Slide 1

T he Pr oblem of Other Player s I n-game collabor ation as collective action

L ARGER PROJECT Apply theories of conflict to video games ­ Economic game theory

Testing these theories against reality

­ Examining the relationship between game structure and player behaviour

T OD AY Here: Studying game design history through the lense of game theory (collective action) The problem (the challenge) is usually the other player(s)

H I ST ORY OF CON F L I CT Spacewar (1962): Zero­ sum game in which one player wins (fully) and the other player loses (fully).  Players will not cooperate in any way.

Trust is not an issue.

H I ST ORY OF CON F L I CT Fire Truck (1978): Non­ conflictual (organic relationship)  Players will cooperate fully and communicate to coordinate/syncronize.

H I ST ORY OF CON F L I CT Joust (1982): Non­zero sum ­ Players can kill each other (for points) ­ Cooperation prudent unless one fears aggression ­ Risk of misemplementation  Cooperation (but unstable) Player 2

Player 1

Cooperate

Defect

Cooperate

Great

Bad

Defect

Good

Mediocre

H I ST ORY OF CON F L I CT Gauntlet (1985): Non­zero sum. ­ Players cannot kill each other ­ Players compete for resources  Cooperation (but unstable)

Wizard

Valkyrie

Cooperate

Defect

Cooperate

Valkyrie=2 Wizard=2

Valkyrie=0 Wizard=3

Defect

Valkyrie=3 Wizard=0

Valkyrie=1 Wizard=1

T YPOL OGY OF CON F L I CT Type

Player interests

Challenge

Sum type

Examples

Cooperative

Exactly aligned

Game environment or other team

Any

Fire Truck (1978), co­ op mode in Halo (2001)

Semi­ cooperative

Collective goal shared but individual goals differ somewhat.

Game environment or other team and to a lesser extent the allied player(s.

Joust (1982), Gauntlet (1985)

Competitive

Directly opposed. Competitive The other two­player games will never player(s) inspire in­game cooperative behavior while games with more players may inspire temporary coalitions between players.

Non­zero­ sum game with allies, any type against game environment or other team Zero­sum

Pong (1972), Tekken 4 (2002)

CON CL U SI ON S Players are engaged in continuous experiments with ”collective action” Game design is political philosophy Gameplaying is experimental economics

CON CL U SI ON S Game design history amounts to a continuous experiment with relationships We can choose an entirely formalist approach, as long as ­ We know what we’re doing ­ We test the predictions

CON CL U SI ON S

Thank you smith@itu.dk