We all know that SOE recently turned over years of users logs to be dissected by some mad scientists.

Here are some of the things they've discovered:

"The average age of players turned out to be 31. "These aren't just pasty white teenage boys in a basement-to be sure, they're there, but they're not typical," he said. The older players tended to play more than the kids and, although the total hours played seem large, he said that the time mostly displaced either TV watching or movie going. And the surveys showed that those who viewed TV news in the first place continued to do so, suggesting that gamers really slotted EQ2 into their entertainment time.

Mostly, the gamers seemed healthy; their body mass index was better than the US average and, although they were slightly more depressed than average, they were also less anxious.

Buried among those happy, average players was a small subset of the population-about five percent-who used the game for serious role playing and, according to Williams, "They are psychologically much worse off than the regular players." They belong to marginalized groups, like ethnic and religious minorities and non-heterosexuals, and tended to use the game as a coping mechanism. "

kotaku.com/5157952/scientists-analyzing-entire-server-logs-from-everquest-2

most of the demographic information came from a blind survey given to 7000 players
- not chat logs
 
 link to the actual study
www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121394419/HTMLSTART

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Abstract
In the current study, 7,000 players of the massively multiplayer online game (MMO) EverQuest 2 were surveyed about their offline characteristics, their motivations and their physical and mental health.

These self-report data were then combined with data on participants' actual in-game play behaviors, as collected by the game operator.

The main measure derived from Sony's databases was total playing time
..
To answer the research questions, the survey instrument used a variety of standard demographic measures. Players were asked for their age, gender, race, household income, education, and religion.
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The survey also asked players several questions about their media use, including their hours of television viewed per week, how often they read a newspaper, and their Internet connection speed.
..
their body mass index (BMI), which was calculated from self reports of weight and height

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MMO Players Surprisingly Adept At Lying On Surveys
kotaku.com/5056938/mmo-players-surprisingly-adept-at-lying-on-surveys
 

The way the players responded to their survey sounds amazingly similar to the way the "Hawthorne effect" causes subjects to react in an abnormal way when they know they are being observed/studied.

As far as I know, wasn't the survey the thing they used to determine ages and BMI and depression and stuff, and no private conversations were turned over?

I think Brenlo or some other guy posted something like that.