the State takes money away, lets be happy they get some back.
Dear Teri,
This is an addendum to my earlier comments regarding your site. As an after thought, I forgot to mention additional areas worth NSF investigation such as map-development/virtual cartography, travel and exploration as well the taboo subject of denial of reality via Gaming Addiction, Sleep/Nutritional Deprivation (Did you see the South Park episode? It was not that far off from the real thing). How about Treatment Modalities, Treatment Programs and Relapse Prevention for Gaming Addiction; an addiction of activity but also perhaps substance…how many WoW players have health probs, vocational or relational probs from counltess hours of devoted dedication to grinding their toon? I’ve found there is no agreed protocol to treat such an addition per se. ( I’ve talked to literally hundreds of students who play this game and yes, some do suffer social, relational, grade and academic achievement). How about the cultivation of virtual income and in-game networking via the gathering professions or service professions found within WoW. How about rank-in-file order, obedience and/or chaos insubordination in virtual realms vs. opposing factions? I’ve even noticed in-game death squads called ganking units similar to “hit men or hit teams” motivated by discrimination and criminally driven by hate to vanquish and annihilate others who may by simply just routinely questing and not out to terminate others in-game.
All have merit for futher investigation and in some cases, matters I’ve posed or proposed to Blizzard’s Development team in fact myself. I’ve received little if any feedback from my postings.
JADavis
My son has been playing World of Warcraft for about 2 years and is letting his subscription go. States pretty bored with it know and he was a top player. Find out how many are giving up the ghost on this game instead of how we fare playing against the Chinky Winks.
I have been in contact with Professor Nardi at UCI. She is a competent, well respected and published author. I am sure she will do a credible job.
I will be interested in the results of her study and reading the forthcoming abstract from the same when made available. I’m wondering what research outlet will accept her research other than NSF given that is this area of research is new and virtually wide open for publication. There are enough journals out there to my knowledge that publish in this area. Interesting to say the least.
JADavis
Revised to say “not enough journals” (final line revision and sorry I didn’t catch it sooner before posting).
JAD
THAT MUCH MONEY??? to study the people playing games… to better understand humans….. I agree with Mick , why not spend money to understand why the hell do people spend money on things like that!
sorry, but from my perspective, I’m young, I’m a potential UCI student, and right now not only are my parents causing me financial aid problems, but this news just sucks. with the recession and what not, I think it would have been wiser to help out the students and their educations especially since it’s had major cuts in funding.
Fl Lee Bailey - I called the senator controversial because he enrages a lot of people, and has been nicknamed “Dr. No” in the Senate. See his efforts to block the year-end, last-minute rush of legislation at The Oklahoman (http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=LatestNews.NewsStories&ContentRecord_id=b03a74e4-802a-23ad-4845-6ad0f8dbfd2f&Issue_id=) and efforts to block Bush’s global AIDS bill, etc. He’s quite a colorful character, no question that he’s controversial, and I’m sorry controversial has become such a controversial word.
The US Federal Budget approaches 3,000 Billion and this genius in congress can only seem to find 1.3 Billion in questionable expenditures? Really?
Blizzard Entertainment is one of the leaders in the gaming universe, employs 2500+ people, generates 1 Billion plus revenue and has found a way to captivate for than 10 million people with their games.
The gaming environment seems completely worth studying.
and to @whitejasminetea above, I could not agree more. . .
While the subject of the study seems frivolous, the results are valuable. As we do more and more business with China, we need to understand the market. Let’s keep in mind just how much money online gaming takes in. It is one of the few trade items that contributes to our positive balance of trade, without consuming any resources.
And if we wish to exploit the Chinese market, we need to understand it well. This study will contribute to that end.
Just as the “Search for extraterrestrial life” yields indirect benefits in terms of offshoot technology.
Oh, and the largest employer (by far) in Arkansas: the government.
Look to the upcoming “Public works” planned by the new administration for wasteful spending. You can expect many “Bridges to Nowhere.”
…and there are 20M players worldwide, 10M of them are in China. At $15/month, and $40 per software package (Yeah, I’m sure a huge portion of the software is pirated in China and elsewhere) that’s a lot of taxes Blizzard is paying. A lot more than the $100K.
$15 x 20M players x 12 months = $3.6B per year
Their gross profit was $955M last year.
What’s the corporate tax rate? 35%
That’s…. ….$348M they paid in taxes last year.
So, it’s worthwhile to the company and to the government to study and encourage that income stream.
Dr. J.A. your pontificating about the merits of research would almost be eloquent, if it were not for the fact that your arguments defies common sense, even if you do have a “Dr.” in front of your initials.
Those who feel strongly about the merits of researching gamers, are free to do, this is America after all. The assertion though that taxpayers should foot the bill, when people are loosing their homes, going to food banks, and millions go without health care is just grotesque, and shows a disconnect with reality by the “research community” which you profess to represent.
Also Mr. Bailey, I am neither a republican or a conservative, but any senator who exposes this kind of waste in government should be called a patriot, and not controversial. Controversial would not be so “controversial” if your journalism were more balanced, and not hint that someone has a negative character flaw because you disagree with them.
@ Kimi and others…
Grants like this actually free up funds to reinvest in the university and/or reduce the tax burden. A study like this (I’m not sure of the particulars of this one) would maybe employ 2-3 grad students (the grant pays their tuition and stipend, rather than coming out of UCI’s budget) and partially fund the researcher.
Additionally, within sociology, anthropology, and computer science, this study is incredibly useful. Within sociology specifically, there’s a growing interest, especially at UCI, in social networks. And in the current era of computers and Internet, virtual networks are vital to our everyday lives and critically under-studied. Examining networks and social interactions via WoW could yield important information about how these computer-based networks are emerging and evolving.
$100,000 may seem like a lot of money, but compared to the overall budget, it’s small potatoes (my department spends $30,000 in photocopying and printing in a year), and the payoff is much greater than the cost.
In a follow-up to my post I incorrectly directed a comment to Mr. Bailey, with whom in fact I agree, and not the staff writer Teri Sforza. My apologies.
The Senator is quoting a clearly misleading article, that has skewed the interview quotes from Prof. Nardi. The article is replete with interpretation and speculation, and is loose about choosing its quotations.
Online cultures are spreading by the second, resulting in innovations and rich practices. Why are more and more kids and adults alike spending so much time playing games? What is the value of these games? If millions of players are spending multiple hours on Second Life or WoW, creating avatars, scripting objects, hiring players to represent them, and companies are showing commerical interest by opening up stores and conducting conferences in these worlds, the world had better pay attention to this phenomenon. Online communities are new ways of thinking about incorporating play at work, aimed at stimulating employees and increasing productivity. Online communities provide respite. It is crucial to study the economies, societies and cultures formed in these worlds for the development of better computer science applications. Turning a blind eye to games and online worlds is to regress in next-generation interfaces. Turning a blind eye to games and internet is to be ignorant about phenomena that are changing the way we live. The internet has clearly seeped into millions of lives in ways unimaginable. It takes an anthropologist/computer scientist to uncover these worlds. Science, by definition, is concerned about how the world works and deriving understandings of it. Online worlds are as real as physical worlds.
Prof. Nardi’s research in particular examines such areas as creativity, learning, motivation, and collaboration in WoW, to name a few. The findings of this research are valuable in the study and analysis of internet, education, social behaviour, work, and more broadly in understanding a major social revolution. Quoting one of her papers, “relations in World of Warcraft make the game more fun and engender a flexible learning space. Loneliness, lack of social support, and increased immobility have been shown to lead to depression in the elderly [22]. A game such as World of Warcraft tailored to the interests of various segments of the elderly population would enable them to make new friends online from their own homes, in the context of an exciting, challenging game with rich content. The game would provide mental stimulation and topics of mutual interest.” Quoting another, “Learning in conversation in World of Warcraft is erratic, spontaneous, contextual, and driven by small events. It is enlivened by playful, lightweight emotions. Such learning can support simple fact finding, the development of tactics and strategy, and the working out of a moral order.”
I think most people here are getting the wrong end of the stick, thanks for a bad job at journalism and a senator who found the article a convenient reference.
This is a bad time, especially for those unfortunately hit by the recession. First, the financial sector do us in. And then the auto-companies. I am sure many are ready to trigger-ready to shoot down more ‘culprits.’
But I am sad to see Sen Coburn took this opportunity to point fingers at well thought-out research. And anti-pseudo, I am sure he is a patriot, but so is Sarah Palin. And patriot of all kinds can display shocking level of insight or insults.
It is time for Americans to come together to examine the wastage generated by our traditional industries, e.g. auto and finance. But to point fingers at research and Internet industry is a egregiously suicidal attempt to kill the real American strength in innovation and inventiveness.