Comments on: Fiction, Disgust, and Player (Ir-)rationality

By: Ronny Mo

Ronny Mo — Fri, 20 May 2005 21:50:03 +0000

Single iterations of experiments are not valid in a game perspective. Only a multiple iteration situation is applicable in a MMORPG (in particular), or a general gaming frame of reference. Thus not accepting an unfair split is signaling that such behaviour is unacceptable and that in the case of future co-operative situations the ‘giver’ may be ot of luck. A game setting is also inherently more complex than what basic game theory evolutions, as given in the example, can deal with.

As for there being a difference between experienced/inexperienced players, it will not be in their reliance on disgust as a mechanism, but in understanding when an offer is ‘disgusting’ to use your terminology.

The level of accepting the fictional and disgust in dealing with NPCs is a function of personality, not rationality. The optimal solution in a game is that which provides the most fun, thus what is rational to one, is entirely irrational to another. Experience does not, as far as I can tell factor in. Game theory can only account for this if ‘fun’ is given a value.

I’m pretty sure I’m coming at this from a different angle than some of the rest of you, so I’m not entirely sure how applicable my comments are in the overall scheme of things.

By: greglas

greglas — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 16:25:03 +0000

I should add, though, that yes — I think you’re right in both hunches (no solid evidence) that 1) people have certain ethical expectations of human actors that will result in a refusal to deal when they believe those expectations have been breached (and this is *not* irrational, btw), 2) that people who are immersed in a fiction are more likely to role-play. If we peg role-play as irrational (again, skeptical of whether that’s a good semantic move), those people are irrational. So, yes, I think you’re right. :-)

By: greglas

greglas — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 16:12:53 +0000

Haven’t read the books cited, but I don’t think the question of “when do people play optimally” can be reduced to whether they accept the world as fiction, or whether there is an NPC involved. Some people will always attempt to play optimally (in either circumstance), whereas others (many others, I think) see the play experience as more important than the play outcome. So you might start a chess game with a new gambit, for instance, not because you think this will result in winning, but because you think it will result in more interesting game play.

By: Jonas Heide Smith

Jonas Heide Smith — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 18:39:18 +0000

Jesper: Ok, I didn’t actually realize that was the original question.
By players playing rationally, do you then mean
A) Players happen to act in accordance with what a game theoretical analysis would prescribe

B) Players analyse the game rationally and THEN employ a “rational” strategy

I guess I read Damasio more as saying that in real-life human existence (and we may well consider some games quite different from that) it doesn’t really make sense to think of “rationality” and emotions as separate things.

By: Jesper

Jesper — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 09:28:06 +0000

Jonas: The website for the book on “Behavioral Game Theory” that Nick refers to states that “Game theory, the formalized study of strategy, began in the 1940s by asking how emotionless geniuses should play games,”
This is true enough, right. Game theory is the study of optimal strategies, the research question I posed is to what extent and under what conditions players play game-theory-optimally.
I read Damasio as saying, not that can never implement an optimal strategy, but that we have emotional motivations for selecting the goals that we work towards …

By: Jonas

Jonas — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 07:05:27 +0000

I was wondering if, somewhere deep down, we find traces of Descartian dualism in your predictions Jesper… (The Horror).

Not so sure about disgust in particular (interesting things about that in Paul Bloom’s ‘Descartes’ Baby’, though) but would the above be implying that strategic thinking is unemotional?
Acting rationally/sensibly often involves emotions, thus we should not expect game play to be emotionless. But of course many emotional responses _may_ depend on the player’s perception of the opposition (human, machine, nature etc.). So you could be right after all.

Hmm…

Regarding the strategic role of emotions see Damasio’s ‘Descartes’ Error’ and Robert Frank’s ‘Passions within Reason”.

– J

By: Jesper

Jesper — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 11:19:59 +0000

Nick, agreed, there are two parameters – the game and the users. You’re right that it is easier to use the game as parameter. Now, where are all the research assistants that should be doing my research for me?

By: nick

nick — Sat, 26 Mar 2005 19:51:20 +0000

Jesper, I understand why you want to vary player experience — in order to test what Jonas calls “fiction mindset.” I think it’s good to test this, I was just suggesting a different experiment design that might be easier.

Without relying on a particular pool of subjects of a certain sort, you can build a system that has one richly fictional world with characters who are well-developed, and one that where the world is much less rich. This way the virtual world itself will provide significantly more or fewer affordances for the fictional mindset.

Recruiting one group of experienced players and one group of novices might be harder — what if everyone who turns up for your experiment is in one group? There also might be other differences across those groups that don’t have to do with willingness to embrace the fictional world; the novices may not understand the basic interface as quickly, for instance. So you can’t control the differences between those groups as easily as you can control intrinsic aspects of the system you develop for your experiment.

By: Jonas Heide Smith

Jonas Heide Smith — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 20:56:49 +0000

The interesting prediction – in terms of video games – is:

“The role of disgust in decision-making when interacting with NPCs depends on how much the player thinks of the game as a fictional world. If the player believes in the fiction of the game, disgust will be a factor, if the player thinks of the game as a set of rules for which to optimize his/her personal performance, disgust will not be a factor. ”

To test it, you’d have to measure two variables, right?
You want to measure “fiction mindset yes/no” and “non-disgust/disgust” and then test the correlation. But how to go about testing “fiction mindset yes/no”?

Jesper, you are right about the rationality thing.
Nathan, Tit-for-Tat is hardly individual-irrational even if it happens to have collectively beneficial effects (under the concrete rules where TfT did well).

– Jonas

By: Jesper

Jesper — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 17:35:05 +0000

Well, it is irrational behavior in the experimental setup as the participants presumably do not know each other personally.
I completely agree with Nick and Nathan that it may be a rational (optimal) behavior in real life – for the individual and/or for the group.

Nick, I missed that you had blocked about such things already. Late to the party.
The point about experienced vs. inexperienced players was based on the assumption that experienced players are quicker to see the game as rules and ignore the fiction, and hence experienced players presumably behave more (classical) rational.