Researchers at North Carolina University have been studying Warcraft player behavior and think they’re able to “predict what a player in a game will do based on his or her previous behavior, with up to 80 percent accuracy.” This can obviously be a boon for game developers, but remember what happened with the scientifically-proven “world’s funniest joke”? Not so good.

“A good game stands on its own. If you want to improve it, you have to make sure players will like any changes you make. This research can help researchers get it right, because if you have a good idea of what players like, you can make informed decisions about the kind of storylines and mechanics those players would like in the future,” Dr. David L. Roberts, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of the paper, said in a statement.