Identifying spreaders of malicious behaviors in online games

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) simulate the real world and require highly complex user interaction. Many human behaviors can be observed in MMORPGs, such as social interactions, economic behaviors, and malicious behaviors. In this study, we primarily focus on malicious behavior, especially cheating using game bots. Bots can be diffused on the social network in an epidemic style. When bots diffuse on the social network, a user's influence on the diffusion process varies owing to different characteristics and network positions. We aim to identify the influentials in the game world and investigate how they differ from normal users. Identifying the influentials in the diffusion of malicious behaviors will enable the game company to act proactively and preventively towards malicious users such as game bot users.