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The Game Theory site didn't have enough activity during the beta and has been closed. You can download the data dump of all questions here.

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The broader Economics proposal may meet the needs of Game Theorists as well. – Jon Ericson Feb 25 '14 at 0:46

Mathematics accepts some Game Theory questions. – Jon Ericson Feb 25 '14 at 0:47

60 Example Questions (1 closed)

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up vote 17 down vote

added by Joe Z. Jan 19 '13 at 15:26

<comments removed> Please do not use comments to answer these questions. This proposal is not part of a Q&A site, and the task at hand is to help define what is on and off topic for a site. Comments are here to help improve the questions; not to answer them. See What is the rationale for deleting answers? Thank you. – Robert Cartaino Apr 28 '13 at 16:52

up vote 16 down vote

added by Edward Ruchevits Dec 1 '12 at 0:29

This is a great question to understand the answer to, but not one that an expert (today) would ask. A step up would be "In games with multiple Nash equilbria, what determines which one the game converges to?" though that's actually akin to Greinecker's question "Can one formalize Schelling's idea of focal points?" and my question "Under what circumstances does fictitious play converge?" A CS question you could ask is "What is the complexity of computing a Nash equilibrium?" or "What is the complexity of determining if multiple Nash equilibria exist?" – Merbs Dec 2 '12 at 15:51

up vote 15 down vote

added by Michael Greinecker Nov 27 '12 at 21:26

up vote 13 down vote

added by Joe Z. Dec 27 '12 at 0:33

up vote 11 down vote

added by Merbs Nov 25 '12 at 10:09

An Algorithmic question – Merbs Nov 27 '12 at 13:12

up vote 11 down vote

added by Edward Ruchevits Dec 2 '12 at 14:11

As phrased, this is an encyclopedic question, best served by Wikipeda; a better question might be "How does Iterated Elimination of Strictly Dominated Strategies (IESDS) work? ", but then it would still be a basic question (which is totally acceptable). To make this question exemplary though, you might want to ask " How does IESDS work in a distributed decision making environment?" – Merbs Dec 2 '12 at 15:27

How about the less encyclopedic, but broader "What is risk dominance?" (The only obvious answer on the web is the Wikipedia page, which is terse, and opaque about some points--just the sort situation in which Stackexchange can help. – Mars Jun 4 '13 at 21:15

up vote 11 down vote

added by ronalchn Dec 9 '12 at 2:27

up vote 11 down vote

added by Artem Kaznatcheev Feb 26 '13 at 6:59

up vote 11 down vote

added by Glen The Udderboat Mar 6 '13 at 23:30

up vote 11 down vote

added by AsheeshR Jun 12 '13 at 12:24

up vote 10 down vote

added by Merbs Nov 24 '12 at 16:03

up vote 10 down vote

added by Merbs Nov 24 '12 at 16:03

A Behavioral question (in that its focus is learning) – Merbs Nov 27 '12 at 13:07

Just to evaluate my own question, this is a rather basic question, in that it's answered on the Wiki page. It's difficult to find a balance between asking a question that some large fraction of people can appreciate and one that is research-level, yet not P vs. NP open (popular yet unsolved). – Merbs Dec 2 '12 at 15:58

up vote 10 down vote

added by Michael Greinecker Nov 27 '12 at 21:23

up vote 10 down vote

added by Mark Booth Nov 28 '12 at 10:23

I'm not certain this belongs here: it sounds like more programming than actual game theory. Maybe move to StackOverflow? – Tony May 7 '13 at 20:52

What if the question is changed to this? "Looking for suggestions for analyzing how different strategies interact to cause the behavior of my simulation." Bringing the random number generator into it does make it sound like a programming question, but it's a really about how to how game theoretic strategies interact in a complex system. Maybe that makes it more of a question about modeling and data analysis in general. I don't think there's a StackExchange group for that (maybe there should be), but that doesn't imply that it belongs here. I'm not sure whether it does or does not. – Mars Aug 8 '13 at 16:31

up vote 10 down vote

added by Merbs Dec 9 '12 at 7:43

given m people, n alternatives, and a distribution over preferences. – Merbs Dec 9 '12 at 7:43

up vote 10 down vote

added by Merbs Dec 9 '12 at 7:44

up vote 10 down vote

added by markovchain Mar 5 '13 at 15:54

up vote 10 down vote

added by wiwh Mar 6 '13 at 10:10

up vote 10 down vote

added by wiwh Mar 6 '13 at 10:21

What do you mean by a "truly dynamic approach"? – Kevin C Apr 14 '13 at 9:54

What is commonly referred to as "dynamic game theory" (be it learning theory, repeated games, ...) sets out to find an equilibrium path. Although it considers different periods in time, this approach is not dynamic per se: it is a static approach to dynamic games. Hence my question, how can we have a "truly dynamic" approach? (e.g. an analytic approach cannot be "truly dynamic"). A "truly dynamic" approach would be useful in applications of bounded rationality, for instance. – wiwh Apr 25 '13 at 7:51

up vote 10 down vote

added by igor Apr 14 '13 at 9:51

up vote 10 down vote

added by Kevin C Apr 14 '13 at 9:59

up vote 10 down vote

added by pnp Apr 18 '13 at 9:22

Insufficiently specific. Game Theoretic Modelling is a tool for theory building, so this is akin to asking "What are the available tools for screwdrivers?" I suspect the intended question here was "What software can assist Game Theoretic Modelling?" – Tony May 7 '13 at 20:45

@Tony Kindly have a look at Gambit and QtxGame. These quaify as 'Tools' or no? I can change the language if others agree with you – pnp May 8 '13 at 7:51

I agree that software for game theory IS a tool. I claim this question is insufficiently specific because I can't think of any possible answers that AREN'T software, and I suspect the desired answer is a list of software and nothing more. – Tony May 8 '13 at 21:51

+ 1 for lack of specificity. As far as I am concerned, I would have answered this question by listing solution concept (e.g. equilibrium concepts) to game theoretic problems and I would never have thought about softwares. – Martin Van der Linden Nov 11 '13 at 22:09

up vote 10 down vote

added by Popopo Apr 19 '13 at 15:59

up vote 10 down vote

added by warren May 1 '13 at 0:56

why the down vote? – warren Jun 12 '13 at 19:20

This is a question that someone who knows nothing about game theory would ask on this. – AsheeshR Sep 6 '13 at 0:16

@AsheeshR - and that is precisely why it would be a good question. Getting an Expert answer would be very useful – warren Sep 6 '13 at 13:48

+1 : I have studied game theory as part of my economics curriculum and I never heard about the concept of gamification, hence I did not know the difference with game theory. – Martin Van der Linden Nov 11 '13 at 22:15

up vote 10 down vote

added by warren May 1 '13 at 0:57

@Tony: I cannot fully agree with what you said. I think one has to be careful about what the term "rationality" refers to. In fact, a whole body of literature on bounded rationality and behavioral economics addresses precisely this question. Non-rationality can be interpreted, for instance, as bounded memory (in the context of repeated games), or as level-K thinking (where K is finite), or as certain "behavioral types", etc. Thus, although the question in its current form is somewhat vague, I don't think that it's totally irrelevant/off topic. – Kevin C May 3 '13 at 6:26

OK, so perhaps closing it would be a little extreme. However, I would argue that most of Behavioral Economics (which is generally empirical in nature) lies outside the realm of Game Theory (which is inherently formal, i.e. non-empirical modeling). So the question becomes whether refutations of Game Theory are within the scope of this QA board. Which they definitely should be. There--you've talked me into it. – Tony May 3 '13 at 20:52

I agree with @Tony's final assessment in response to @Kevin C. It would be overly restrictive to exclude more precise versions of this question altogether, even though some ways of making it precise should get closed as off topic. – Mars Jun 4 '13 at 21:20

To add to my earlier comment: What if someone is learning game theory and they are truly wondering about this. It's a novice's question in this form, but a good answer to the simple novice question can help clarify what game theory is and isn't, does and doesn't do. @Tony points out that there are in addition deeper, more interesting answers as well. Both kinds of answers seem worthwhile and relevant to the topic. – Mars Jul 29 '13 at 4:09

I agree with Kevin C, as there are attempts of including behavioral economics in game theory, like this book. – Guilherme Kenji Chihaya Sep 17 '13 at 14:58

show 2 more improvement suggestions

up vote 10 down vote

added by pnp May 2 '13 at 7:26