Mind Your Decisions looks at the game theory of the classic Thanksgiving showdown between Lucy and Charlie Brown.

Time after time, Lucy would bring her football to the park and entice Charlie Brown to practice some place kicks.  Lucy would hold the ball, Charlie Brown would run full-steam to kick it only to have Lucy snatch the ball away at the last minute sending Charlie Brown flying, yelling ARRRRGGGHHH and landing in a heap.  What a blockhead.  Sure you can understand his willingness to trust her the first time, maybe even the first two times, but after that it’s pretty clear what Lucy’s objective is.

You may try to make excuses for Charlie Brown by arguing that subgame-perfection requires a great deal of strategic sophistication.  But you don’t need to invoke any refinements here.  The unique Nash equilibrium action for Charlie Brown is to say no.  Even worse, not yanking the ball is a weakly dominated strategy for Lucy and after that strategy is eliminated, Charlie Brown has a strongly dominant strategy to walk away.

So it is not surprising that in It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, he has finally figured this out and flatly refuses to play Lucy’s game.  That’s when she goes contract theory on him.

Now we are reaching higher-order blockheadness.  First of all, whether or not the contract is valid, its terms are not verifiable to a court.  And Charlie Brown should be able to figure out there is something fishy about this contract.  Lucy would only offer a contract if she preferred the outcome (run, don’t yank) to the outcome (walk away).  But even though Lucy has never directly revealed any preference between these two outcomes, there is pretty good evidence that the worst possible outcome for Lucy would be to see Charlie Brown successfully kick.

Indeed, Lucy knew from the beginning that Charlie Brown would eventually figure out her intention to yank the ball.  After that, she knows Charlie Brown will refuse to play.  So if Lucy really preferred (run, don’t yank) to (walk away) then she would prevent this evaporation of trust by allowing Charlie Brown to kick the ball at least a few times, but she never did.

The only way to rationalize Lucy’s steadfast insistence on sending him flying is to assume either that (run, don’t yank) is her least-preferred outcome, or that she thinks that Charlie Brown is indeed a blockhead and unable to deduce her intentions.  In either case, Charlie Brown should have viewed Lucy’s contract with deep suspicion.

"Roissy in DC" author: James C. Weidmann

Jimmy-The-Jew:  ”Roissy in DC”

Now, let me just say this.  I have never felt the need to dedicate a post to Roissy because we all know (in his many pathetic, repeated blog posts dedicated to me) that is exactly what he wants.  He wants to be the “dark villain” and the “dangerous man”.  Sadly, most women can see upon reading a few words of his that he is not a dangerous nor scary man.  He’s a sad, lonely, 40’s-something guy…..stuck in a big city…..where he just can’t keep up with the competition  (please refer to what he looks like and what he WEARS as a man his age to see what I am referring to).

*I am interested to see if Roissy “takes it like a man” or shrieks like a schoolgirl and demand it be removed.  ( I say this because Roissy has felt free to find and post photos of me, my family, my personal info, and anything else he can find to “call me out”).  I wonder if the “dishee” can also take it.*

Desperation drips from his false online persona like a broken rusty rain gutter that everyone gave up on fixing long ago……

If you are NOT familiar with blogger, “Roissy in DC“……I’d suggest you click and read a bit of his blog (you’re welcome, Roissy).

This is a man who claims to be a Master of Seduction, a Jesus-Like Savior of (wimpy) men, a Colossus of Gaming, and of course an all around “Ladies Man”.

He extols the virtues of dodging child support payments, physically intimidating your wives & girlfriends to “keep them in line”, and even encourages men to “raw-dog” it and have as much unprotected sex as you possibly can (gross….can you say STD’s and MORE babies in foster care???).

Unfortunately, the men he is preying upon don’t realize that he is NOT out to help them, NOT out “offer advice”, but out ONLY to reassure himself in his aging, middle-aged, desperation…..that ANYONE still wants to hear what he has to say.

You all know the expression “Well….if I’m going down….I’m taking everyone with me.”  THAT is exactly what Roissy’s “Game” advice to men is.  It’s like the crack under a recovering crack-heads nose…….the “miracle diet pill” to the lifetime Anorexic……and the walking, talking ENABLER of the further decline of modern men in today’s society.  He encourages men to go back to the “id”…..the caveman inside themselves…….and care about nothing but eating, sleeping, and fucking.

Every step that man has taken forward in the world, Roissy helps them to take a step back.  For every man who DOES have discipline and character (and self-control)……Roissy helps to enable 10 more NOT to be.

The chauvinism, arrogance, and cock-obsessed points aside……Roissy is a living breathing example of the stereotype that many men have been trying to not be a part of:  drooling, horny, pussy-obsessed, “cocks-on-wheels” with not a thought in their head except finding a warm-hole.  (Pardon the nasty expression, but that is the main thought process of men like these).

Anyway…..I received an email directly from a mysterious (and generous) Miss X.  This is evidently a woman who feels much the same way that I do and is tired of witnessing this sort of degradation in our society as whole.

*NOTE:  I will remove tidbits from the email that could/would give away the identity of “Miss X” and how she may be “familiar” with Roissy.  I will also mark my own comments with *asterisks* and Italics so there is no confusion.*

Dear Lady Raine,

I’ve been a longtime admirer of your contributions to the debate at Roissy’s. However, his recent smugness has exceeded even my tolerance, and I thought I might offer a little birthday present to you to offset the bile you’ve received from him:

I believe I know Roissy’s real name.

I know that you like investigation…. take a look at James (Jim) C. Wiedmann, employed by FINRA (a private finance regulatory body in D.C.). Also interviewed in the Mail and Globe article “When Players Turn Into Boyfriends.” See if this rings any bells:

The pickup artist’s message for wannabe players and boyfriends alike is essentially “don’t be a wuss,” says J. Wiedmann, a Washington-based white-collar-crime investigator. Mr. Wiedmann, who did not want his full name used, launched his “reality-based seduction” blog, “Roissy in DC: Where Pretty Lies Perish,” last year. Reviled and beloved, the blog is full of devilish relationship strategies.


“I’ve written about the importance of instilling dread in your girlfriend by turning off your phone twice a week, or calling her from a busy place where women are laughing in the background … despite her protestations to the contrary, a little bit of uncertainty goes a long way to keeping her aroused for you,” Mr. Wiedmann said in an interview.


Aside from the usual fawning and vitriolic responses to his posts, Mr. Wiedmann has been seeing more pleas for relationship advice in his inbox lately. “Most of my male readers ask for advice on how to win that ‘one girl’ over. They’re struggling to get out of the discount bin of the sexual market,” he says.

(http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article714983.ece)

Roissy published a blog entry entitled “I Am In the Globe and Mail,” but has recently deleted it.
(http://roissy.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/i-am-in-the-globe-and-mail/).

He is 41. His birth day and month are the same as listed in this profile, but he lies about the year. This is what he looks like.
(http://www.puaconnect.com/roissy/)

If you’d like any further confirmation, try a Google search for “Roissy’s real name.”

He loves to brag about his exploits, but abuses women while hiding under a cloak of secrecy. And now he is making it a personal crusade to attack all the women on his blog who are still willing to stick around. Please be careful — some of the men at his site are very angry and seem a few minutes away from snapping.

From one woman to another,
Miss X

*I also received this in my comments section from another one of my readers*

You should send Roissy a nice thank you card:

Jim Wiedmann
1778 Lanier Pl NW #9C
Washington, DC 20009

 

*OH, JIM…….LOL…..what does one even say about this?  Other than the fact that a 41 year old “finance-nerd” who dresses like he’s a 21 year old emo-prep college-boy.  The fact that he constantly berates women and evidently LIES about his age even to his own readership is really rather funny.  I recall so many articles talking about how “young hot women just LOVE old, pasty gross men” and now I know why he’s so desperate to get other men to believe this kind of thing.

You would think that JUST the fact that he’s a middle-aged, pasty-white finance-Jew posing as a playboy would be reason enough for people to disregard his opinions and advice (like most people already do)…..but there are and always will be looking for their “own personal jesus” to tell them it’s okay to hate women, hate life, hate responsibility, hate morals, hate “hard work”, and hate ANYONE AND EVERYONE that you can possibly think of to blame for being  what they have become.

This falls into my “Why People Are Assholes” post.  Roissy may not be a big-name who is going to influence anyone who actually matters……but he’s certainly known enough to be influencing men who otherwise may have turned to look at THEMSELVES (yes I know introspection is a crazy concept for guys like him) for their failures/shortcomings in life.

It’s a dangerous world we live in when there is a “miracle pill”, a quick fix, and a (insert random group) to blame for everything a person DOESN’T do to be responsible for their own lives.

Our good friend Jimmy-The-Jew, here is just one of them.*

Yes, Gentlemen....THIS is the man you are asking for advice on picking up ladies.....(Note: The....errr..."artwork" done to this pic wasn't done by me. This is the way the photo was when I saved it, lol)

*Yes, Ladies I know…..it’s hard to control yourself in the presence of such an Adonis, but please try to remain calm for the sake of our female dignity.*

Update:  Much like I expected….some of Roissy’s shrieking henchman came here telling me I have “stepped over the line”.  For a bit on the “history”….this is the first time I have published a “post about Roissy” on my blog.  Roissy has published at least 6 or more posts specifically about me.  Containing personal photos of me AND MY son….which is “unsavory” in the first place.  But he then continued over the past 6 months to try to slander me, give out personal info (like mentioning the town I live in as often as he can) and worst of all posts porno videos and says that it is ME in the video (and isn’t.)  He has publicly posted lies on his blog accusing me of prostitution AND pornography and attached my photos to the (complete lies) he is telling.

I never really bothered posting about it here on my blog, because anyone who knows me in real life knows those things aren’t true and are ridiculous…..but that doesn’t change the fact that Roissy likes to go and play in people’s lives and slander innocent people for his own amusement and to up his blog stats without remorse and without even having  a good motive to do it.  Just because it gets him attention.

Well I think it’s high time someone finally fixed his little red wagon, and I’m certainly the woman for the job

*Update:  November 25*

Here is another address that is identical except for a different Apartment number…..ooops guess it WAS a residential address….silly old me with my tiny female brain…..

Wiedmann, James C

Age:40-44

1778 Lanier Pl NW, Apt 8B

Washington, DC 20009-2190

*This is dedicated RIGHT to Roissy for the post back in June where he posted my son’s name, age, and photo without my permission (and involving kids is the lowest you can go anyhow):*

Address History

• 2 in Washington, DC
• 1 in Chevy Chase, MD
• 1 in Somerville, NJ
• 1 in Ventnor City, NJ
• 1 in Atlantic City, NJ

Aliases

• James Wiedmann
• Jim Wiedmann
• James Charles Weidman

Relatives

• L Wiedmann
• Catherine R Wiedmann
• Lisa A Wiedmann

*Ouuuuuuuuuuuch, Jimmy*

Cute video from Tim Harford on the information economics of office politics.

(My theory is that in fact the managers will get stuck with cleaning coffee pots.  The wage-earners are already held to reservation utility while the managers are likely earning rents. And, as illustrated in the video’s epilogue, there is no fully separating equilibrium in the “threaten to resign” game.)

You are playing in you local club golf tournament, getting ready to tee off and there is last-minute addition to the field… Tiger Woods.  Will you play better or worse?

The theory of tournaments is an application of game theory used to study how workers respond when you make them compete with one another.  Professional sports are ideal natural laboratories where tournament theory can be tested.  An intuitive idea is that if two contestants are unequal in ability but the tournament treats them equally, then both contestants should perform poorly (relative to the case when each is competing with a similarly-abled opponent.)  The stronger player is very likely to win so the weaker player conserves his effort which in turn enables the stronger player to conserve his effort and still win.

There is a paper by Kellogg professor Jennifer Brown that examines this effect in professional golf tournaments.  She compares how the average competitor performs when Tiger Woods is in the tournament relative to when he is not.  Controlling for a variety of factors, Tiger Woods’ presence increases (i.e. worsens, remember this is golf) the score of the average golfer, even in the first round of the tournament.

There are actually two reasons why this should be true.  First is the direct incentive effect mentioned above.  The other is that lesser golfers should take more risks when they are facing tougher competition.  Surprisingly, this is not evident in the data.  (I take this to be bad news for the theory, but the paper doesn’t draw this conclusion.)

Also, since golf is a competition among many players and there are prizes for second, third etc., the theory does not necessarily imply a Tiger Woods effect.  For example, consider the second-best player.  For her, what matters is the drop-off in rewards as a player falls from first to second relative to second to third.  If the latter is the steeper fall, then Tiger Woods’ presence makes her work harder.  Since the paper looks at the average player, then what should matter is something like concavity vs. convexity of the prize schedule.

Also, remember the hypothesis is that both players phone it in.  Unfortunately we don’t have a good control for this because we can’t make Tiger Woods play against himself.  Perhaps the implied empirical hypothesis says something about the relative variance in the level of play.  When Tiger Woods is having a bad season, competition is tighter and that makes him work harder, blunting the effect of the downturn.  When he is having a good season, he slacks off again blunting the effect of the boom.  By contrast, for the weaker player the incentive effects make his effort pro-cyclical, amplifying temporal variations in ability.

Jonah Lehrer (to whom my fedora is flipped) prefers a psychological explanation.

Here is a practice problem set for you to do and its solution so you know what to expect on the midterm.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZXLG0MBT

Study hard and good luck.  If you have any question, send me an email and if it is a really good question, I will post it on this blog so everyone can benefit from it.

As an agile methodologies SCRUM is pretty simple to follow. There are basically 3 roles , 4 ceremonies and small bunch of practices. So why does it work? let me take a game theory perspective to the how, in order the explain the why.

from wikipedia

Sprints: Deliver often!

A sprint is a unit of  time (in our team is 2 weeks) in which the team plans and delivers an increment of the product that provides value to the customer. Once a sprint finishes a new one starts, the 4 SCRUM ceremonies are held within one sprint.

Classic waterfall projects tend towards a big bang approach to delivery. For the customer and the supplier, it leaves a door open to last minute surprises: “this is not what I ask for, it is going a bit late, I am not paying you, we had to cut that feature…”  This might be represented as deflections by both sides (or players in a prisoner’s dilemma).

Tricking the other side into doing their part without you doing yours, (e.g. increasing your margin by cutting test effort and delivering bug-ridden software) can be  more appealing if the players are not likely to meet again (or at least not in the near future).

However, if these interactions are more frequent and longer lasting, the benefits of ongoing collaboration become more attractive. This approach to fostering collaboration is well argued by Axelrod and it is implemented by scrum in the ’sprint’ concept.

Product Owner,Backlogs and Stories

The Product Owner represents the customer needs to the team, and provides clear requirements (Stories)  to the team. The Product Owner (PO) interfaces with the multiple customers and it’s the only person providing stories and priorities (backlog) to the team.

In a situation where the customer is not easily accessible or multiple parties are involved,  collaboration becomes harder and less explicit (this is well explain by Schelling). The creation of a single and accessible customer makes the game a very straight forward prisoner’s dilemma.  The product owner hides these complexities by providing a single and local customer interface to the development team.

Small and Self-organising teams

A scrum is a small group of people 7 +/-2 , that organise and assign tasks to themselves. The team elects a ScrumMaster to facilitate the self-organisation.

There is a second level of games occurring in your average software project: Can a member of the team get away by doing less than expected? Well, there will always be a star performer to pick up the slack, right?

This problem is familiar to all project managers, but may its solution is less obvious… self-organising teams. The issue with an individual defecting in a Project Manager lead team is that the consequences are not so clear… the PM has to judge if  the information provided by a developer is accurate, and a developer is always at risk of being used as the scape goat by rogue PMs.

Small and Self-organising teams increases the stakes of deflection, the deflector is no longer judge by a single person but by a small community of peers… nowhere to hide!

Scrum is not optional

Scrum works because set a well balanced framework for human interactions. It creates an environment designed to foster collaboration. But do Scrum projects fail? Yes, and often. May teams take a “pick and choose” approach to Scrum. The bottom line is: You either do Scrum or you don’t – none of the roles, ceremonies or practices are optional.

I’ve just gotten my hands on an (e-)inspection version of Nicola Whitton’s Learning with Digital Games: A Practical Guide to Engaging Students in Higher Education.

From the introduction,

Two recent UK studies provide evidence that students may not be as comfortable with technology for learning and new ways of working as is commonly assumed. In a study of student expectations of higher education, IPSOS MORI(2007) found that while the group of potential students who took part in their study had grown up with technology they did not value the use of technology for its own sake, but instead put a high value on face-to-face teaching and traditional teacher-student interaction. A recent study by CIBER (2008) also provides evidence that the assumption that young people who are brought up in the information age are more web-literate than older people is false. Although young people show an apparent ease with computers, they rely heavily on search engines and lack critical and analytic skills. In fact, the study claims, character traits that are often associated with young web users, such as lack of tolerance of delay in search and navigation, are actually true of all age groups of web users.

This followed a section dealing & dismissing with ‘digital natives’, that old saw. I like it already! I would love dearly to give you the page number for that reference, but the e-inspection software does not allow me to copy text, so I typed it all out – then my browser reloaded, and the page was reset to 1.

Would you accept that excuse from a student? Of course not…

(The same digital version, minus bookmarking and annotation tools, can be viewed here). The companion site is here.

Anyway, this looks like a tremendously useful book. Whitton targets her approach explicitly at higher education, from a constructivist point of view. I should’ve ordered a paper copy. You should too!

From the publisher’s blurb:

Written for Higher Education teaching and learning professionals, Learning with Digital Games provides an accessible, straightforward introduction to the field of computer game-based learning. Up to date with current trends and the changing learning needs of today’s students, this text offers friendly guidance, and is unique in its focus on post-school education and its pragmatic view of the use of computer games with adults.

Learning with Digital Games enables readers to quickly grasp practical and technological concepts, using examples that can easily be applied to their own teaching. The book assumes no prior technical knowledge but guides the reader step-by-step through the theoretical, practical and technical considerations of using digital games for learning. Activities throughout guide the reader through the process of designing a game for their own practice, and the book also offers:

A toolkit of guidelines, templates and checklists.

Concrete examples of different types of game-based learning using six case studies.

Examples of games that show active and experiential learning

Practical examples of educational game design and development.

This professional guide upholds the sound reputation of the Open and Flexible Learning series, is grounded in theory and closely links examples from practice. Higher Education academics, e-learning practitioners, developers and training professionals at all technical skill levels and experience will find this text is the perfect resource for explaining “how to” integrate computer games into their teaching practice.

A companion website is available and provides up-to-date technological information, additional resources and further examples.

I have had my own experiences with game-based learning in my classes so I’m looking forward to reading Whitton’s recommendations for design and implementation, to juxtapose with my own experience.

It’s a commonplace of bien-pensant opinion columns that the internet is short on manners: frenzied mobs of pseudonymous bloggers operating beyond the normal reach of social control, ”nameless and faceless”, without the “constraints of every day [sic] decency and politeness”. In this tale (c/o, in this instance, Clive Hamilton and Monica Dux), norms are enforced by either Leviation or “the social gaze”, external instruments which when absent yield a Hobbesian nightmare of virtual lynchings and porn addiction.  ”Home alone in front of my computer”, with my fake online identity, what’s to stop me acting like an abusive jerk? Maybe we’re all just nasty churls: read a comment thread at random, and it will seem pretty plausible.

This folk account is captured by several notions from biology and behavioural science. Reciprocal altruism is said to exist in the case of long-term, repeated dyadic interactions between self-regarding individuals, where if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours – a tit-for-tat relationship that benefits both parties. Say I visit the village grocer once every week: he could cheat today by giving me rotten oranges in exchange for my good money, and I could benefit by giving him counterfeit coins, but neither of us will, because we need to interact again next Wednesday.  Indirect reciprocity, on the other hand, requires third-party observation or reputation effects to impose similar obligations. Not personal but community enforcement occurs, via relatives, neighbours or members of the same group: if it becomes known that I shafted that poor grocer, nobody in the village will be willing to sell me fruit again. A person’s “good name” functions to others as a signal of their trustworthiness.

In our account of cyberspace, however, there are few repeated interactions, and no reliable signals: “no one need know your name” (Dux). This leads inexorably to mutual defection: bloggers can find a wider niche or even a mass audience by publicly towelling some poor, defenceless tenured academic or published author. Commenters derive symbolic compensation by taking down some big shot.  And the victim has no means of recourse, because the exchange is anonymous. In the absence of reputation effects, so the story goes, every online interaction between individuals is essentially a one-shot affair, with no possibility of future punishment or honest signalling to reduce the incentive for hostility, aggression etc. The outcome resembles something out of Steven Spielberg’s 2005 remake of War of the Worlds, where an alien attack obliterates all human institutions and replaces them with a state of nature - hysterical mobs governed only by the law of the jungle, the war of all against all, willing to tear a little girl (Dakota Fanning) from her father’s car just to save themselves.

Are we churlish bloggers, then, planning to behave like that that mob? Will Churls Gone Wild involve pointless venting, nasty ad hominem attacks, personal vendettas and all the things that so mar “the quality of debate in the blogosphere” (Dux, bis)? Almost certainly, to speak only of my own contributions. There are plenty of people who deserve it. But hopefully not too often: it would soon grow dreary for author and reader. And that’s really the point here: the blog format has proved itself a robust form of communication and debate, despite some apparently obvious flaws, because

1. Blogs involve assortative interactions: audiences are self-selecting, with a bias towards those who share their interests or opinions.
2. The marginal payoff to troublemakers falls pretty steeply over time, as boredom sets in or people learn to ignore them.
3. The intellectual pretensions of the debate participants (authors, commenters) can be immediately interrogated.
4. There’s not a lot of money involved, so the incentive to write bullshit is limited.

In short, we trust our readers and ourselves. You don’t need to provide us with your full name and contact details, and nor do we, for things to work. (On the other hand, newspapers are not nearly so resilient to bad behaviour, because items 3 and 4 don’t apply there.) The churls can run wild, and it won’t evince a “lowering of standards” (Dux, al segno). Instead hopefully, it will involve ceorls, the lowborn, the sans culottes, confronting the numbing blandishments of the media, the lies of Rudd and Obama, the stuff that makes us all so angry that not to respond would send us mad.

Description
This book’s introduces one of the most powerful tools of modern economics to a wide audience – not only those who will specialize as pure game theorists but also those who will construct (or even just consume) game-theoretic models in applied fields of economics.

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It’s pretty obvious that I’m more quantitative-leaning as an econ student. So when I read some of the recent news out of MIT about game theory I kind of looked like a 14 year old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. Constantinos Daskalakis, an associate professor at MIT’s EECS program who specializes in Artificial Intelligence and member of the school’s prestigious CSAIL department, recently published his doctoral thesis to much acclaim. This soon to be seminal paper is on a strange topic for a computer scientist: economics.

For the last fifty years game theory has been the language of choice for quantitative economics. Used for everything from understanding the stock market to plotting to win the armageddon war between the Soviet Union and the United States, game theory is an essential element in trying to quantitatively assess the way beings choose actions. One of the primary topics is Nash equilibrium (or “NE”). Daskalakis’ discovery centered on NE, and his revelations on the computational complexity of NE are nothing short of schoolgirl giddy-worthy if you know what’s up.

NE is important because it’s usually the “ideal” (read: optimal) choice in a competitive game. The typical example is Prisoner’s Dilemma. It works like this: let’s say two prisoners are jailed for a crime. Both are given two options. They can either rat out the other prisoner or stay silent when asked if they’re guilty. If both stay silent, they each receive a reduced sentence. If one chooses to be silent and the other rats him out, the silent one takes a full sentence and the one who ratted him out gets out of jail free. If they both rat each other out they each get a significant sentence.

To put some numbers on paper, their payout matrix – what they get out of the game – looks like this:

Nash equilibrium is the maximal payout of a single choice given the choices of all other players in the game. In Prisoner’s Dilemma, the Nash equilibrium for both parties is to betray the other one. Each player wants to minimize the amount of years they spend in jail. But if either party is silent, there exists some probability that their friend on the other side may rat them out. So, without collusion, each will rationally choose to betray the other.

This example of game theory is extremely simple. Real games of concern for economists almost always have more than one step. Often, they’re infinite games - games like the stock market that can potentially go on forever. Calculating the NE choice for a single player in this game is extremely hard usually. But if you can, you can often figure out a lot about the game. In some cases, you can even discern an ultimate winning strategy by knowing the NE.

Dr. Daskalakis and another computer scientist centered their research on a particular subset of complex infinite games. Using a field of mathematics/CS known as the Theory of Computation, Daskalakis discovered something mindblowing about NE: calculating nash equilibrium for certain types of complex games belongs to the set of NP problems.

Hollllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Shit.

Computer scientists should be getting giddy at this point. To explain why, you have to understand that the biggest thing in CS right now is the search for a proof of P vs. NP. I’m still learning how to explain P vs. NP properly, so I’ll let MIT do it for me. But to boil it down for those of you that don’t want to read about nondeterministic polynomial time and how cool it is, the biggest neat discovery in the whole search for whether P = NP is a better understanding of NP-Complete problems and their relation to quantum computing. In fact, we’ve come up with a pretty slick way of solving NP-Complete problems in polynomial time (and often faster than polynomial time on average) using something called a quantum computer. This means that we can actually compute and solve some problems that before were “unsolvable”: things like prime factorization that protect trivial things like nuclear codes to all of our ICBMs. Thanks, Shor.

Nash equilibrium problems are not NP-Complete. Instead, they belong to a series of problems called PPAD-Complete. This means that it’s pretty much impossible to compute solutions to some of these problems. In fact, some computational theorists are positing that there aren’t efficient solutions for these type of problems. Without being able to discern NE, it’s hard to find a game theoretic solution to explanations of human and biological behavior. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible.

To take this all back to economics, this may pretty much shred game theory in its current form. Without Nash and his antics, there’s a lot of “back to the drawing board” action going on to find ways to model the market with more extreme precision than we’ve got right now. In fact, it makes it unlikely that human beings choose Nash equilibrium in these types of games because it can’t be able to be calculated using conventional means. The reason why we’re running into problems making macroeconomic models then may not be that it’s impossible to be more precise; it may just be that we’re using the wrong tools or using the tools we’ve got incorrectly.

If this is particularly hair-pulling, this part at least should make you excited. Just like how studies into computational complexity taught us how to hack unhackable codes, it may also teach us to do something extremely exciting. Don’t quote me on this, but I think that problems in PPAD complexity may share traits with NP-Complete problems such that discovering an efficient means of solving one will lead you to being able to solve all of them similarly efficiently. If we solve any one of the PPAD problems (such as finding a computationally-efficient algorithm for solving 2 player NE problems), we may be able to derive solutions to the other PPAD problems that seem impossibly hard to calculate: like choosing how to win a world war or pick stocks efficiently.

I know most of my econ friends are qualitative. And don’t get me wrong, this raises more questions than answers about an already arcane field. But this is very interesting. If we can get computational theorists to give us a way of solving PPAD problems on >=polynomial time, we might be able to pull a Shor and have a new type of computer hack us solutions to some amazing problems.

Oh yeah, and they should probably fix game theory while they’re at it.

OK, let’s get this started. Lots of questions in the queue here, some of them good, some of them stupid… standard mailbag fare, really.

Q: Why would anyone care what you think?

– Mom, Sun City, Arizona

A: Well, “Mom”, if that is your real name, I’m glad (yet exceptionally angry) you asked. As you should already know, if you are who you say you are, I’m a badass. And not your typical badass… what with the false bravado and faux cool hiding the lost little boy inside. Nope. I’m the real deal. Words traditionally used to describe me include “tremendous”, “magnanimous”, “esteemed”, “ambidextrous” and “superior”. Now, I know the question you’re asking yourselves right now (cause also, “clairvoyant” should have been in the previous sentence): “Who does this guy think he is”? I’m Ed Honcho. Deal with it.

Q: Think highly enough of yourself? You remind me of a certain coach from a certain team in New England. I’d ask what you thought of his decision against the Colts, but I have a feeling I already know the answer.

- Mortimer St. Austell, Wanamaker, Indiana

A: I only see one question here, and the answer to it is yes, but allow me to explain. If you were me, you’d think very highly of yourself too.

As for your attempt to co-opt my clairvoyance, I have a surprise for you. I agree wholeheartedly with Belichick. As any game theorist or poker player will tell you, playing the numbers can often be risky business. Belichick rolled the dice cause the numbers told him to do so. Sure, he faces the backlash of failing, but here’s what I like… he didn’t care. He went for it knowing full well the risks involved, and knowing full well the repercussions of such a decision. That’s the kind of balls I want leading my team.

And yes, on re-read of your question, it is now clear to me that this is the answer you expected. Kudos. You’re learning already.

Q: How ’bout Brandon Jennings? Can he keep this up?

– Sven Jurgensen, Okauchee Lake, Wisconsin

A: Sure he can. Well, I don’t know that he’ll keeping dropping double-nickels… wait… yes I do… he won’t. But yes, he’ll continue to play very well. How do I know this? Cause he’s equipped with the third-most dangerous (and endangered) skill a basketball player can have… a devastating mid-range game. The erosion of this skill has triggered the loss of the ability to defend it. Supplement it with his astounding quicks and equally excellent deep-range game, and he becomes virtually unstoppable, as evidenced by the double-nickel.

Oh, and since I know you’re now clamoring for them, the second-most dangerous skill is behemoth size… think Shaq, 8 years ago… and the most dangerous skill is the capacity for obtaining dirt on an NBA ref. Simply indefensible.

Q: I don’t care what you think.

– Dad, Sun City, Arizona

A: Yeah well, suck it, Dad. How is that even a question?! Why are these getting through?!

Q: OK, Mr. Clairvoyant… NFL Draft, 2010… who’s set for stardom? How ’bout one player from each position?

– Gene Romulomuro, Lido Beach, New York

A: Ah, the first test of my powers. Set your bookmarks people. Oh, and it should be noted that some of these guys are juniors, but I think they’ll come out. And if they don’t, just push it back a year.

• QB Sam Bradford, Oklahoma
• RB Ryan Mathews, Fresno St.
• WR Dez Bryant, Oklahoma St.
• TE Garrett Graham, Wisconsin
• OT Russell Okung, Oklahoma St.
• OG Mike Iupati, Idaho
• C Stefen Wisniewski, Penn St.
• DE (4-3) Greg Romeus, Pittsburgh
• DE (3-4) Vince Oghobaase, Duke
• DT (4-3) Gerald McCoy, Oklahoma
• NT Kendrick Ellis, Hampton
• OLB (4-3) Bruce Carter, North Carolina
• OLB (3-4) Jerry Hughes, TCU
• ILB Rolando McClain, Alabama
• CB Alterraun Verner, UCLA
• S Eric Berry, Tennessee

OK, so yes, on a few of them, like Berry and McCoy, I’m not really rolling the dice. But as you’re well aware, even top picks bust, so their future excellence will do nothing but vindicate me. And as for kickers and punters… meh. My powers don’t extend to things I don’t care about.

Q: I have a feeling you’re just a sad little fat man with a mommy complex in front of a computer. And to make this a question, is this true?

– Andre McTavish, Boulder City, Nevada

A: No! It’s not true! Why that’s ridiculous… mommy complex… I’ve never heard anything so ludicrous. I’m Ed Honcho! ED HONCHO! You know what, this mailbag’s over.

Rational choice theory has become dominant in political science, but it comes under attack from Green and Shapiro for a lack of “empirical power.” A large part of theory produced by rational choice has not been tested empirically, and even where empirical tests are carried out they are chastised as “banal”—that is they “do little more than restate existing knowledge in rational choice terminology.” The authors argue that “the weaknesses of rational choice scholarship are rooted in the characteristic aspiration of rational choice theorists to come up with universal theory of politics.” As a result, theorists “pursue ever more subtle forms of theory elaboration, with little attention to how these theories might be operationalized and tested.” This leads to the “debilitating syndrome in which theories are elaborated and modified in order to save their universal character, rather than by reference to the requirements of viable empirical testing.” (p. 6)

The critique is focused on studies of American politics, with a particular emphasis on collective action, legislative policy making, and party competition. This literature grew out of three classic texts: Kenneth Arrow’s Social Choice and Individual Values (1951), Anthony Downs’s An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957), and Mancur Olson’s The Logic of Collective Action (1967). Arrows “impossibility theorem” showed that preferences could not be aggregated, and that no social welfare function can exist unless it is imposed. Downs argued that the ideological position of two parties competing for support will tend to converge on the “median voter”. Downs also saw voter turnout as a collective action problem, and argued that it is irrational for individual voters to expend resources gathering information about politics. Olsen expanded the problems of collective action to interest groups. He argued that “only a separate and ’selective’ incentive will stimulate a rational individual in a latent group to act in a group-orientated way.” (pp. 7-9)

Chapter two begins by introducing the main assumptions behind rational choice theory: utility maximization, consistency, each individual maximizes expected payoff, maximizing agents are individuals, and rational choice models apply equally to each person under study (homogeneity). (pp. 14-17) However, there are various differences between rational choice theories. One key division concerns “thin-rational” accounts from “thick-rational” accounts. Thick rational accounts add some description to preferences or beliefs (for example utilitarianism and classical economics). Thin rational accounts do not specify the content of the preferences. They then become tautological by saying that any choice (as long as it meets the requirements of Arrovian weak ordering) is rational. In practice, empirical applications seldom approximate weak rationalism. Rational choice accounts also differ in the amount of information assumed to be available. Neoclassical economics assumes perfect information, but this is unrealistic in politics (voters are often castigated as ignorant). Rational choice in political science in practice makes a range of assumptions about the amount of information actors posses. (pp. 17-19)

Most rational choice accounts share two basic types of explanation. One concerns the existence of intentions as causes. However, demonstrating the existence and causal efficacy of intentions is difficult. Rational choice theorists can be divided between internalists and externalists. Internalists argue for intentional accounts of political action. Externalists argue that we should simply proceed as if intentional accounts are true and draw conclusions about its causal efficacy empirically. Evolutionary biology is externalist because it is not necessarily the product of the intentional states of organisms, and in the same way rational choice can be understood as a model of “powerful selection mechanisms”. However, “external” readings of the social sciences are compatible with a wide range of hypotheses and therefore difficult to test empirically. (pp. 20-23) The second concerns universality. For many rational choice theorists, the search for universal theory is a search for equilibria. The concept of rational choice equilibrium can be traced back to the Nash equilibrium expounded by John Nash in 1950. However, William H. Riker argued that determinate predictions cannot be derived from the laws of equilibrium models—calling political science “the dismal science”. This has led theorists to abandon “all-or-nothing” universalism, and put forward theories of partial universalism (rationality can only explain a part, and not all of what goes on in politics—for example John Ferejohn’s “folk theorem”) and segmented rationalism (rational choice is only applicable in certain circumstances). Others look at rational choice as a family of theories, assuming that different actors will want to maximize different things, depending on the situation they find themselves in (pp. 23-30).

Rational choice theory aspires to be (at least partially) universal. However, much rational choice research is based on unrealistic assumptions (for example people always act rationally, they base actions on certain types of information, the update their beliefs in accordance with Bayes’ Rule, they evaluate options based on the values specified in the theory, the relevant political “commodities” are homogeneous and infinitely divisible, and that preferences remain fixed). How can this be justified? One possible way is Friedman’s instrumentalist approach—a theory is tested by its predictive or explanatory power, not its internal coherence. The authors reject this—either a theory is justified on covering-law grounds (this refers to the fact that scientific advance only comes with developing theory, in which case it cannot be based on unrealistic assumptions), or it is justified on instrumentalist grounds (in which case the mode of theory building is irrelevant, what matters is generating testable hypotheses) (pp. 30-32).

Chapter three looks at methodological “pathologies”, which the authors argue derive from a method-driven rather than problem-driven approach to research. This style of theorizing searches for universalist explanations for politics, and therefore tends towards post-hoc explanations—that is assumptions are designed to fit the data. Besides, because what being a rational actor means if often not clearly specified, it is not obvious what kind of behaviour is (in principle) not explainable by some variant of rational choice theory. And even if rational choice can explain certain phenomenon, it is not clear that other theories could not have equal explanatory validity. (pp. 34-38)

The authors identify problems in formulating tests for rational choice predictions. Often models are so parsimonious or abstract that “all recognizable features of politics are absent.” Others describe their models as general truths that may not always coincide with actual, observed cases which are influenced by various conditions outside the theory. Rational choice models also typically concern many unobservable terms, causing the theory to outstrip the ability of the data to test. Games may be “nested” following Tsebelis, but this is difficult to test empirically. How do we identify which other games actors participate in? A further question concerns how hypotheses should be tested—if millions of people make small donations to a referendum campaign, what does this tell us about Olson’s collective action problem. (pp. 38-42) There are three potential problems with the way rational choice hypotheses are tested. These are biased selection of confirming evidence, projection of evidence from theory, and arbitrary domain restriction. (pp. 42-46)

Voting is an obvious paradox for rational choice theory. Why do people bother to vote when one vote has an infinitesimal chance of altering an election outcome? Voting should be a collective action problem, and yet, each election millions go to the polls. Voting is a failure for rational choice theory, but interesting for Green and Shapiro because it shows the ways that rational choice theorists try to deal with discrepancies between observation and theory.

A decision theoretic model expects that people go to the polls if:
pB+D>C
where p=chance of casting decisive vote, B=benefit of preferred candidate wins, D=utility one receives as a direct result of voting (selective incentives), C=cost of voting.
The obvious conclusion is that the equilibrium level of voting is near zero. So how does rational choice explain voting?
(1) People are civic-minded—this merely substitutes paradox of civic-minded participation for paradox of voter turnout.
(2) Voting is an act of consumption (D)—for example a psychic benefit for doing ones civic duty, or side-payments made by politicians to supporters. However assuming (without evidence) that the selective benefits of voting are higher than the costs is little more than a tautology. It also does not explain why there is not comparable enthusiasm for other forms of civic duty.
(3) The costs of voting are low (C)—Olson argues voting costs are “insignificant and imperceptible” to many voters. However the probability that one vote will alter an election is so low, that even very low costs are hard to overcome. Therefore some argue..
(4) p is not as small as some suggest—people may overestimate the chance of casting the decisive vote, but there is no empirical evidence for this. A single vote may also contribute to a party’s mandate, or may have a non-negligible chance of affecting a vote within a precinct. To assess the likelihood of this, we can only rely on intuition. (pp. 50-56).

Can game theory offer a better account? Theorists suggests that instead of taking p as given, we determine it endogenously by the interaction of strategically minded voters, each facing a similar decision. Initial accounts suggested that this approach could pay dividends, but it collapses once we allow for the possibility that voters are uncertain about voting costs of other citizens or lack information about the precise level of support for competing candidates. (pp. 56-58)

Some have sought to characterize turnout as a “low cost, low benefit” affair that falls outside the boundaries of rational choice. However, this is in “arbitrary domain restriction” for two reasons. First, there is nothing in rational choice theory that specifies when costs and benefits are too low to make the theory inapplicable. Second, voter turnout is not always a “low cost” activity (people turnout despite long lines at the polls or voter intimidation). (pp. 58-59)

As selective benefits increase, statistically people are more likely to vote. However, this does not make voting rational. A marginal increase in utility will increase turnout, even when the costs still outweigh the benefits. Similarly, a greater sense of civic duty, or a sense that the election is close, will increase turnout without making the choice to vote a rational one. (pp. 59-65)

Selective costs of voting (such as poll taxes, long queues) should depress turnout, likewise selective benefits (buying influence with officials, currying favour with friends) might increase turnout. However, there is little empirical evidence to back up the claim that selective benefits increase turnout. The data does support the notion that people vote in greater rates where they think they have an obligation to do so, or want to reaffirm their partisan identity. People feel they have a civil duty to vote, regardless of expected utility (pp. 65-68).

Chapter five looks at the free riding problem in rational choice scholarship. The chapter focuses on how rational choice theory explains voluntary political behaviour other than voting, primarily Olson’s work on collective action.

Collective action problems often take the form of the prisoners’ dilemma game with multiple players. The model assumes that players derive no utility “from doing the right thing”, and therefore predict that no players will adopt a cooperative strategy. Introducing (positive or negative) side-payments may however change the character of the game. One interesting implication of this is that participation in an interest group becomes incidental to the collective good being pursued—a fundamentalist Christian might join a pro-choice rally over a pro-life rally if the sandwiches tasted better! (pp. 74-79)

It may be possible to explain political apathy from the collective action problem, but there are a host of other competing accounts, including a distaste for politics, principled refusal, indifference and so on. Olson uses unorganized (latent) groups (for example migrant farm workers, taxpayers, and consumers) as evidence for his theory. However, it is unclear if these groups are actually agreed about what their interests are, or what a lack or organization tells us about free-riding as opposed to “apathy, ambivalence, or antipathy” towards politics. And of course, we do find examples of mass participation in various groups. What level of participation is compatible with Olson’s theory? Significantly, many studies of collective action provide no control group where comparable benefits are provided directly through individual action—people also tend not to contact the government to resolve personal problems. (pp. 79-83)

Olson recognized the importance of control groups in Logic of Collective Action, and looked at two sets of comparisons: large groups versus small groups and groups that offer selective incentives against those that do not. The claim that selective incentives matter seems intuitively compelling, but the assertion that selective benefits are not is counter-intuitive—indeed empirical studies have found higher rates of participation among those with more at stake in collective outcomes. (pp. 83-85) Revisionist accounts of Olson’s work have tried to get around the problem by redefining what is meant by selective incentives, but in doing so “have robbed Olson’s theory of the predictions that make it provocative and testable.” (pp. 85-88)

Experimental evidence (from laboratory games) only finds mixed support for rational choice theory. Games that are similar in mathematical form, and thus expected to produce similar outcomes, in fact produced levels of cooperation that varied considerably according to the social context in which the game was played. (pp. 88-93) Rational choice theorists could reject evidence from the laboratory as “artificial”, but is this consistent with maintaining that rational choice theory should be universal in application? (pp. 94-95)

One common claim is that “rationality begets ignorance”—”the marginal costs of producing information will generally outweigh the benefits” (which leaves the question of why some people do bother to gather information). In fact, ignorance is widespread even in areas that do not involve collective action problems. (pp. 94-96)

In sum, expanding Olson’s theories to fit the data simply created tautological accounts. The authors offer two suggestions to improve the situation: (1) improved sampling techniques to avoid biased inference, and (2) keeping rational choice accounts analytically distinct from other accounts. (pp. 96-97)

Chapter six looks at rational choice in explaining legislative politics—an essentially thin kind of rationality since the propositions flow from “the geometric arrangement of voters’ preferences” rather that the type of goals they seek. The chapter begins with a theoretical account of instability, cycling, and agenda setting in a committee (the example is an academic committee that sets professors’ salaries). There are two main findings. First, majority rule is “generically unstable” and subject to manipulation. Even if they are not manipulated, majority outcomes are arbitrary, reflecting only the particular circumstances by which one majority overthrows another. Secondly, when the provost appoints someone sympathetic to her views to the committee, the result is cycling that actually makes the provost worse off. (pp. 99-107)

Rational choice therefore produces the hypothesis that legislative preferences are cyclical and subject to agenda manipulation. But this conjecture this is not empirically valid in all cases. Most people would at least expect that instability and manipulation are possible under majority rule—in which case a more interesting research agenda might look at what factors contribute to either instability or stability. (p. 107-113) Alternatively, rational choice theorists look for post-hoc explanations for equilibrium, most notably through models of structural-adjusted equilibrium. Models of committee structure are one example of this, but they are derided by the authors for being “manifestly unrealistic”. (p. 114-120) Laboratory experiments offer possible advantages for researchers because they simplify the complexities of real life situations, and enable research to focus on particular forces at work. But even in the laboratory anomalies arise. Researchers have not gone far enough to probe social-psychological factors that may affect the success of rational choice models. Null hypotheses are too vague, enabling researchers to circumvent inconvenient facts. (pp. 120-123)

Two essays by Thomas Hammond and Garry Miller argued that bicameralism, the executive veto, and the internal organization of the legislature may combine to induce a “core” (an area invulnerable to majority disruption) and hence policy stability. (p. 116) To what extent is the core successful? Experimental research has yielded inconsistent results. Can the core predict successfully? Evidence is inconclusive. The strategic myopia of some players means that the assumption that each individual pursues optimal strategies is unrealistic. Outcomes may be at variance with the predictions of rational choice theory because of the varying game playing talents of individuals. Results are also likely to be influence by the differing ability of individuals to manipulate institutional incentives. (pp. 128-132) Other rational choice theorists have focused on the effects of exogenous institutional changes on actors, with mixed results. Experiments have shown actors to respond in very different ways to the same strategic situation. This heterogeneity challenges the limited axioms about human nature presented by rational choice theory. (pp. 137-139)

Chapter seven discusses spatial theories of electoral competition. Briefly, although most students of American elections would accept that candidates act strategically in elections, far fewer would agree that a Nash equilibrium exists in something so complex and tactically involved as an election competition. Again, the authors call for rational choice theorists to be more open to empirical testing of their arguments. (p. 178)

The book concludes with likely counterarguments from rational choice theorists, and the author’s response to the counterarguments. The counterarguments are listed below:
(1) Naive falsification
(2) No alternate theory
(3) Critics are anti-theoretical
(4) Scientific value of advocacy
(5) Impossibly demanding standards
(6) All theories simplify via abstraction
(7) Rational choice is not one theory
(8) The tyranny of disciplinary divisions
(9) Supremacy of rational choice theory
(10) Critics expect too much of a fledgling theory
(pp. 179-202)

Of course, many of these counterarguments are easily dismissed. And it is certainly true that Green and Shapiro’s book made an impact, possibly in a large part due to the combative tone it takes towards rational choice scholarship. It is also distinguished from other criticisms of rational choice by focusing on the lack of empirical success that the rational paradigm has achieved, rather than the question of whether people can really be assumed to behave in rational ways. However, responses to Green and Shapiro insist that rational choice has enough empirical content to make it , in the words of Gary W. Cox, a “vital and exciting research program”.

In conclusion, the authors reiterate two ways that rational choice theorizing should overcome its problems:
(1) Resist method-based research. Instead of asking “how does rational choice explain X?”, we should ask “what explains X?”
(2) Relinquish the commitment to pure universalism. We should be able to distinguish between rational choice and other modes of behaviour, and create empirical tests to examine what rational choice can actually explain.
(pp. 202-204)

Thanks to Hacker News a book on Game Theory (with a political twist).

- Political Game Theory [pdf]

Not for the faint-hearted.

Disclaimer: I am not a Game Theorist, not even close.

The author plays for high stakes, but only minimises his losses.

News Corp., parent company of Fox News is reported to have made an offer for NBC Universal in competition with Comcast.  Who should be willing to pay more for an upstream supplier (NBC), the downstream monopolist (Comcast), or an upstream competitor (News Corp.)?

There were no fire engines, horse-drawn or otherwise.  The citizens were the fire department.  Each house had its own firebuckets and in the event of a fire, everyone was meant to pitch in.  That meant taking your firebucket and joining the line of people from the water tank to the fire.

Does the story so far give you a warm, fuzzy feeling? Friendly folk working together, helping each other out and living by the Kantian categorical imperative.  Let me rain on your parade – I am an economist after all.  The private provision of public goods is subject to a free-rider problem: The costs of helping someone else outweigh the direct benefits to me so I don’t do it.  Everyone reasons the same way so we get the good old Prisoner’s Dilemma and a collectively worse equilibrium outcome.

People have to come up with some other mechanism to mitigate these incentives. In Concord, they chose a contractual solution.  Each fire-bucket had the owner’s name and address on it.  If any were missing from the fire, you could identify the free-rider and they were fined.

This is the story we got from the excellent tour guide at the Old Manse house in Concord.  Home to William Emerson, rented by Nathaniel Hawthorne and overlooking the North Bridge, the location of the first battle of the American Revolution.  (We were carefully told that earlier that same historic day in Lexington, although the Redcoats fired, the Minutemen did not fire back so that was not a real battle.)  The house has the old firebuckets hanging up by the staircase.

Dragon Age: Origins is BioWare’s masterpiece.

In some ways, this is no surprise. This game has been brewing for an awfully long time, and represents a company operating at the top of their game in a genre they know backwards. That said, it didn’t always look good for Dragon Age. An awkward misfire of a marketing campaign combined with the overwhelming traditionalism of the world and the mechanics left a lot of people (myself included) really rather worried. Interested – but without investing too much. Did I really want to sink a few dozen hours into another elves ‘n’ dwarves ‘n’ wizards game, but this time with dancing intestines and Marilyn Manson laying down the beats?

Of course I did. I love elves ‘n’ dwarves ‘n’ wizards. I wasted my youth in the most middle class of fashions – with glue, plastic men, huge thick rulebooks and funny shaped dice. I waste it in similar fashion even as my youth dwindles. A BioWare game? One with orcs and dragons and stuff? Huge explodey spells? MAGIC ARMOUR? Let’s be honest – they had me at “Verily good morrow!”

It is actually something of a shock when you realise just how traditional Dragon Age is. This is a very old fashioned tactical roleplaying game, complete with burning hands spells and grease traps. Within the first two or three hours, there’s a very good chance that you’ll have wandered around an underground lair of some kind, have betrayed or been betrayed by a close friend, and even (would you believe it) have got into a brawl in a tavern. A brawl. In the very first tavern in the game. Maybe BioWare were trying to get it out of their system early.

Crucially though, those delightful episodes (and despite my affected cynicism, they really are delightful) are not sewn into the story you find yourself involved in. You’re first two hours have every chance of being radically different from mine, and even if you choose the same origin story (of six possible choices) the story is far from set.

Dragon Age is a magnificent game for many reasons. It’s bloody hard for one, in an old school Baldur’s Gate fashion (just how closely it cleaves to the Baldur’s Gate model of tactical combat is quite the surprise) and the scrapping is a joy. When so many gamers celebrate their RPGs for simple storytelling, when an RPG remembers to make the meat of the game an experience as thrilling as this, it makes me want to cry moist tears of gratitude. The Witcher, take note.*

That said, the true master stroke of Dragon Age: Origins is the story. Figures, eh?

Lewis Denby coins a splendid phrase in his review over at Resolution. Dragon Age, he declares, is not non-linear but multi-linear. Snatching the concept right out from under him, let’s examine that proposition briefly. Non-linearity suggests the loose, aimless wandering of your Oblivions, your Gothics, where lumps of solidly linear narrative are linked by plodding around on Shanks’ mule, maybe offing the odd wolf and chuckling indulgently at the bizarre Vitus’ Dance they lock into on dying. The story exists as muddy outcrops in a pond – solid, immovable, but fundamentally changeless. The manner of reaching them is where one finds the lauded non-linearity.

Dragon Age ain’t got time for that shizzle. As Denby points out, the freedom in DA comes from selecting which of several diverging plots you will follow. Eventually you reach the next divergence, then the next. The plot remains broadly the same, of course, but the story alters significantly.

What matters here though is not that my experience may or may not differ significantly. What matters is the power of the story, the sheer strength of a narrative that manages to be both gloriously epic and richly personal. To achieve this, BioWare have fully plundered a variety of sources, littering their world with fantasy archetypes. While most of these end up skewed into different patterns in a variety of ways, if the thought of drunken dwarves and elves living in a wood turn your stomach, you should perhaps steer clear of Dragon Age.

But Dragon Age transcends its roots in magnificent fashion. This is peerless storytelling, in a manner which is still terribly rare in videogames. This is an awful shame, as DA:O demonstrates just what the medium is capable of. BioWare are almost unique in that they are not just aping cinema, comics or novels. The interactivity of the story is what makes it so powerful. It’s no great spoiler for me to say that there is nothing here that will zap your brain with it’s originality – but that isn’t the point. The point is involvement.

Let’s divert momentarily to take a quick peek at the Enemy. The Enemy, in this instance, is Half Life 2. The Enemy is also CoD. The Enemy is every one of those games that behaves like a film, or a theme park ride. By that I mean the delivery of story as spectacle, and the removal of any authority from the hands of the player. In Half Life 2, whenever something huge and impressive happened, it had absolutely nothing to do with me. The boat level and the car level are the best examples of this. Huge, spectacular, adored by man and alien – but the entirety of interaction can be reduced to going forwards and occasionally shooting at things. Meanwhile, things collapsed, things exploded – things happened and looked terribly impressive. But the involvement of the player was minimal. We were reduced to spectators in the game.

The same can be said of the famous nuclear bomb death in CoD4. Hugely impressive. Affecting, even, but again invalidating player agency. Ever other time I died, I could hit F9 and have another go. If I fell over a grenade and died mere seconds before my scripted death, I had to reload. But now the game decides that quickload is no longer enough to save me. I may have died time and time again during the course of the game, but this one is the one that counts, because the designer says so. Just play along. Press forward. Press fire. Look impressed at the story we’re telling.

And that’s it with a bang. Whenever a game makes a song and dance about story, it is a story that is being told to you. Interaction is an illusion, a paper thin charade reassuring you that your actions have any effect. You are a powerless observer with the ability to shoot a gun and no more.

Dragon Age rejects that. It does this not simply by creating a plot with dozens of variations, but by telling a story that involves the player powerfully. The player’s actions have consequences and the game manages to make you care. The characters are superbly drawn, with depths and complexities that cannot all be uncovered in a single romp through the game. Choices must be made. Do I devote myself to winning Morrigan over? Am I more interested in the far more forgiving Lelianna? Do I listen to Wynne’s moralising, Alistair’s melancholy, Shale’s misanthropy? Each has layers, depth, story to be uncovered, and each feeds back into the central narrative. My story was about me, Alistair, Morrigan, Lelianna and Shale – but in your game, they may leave you cold. That’s fine – they can become supporting characters, leaving you to befriend Zevran, or Sten. By picking the characters you care for, you’re immersion is made that much more complete and the story belongs uniquely to you.

Then there’s the issue of choice. One of the central conceits of the modern CRPG is the ability for the player to choose their own story through the occasional plot point, a moment when you can choose how to resolve a difficult moral question – enslave the Wookies, or free them. Often these are implemented poorly, either through clumsily monochrome morality or through a simple lack of impact. BioWare are as guilty as any other company of this – perhaps more so, given their reliance on the moral choice in the games they have made up to now. Dragon Age changes that.

The choices in Dragon Age still do very little to alter the plot. The framework of the narrative continues with little alteration. These aren’t the Deus Ex choices, where one decision would leave you desperately battling robots and one would see you skipping lightly past danger with both legs still attached. The choices in Dragon Age affect the story. This is incredibly important.

The story of my Grey Warden was ultimately a tragedy. He was a man who believed in the best in people and was disappointed as often as he was proved right, and always at the worst moment. He lost everything, was betrayed by people he loved and forced into terrible confrontations he had struggled desperately to avoid. His ending was far from happy.

But that was my story. Yours can be unrecognisably different. Yes, you’ll still go to the elves and the dwarves. You’ll have the same fights (mostly). But you can end the game a far happier person than me. I chose desperate tragedy and heroic sacrifice. You don’t have to. You can make the game, the world, the story your own.

The combination of brilliant story telling with responsive interactivity is what makes Dragon Age so special. It never fails to be emotive, to be compelling. It never fails to elicit a response, and by the end of the game it has defied the player’s expectations again and again. We are used to being able to talk our way out of really difficult decisions, and DA:O plays with us by allowing this, once or twice. Come the crescendo of the game and everything changes, and suddenly we are face to face with the consequences of our actions. It is absolutely breathtaking. In Dragon Age, there are no easy ways out.

Of course, you may play the game and hate the dialogue, the characters, the story. Real greatness is always subjective, I’m afraid, and those unwilling to be seduced by Dragon Age will be proof against its charms. Anyone who bought it after those trailers is in for a disappointment, and if you dislike the BioWare model of RPGs, for all its brilliance Dragon Age is unlikely to convert you.

But that doesn’t matter. Dragon Age: Origins is a rare, beautiful gem of a game and like all the best games, a very personal experience. It is, without a doubt, the game of the year and possibly the game of the decade.

Even more importantly, it is a beacon for what story in games is capable of. We do not need to be satisfied with Half Life, CoD, GTA. Dragon Age shows us something better. It shows us that games are the perfect medium for a new, thrilling kind of storytelling. Just like we always knew.

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*Not that The Witcher has a good story either. It does have boobies though, so there’s that. If you’re twelve.

Game theory applies to all living organisms. I was recently saying this to a surprised undergraduate. Yet, it is true, as this blog post from Not Exactly Rocket Science illustrates: Cooperating bacteria are vulnerable to slackers : Not Exactly Rocket Science. It tells the story of a kind of bacterial colony in which some members freeload on the efforts of the others to make the environment more nourishing for all members of the colony. In a range of population sizes of the colony, the freeloading bacteria do so well that they multiply faster than the rest. This advantage dissipates, however, when they become so preponderant in the population of the colony that the whole colony is weakened. It seems like these bacteria have figured out how to deal with the “tragedy of the commons”, where people (or living creatures of any kind) overexploit a common resource because it is in the benefit of each individual to do so, even if it harms the group.

Test Post

Abstract:

“The folk theorem of repeated games has established that cooperative behavior can be sustained as an equilibrium in repeated settings. Early papers on private monitoring and a recent paper of Cole and Kocherlakota (Games and Economic Behavior, 53 [2005], 59–72) challenge the robustness of this result by providing examples in which cooperation breaks down when players observe only imperfect private signals about other players’ actions, or when attention is restricted to strategies with finite memory. This paper shows that Cole and Kocherlakota’s result is an artefact of a further restriction that they impose. We prove that the folk theorem with imperfect public monitoring holds with strategies with finite memory. As a corollary, we establish that the folk theorem extends to environments in which monitoring is close to public, yet private.”

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/qjec.2009.124.4.1773

Playing for Real: A Text on Game Theory, by Ken Binmore.

In a text on game design you’ll often find a short advisory note somewhere in the introduction that distinguishes game design from game theory. Game theory has nothing to do with the entertainment industry and is best summarised as the mathematical foundation of economics. It attempts to provide a model of rational decision making in which players strive find strategies to optimise their payoffs. The ‘games’ analysed are usually very simple bargaining problems and are not exactly what we’d consider “fun”. Why then would I be recommending a game theory text on a blog about game design?

There are several reasons. The most obvious is that a lot of multiplayer are bargaining problems. An understanding of at least the basics of economic behaviour is important if you are going to create any kind of trading game. It is very easy to unbalance a virtual economy if you don’t know what you’re doing and a broken economy is rarely fun.

Furthermore, game theory teaches us something about the general problem of strategic decision making involving many players. It introduces us to useful concepts such as zero-sum games, mixed strategies, cooperative games, and utility theory. Even when players don’t follow the ‘rational’ strategies game theory dictates, we can still recognise it as the goal to which they are striving.

In fact, the more counter-intuitive results of game theory form some of the most interesting games to play, because the best strategies are subtle and controversial. Every game designer should be aware of games such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma and Chicken. These simple combinations of reward mechanics can create complex player interactions, which we can incorporate into our games. Alternatively, such dynamics may be unexpected and unwanted. Understanding their origins gives us the ability to control them.

There are many books on game theory addressed at a variety of different audiences, depending on their level of mathematical sophistication. I recommend this one as a comfortable middle ground. The ideas are reasonably accessable to a non-mathematician but there is also enough mathematical rigour to satisfy the theorists. Later chapters do get rather math-heavy, but there it still benefit to be gained by skimming the proofs and just reading the descriptions.

While game theory may seem dry and academic, it provides valuable insights into strategic behaviour, which is at the heart of many of our games. It is therefore a valuable tool in the game designers toolkit, one I definitely recommend you acquire.