The Many and Varied Games We Play

foghorn666 writes "Forbes.com has posted a sprawling special report on games, which tackles the subject from several angles, looking at everything from gambling to playing games in a relationship. There is, naturally, a lot on video games, including an original episode of Red Vs. Blue and a funny piece on the dangers of Warcraft addiction. Particularly cool are the interviews with video game luminaries like Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier, and John Romero. Even Duke Nukem came out of hiding to answer a few questions."

Game Theory

I particularly liked the article on Game Theory in which this gem is put out for all to see. "...game theory is all about "asking yourself what is the other man going to think I mean to do." Von Neumann's approach assumed that the "other man" was another Von Neumann, another brilliant calculating machine. But if the other man is a regular Joe who didn't grasp all the complexities of the game, Von Neumann's super-sophisticated game theory is not much use." This misapprehension is what sidelines many "game theorists" from making any useful predictions. Just as in international diplomacy the "other guy" is not always intelligent, reasonable, or even sane!

Re:Game Theory

The popular assumption that game theory can't handle an irrational opponent betrays a serious mis-understanding of game theory.

I can't count the number of times that I've seen someone claim that the standard minimax decision tree algorithm can be "beaten" by an irrational player. No, it can't. The minimax algorithm conservatively chooses the best play, assuming the opponent also chooses their best play, but if the opponent plays irrationally and choose something less than their best move, the minimax algorithm will happily take advantage of their errors. Minimax's problem is computational intractability, not a problem with handling irrationality.

In the real world, minimax doesn't come into play, but you are still free to choose to model an irrational opponent. But it's not as if you're going to guaranteed to make better moves, because you might be facing an opponent that is deliberately acting irrational to set you off your guard, only to take advantage of you later. If your "new, improved" game theory doesn't handle that case, you might just find your "new, improved" game theory making grave errors that the Von Neumann approach wouldn't.

The advantage of the Von Neumann approach, as exemplified by minimax, is to maximize your gains while minimizing your exposure surface. Done correctly, an irrational player does not beat the system; in fact they lose badly. You might be able to take advantage of irrationality in advance by making a less-than-optimal move by minimax standards, but if you're wrong you're in trouble.

Upshot is, if you think game theory is so weak against irrational players, try picking up even a simple chess program and "confusing" it by moving around the board randomly. I guarantee you repeated losses.

(In fact when it comes down to it, I completely disagree with the idea that game theory is about trying to see what your opponent thinks you're going to do. Game theory is about making the best move; bamboozling your opponent is only one particular strategy, and it doesn't even always apply, not the core of the whole thing. )

Game theory's big problem in practice is that the easy, clean, simple theory only works with mathematically-defined games that you can see the entire decision tree for. But that easy, clean, simple theory isn't the be-all, end-all of game theory. It's just all you'll be taught in an undergraduate course. Generally speaking, "what you're taught in an undergrad course" is not the sum total of work on a subject.

From the Duke Nukem interview

We figured since we called it Duke Nukem Forever, hell, it might as well take us forever to finish it. Am I right? Thank you, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress. Well, cleared that right up.

Lies.

Even Duke Nukem came out of hiding to answer a few questions.

Duke Nukem hides from no man or manpig, he just got tired of kicking ass without bubble gum and went to pick some up when he ran into the interviewers.

Did the person who submitted TFS read TFA?

There is, naturally, a lot on video games

The second linked article - the closest to the statement I quoted, so presumably the one it refers to - has nothing do do with that kind of games at all. Did the submitter even read it?

Relationship games

I'm not sure that I'd call the stuff the article describes as "games" in a relationship as games...

How many people here have had a conversation like this with a girlfriend:

Me [returning from business trip]: Hi, I'm back!
Her [upset]: You never called!!!
Me: Erm, no, I didn't.
Her: Why not?!
Me: I was on a business trip. I didn't have anything interesting to tell you.
Her: You could have called!
Me: Erm, you didn't call me either.
Her [Really upset]: You don't care about me! [storms off]
Me: [confused]

Not a very fun game.

Re:Relationship games

I always use a firewall to block off that port.

Dating Advice From Forbes?

I'm confused. What is dating advice doing in the Tech/CIO section of Forbes Online? Aren't these the people who don't know anything about Technology? More specifically, why the Technology section?

Human relationships are purely analog and atechnological. Even over digital media - IM, cell phones, etc - relationships is a analog process: highly fluid and highly variable. What is funny one day can be bitterly hurtful the next. More importantly, one can be totally right and totally wrong all at the same time. It's the opposite of boolean logic.

For example, this morning I told my wife about the new season of Futurama. She got excited. Not surprising. Then I told her about Hachiko - the Akita who kept trying to meet his master at the train station years after his master's death, because Fry's dog Seymour lives sort of the same story. I thought it was a sweet, funny story. Like a Japanese version of Greyfriar's Bobby. She started crying. To her, it was a sad story, partly because it reminded her of Odysseus' dog, who waited for him, greeting him at the end of his exile with a single wag of his tail before dying. You never know what's going to happen, even with the people you know best.

Sprawling....

....like that "600 megabytes of Games!" CD you bought for $5 from the bargain bin, and found out it wasn't worth THAT.

I skimmed through at least a dozen of the 'articles' to find several of them were streaming video links, a couple were little more than links to other pages, and the ones that were actually written were either meaninglessly fluffy "I'm a WoW addict, and I play a lot! In fact, it's caused me to question my priorities!" (gee, THAT's news) or sophomoric rationalizations "Everyone cheats at video games, it's not a bad thing".

Each with it's page with what, at least FIFTY adlogos or paid links?

Go away, Forbes. I want my 6 minutes back. And the revenue you made from my clicks.

Waste

What a worthless story. Troll I am, but I'm drunk and this was a waste of 3 minutes.

Re:These guys again?

Pirates was a fun game that a lot of people enjoyed. Just because it wasn't yet another CIV game doesn't mean its dreck...

Re:These guys again?

What the hell? Pirates was awesome. Absolutely loved that game. I played a lot of Pirates! Gold on my genesis way back when, and I'm so glad they revisited the game.

It's the kind of unique and enjoyable game experience I wish more developers could create.

Re:These guys again?

You're out of your mind. Pirates is an absolute blast.

Re:These guys again?

Pirates is a fun game. Besides, the original version is 4 years older than Civ I [wikipedia.org], so it's not something he did in his "old age."

Re:These guys again?

Asimov Bashing, Well I never.

Asimov was a shameless self promoter, but what exactly did you consider lower tier dreck?