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THE RATIONALITY ENGINE Homo Economicus vs. Homo Ludens Jonas Heide Smith ([email protected]) ITU, 13/5-2005 THE RATIONALITY ENGINE Game Player The game-gaming gap THE RATIONALITY ENGINE • What are players like? • The common assumption: They are über-selfish utility maximizers • True? no. • true? Yes. • Compulsory footnote: ”Selfishness” is a tricky term. THE RATIONALITY ENGINE THE RATIONALITY ENGINE My suggestions: • It’s better to be wrong than unclear (successful strategy in media studies and economics) • Clarify assumptions and then analyze, analyze, analyze • Test predictions on real players THE RATIONALITY ENGINE Analysis • Guiding questions: – What will the players do? – What will be the result of aggregate player behavior? • Technique: – Keep It Simple, Scholar • Be as general as you can reasonably be – Describe victory conditions (that which the player is meant to maximize) THE RATIONALITY ENGINE Example: Spacewar • Objective: Win by destroying the opposition • Sum-type: Zero-sum – Cooperation: None – Communication: None Player 2 Player 1 Cooperate Defect Cooperate Defect Bad, Bad Bad, Good Good, Bad OK, OK THE RATIONALITY ENGINE Example: Fire Truck • Objective: Win by collectively steering truck • Sum-type: Zero-sum (players vs. environment) – Cooperation: Full – Communication: Coordination Player 2 Player 1 Cooperate Defect Cooperate Defect Good, Good Bad, Bad Bad, Bad Bad, Bad THE RATIONALITY ENGINE Example: Joust • Objective: Score points by killing others • Sum-type: Non-zero-sum – Cooperation: Unstable – Communication: Coordination, promises Player 2 Player 1 Cooperate Defect Cooperate Defect Good, Good Bad, Great Great, Bad Mediocre, Mediocre THE RATIONALITY ENGINE Example: Gauntlet • Objective: Score points by killing others • Sum-type: Non-zero-sum – Cooperation: None (?) – Communication: Coordination, promises Player 2 Player 1 Cooperate Defect Cooperate 2,2 0,3 Defect 3,0 1,1 THE RATIONALITY ENGINE 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) Semicooperative Collective goal shared but individual goals differ somewhat. Game environment or other team and to a lesser extent the allied player(s. Non-zeroJoust (1982), sum game Gauntlet (1985) with allies, any type against game environment or other team Competitive Directly opposed. Competitive The other two-player games will never player(s) inspire in-game cooperative behavior while games with more players may inspire temporary coalitions between players. Zero-sum Pong (1972), Tekken 4 (2002) THE RATIONALITY ENGINE What can YOU do? • Help analyze – Pay particular attention to mixed-motive games (like CounterStrike) – What to do with MMORPGs? • Test it – Run tests – Help analyze data • Let’s get that Nobel prize