In this preliminary version of our paper, we claim that data coming from virtual
worlds is very precious tool in research on conflict. Indeed, both historical dataset and
laboratory experiments suffer from too many limitations making econometric works nonsatisfactory.
To overcome these issues we promote the use of “EVE online” – a Massive
Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. Thanks to collaboration with game's developer, the
empirical part can build on data encompasses practically everything the 390,000 players did
in the month of January 2011. Thus, it can build on rich and objective empirical evidence
about economic behavior in a warfare context; something difficult to achieve in real world or
laboratory conflict setting. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first of its kind in
conflict theory. In this paper we estimate and compare the two main forms of contest success
functions, the difference and ratio-form.