The Game Design of Survivor

Wired has an article looking at a game designer working in a fairly unique space: reality television. Clive Thompson discusses the game design of the show Survivor , done mostly by the show's creator Mark Burnett. From the article: "While tweaking Survivor, he closely studied John Nash's game theory in order to better engineer the hysteria and emotional blowouts of each season's finale. 'What Nash's theory predicts is that whenever you have a group of people competing, they collude to squeeze one guy out, again and again, until there's only two guys left,' Burnett notes. 'Yet when there are only two of us left, we're surprised when one of us [screws] each other over. That's the fun part. It surprised John Nash himself, but it happens every time.'"

Rubbish

[zalle]

The article is written by a clueless engineer-journalist who thinks game theory and Survivor design have anything to do with video games. Think again. The whole point of game theory is that you have more than 1 person interacting strategically, it has nothing to do with how to make Quake or World of Warcraft fun. And as is seen very often on Slashdot, just because you're fairly smart and can write code or design electronics or study micro-organisms, you don't have a clue about anything else.

Re:Why Survivor Works

[MarkGriz]

"They're stuck with two assholes and having to choose from the lesser of two evils."

Based on that description, and the popularity of the show,
you'd think more people would be interested in politics.

Re:More detail would've been interesting.

[Mongoose Disciple]

There is nothing about game that requires that you have to be dishonest or backstab.

Requires, no. However, you're kidding yourself if you think selective (and that part is crucial) dishonesty is not key to optimal play of the game.

Backstabbing at a crucial moment isn't the only tool in a Survivor player's arsenal. It isn't the only factor in whether you'd win or lose. It is possible to win Survivor without ever lying or backstabbing. But, all that said, if you are unwilling or unable to use that tool, you're choosing to handicap yourself for no good reason. It's like choosing to never run out of bounds or never to punt in (American) football.

Ultimately, I don't think the producers screen out people who won't backstab, because they don't have to. Survivor isn't the Prisoner's Dilemma; everybody can't win by cooperating. You'll get one or two people each season who are just there to hang out and have fun, but because most of the players genuinely want to win the money, they'll play the game as best they can.

Jewel^WGold Rush

[Tired_Blood]

He has hidden a dozen $100,000 stashes of gold (and one $1 million one) around the country, and sprinkled clues to their location inside various ... media properties.

Sounds familiar [atreasurestrove.com]...

Realistically, they will have to implement the same policy - using tokens instead of leaving the actual prize on site. Given that this is purely a publicity promotion, they lose much of its value if nobody ever publicly claims a prize. If they force the participants to accept the prize at a network studio, they have the added opportunity to effectively promote the remainder of the game (which indirectly promotes the actual products).

This also prevents a huge problem: the chance that someone randomly finds the prize, without knowing its purpose (leaving the company at an even bigger loss).

There's no way they're burying all that gold.