General Game Research Articles

Game Maturity Model for Health Care.

This article introduces the Game Maturity Model for the healthcare industry as an extension to the general Game Maturity Model and describes the usage by two case studies of applied health games. The Game Maturity Model for healthcare provides a practical and value-adding method to assess existing games and to determine strategic considerations for application of applied health games. Our forecast is that within 5 years the use and development of applied games will have a role in our daily lives and the way we organize health care that will be similar to the role social media has today.

Robust mean field games for coupled Markov jump linear systems

ABSTRACTWe consider robust stochastic large population games for coupled Markov jump linear systems (MJLSs). The N agents’ individual MJLSs are governed by different infinitesimal generators, and are affected not only by the control input but also by an individual disturbance (or adversarial) input. The mean field term, representing the average behaviour of N agents, is included in the individual worst-case cost function to capture coupling effects among agents. To circumvent the computational complexity and analyse the worst-case effect of the disturbance, we use robust mean field game theory to design low-complexity robust decentralised controllers and to characterise the associated worst-case disturbance. We show that with the individual robust decentralised controller and the corresponding worst-case disturbance, which constitute a saddle-point solution to a generic stochastic differential game for MJLSs, the actual mean field behaviour can be approximated by a deterministic function which is a fixed-point solution to the constructed mean field system. We further show that the closed-loop system is uniformly stable independent of N, and an approximate optimality can be obtained in the sense of ε-Nash equilibrium, where ε can be taken to be arbitrarily close to zero as N becomes sufficiently large. A numerical example is included to illustrate the results.

Fun teaching ! Fun Tech-ing ! Interactive Educational games for Young Learners

Language learning is really a difficult task . Much effort is required at every moment and must be maintained over a long period of time and some motivating, encouraging, innovative and attracting materials may be needed. Therefore, games may help and encourage many learners to sustain their interest and work. Games also help the teacher to create contexts in which the language is useful and meaningful. Games are highly motivating because they are amusing and interesting. They can be used to give practice in all language skills and be used to practice many types of communication. Nothing can be more natural than learning through playing games (Prensky, 2001a); therefore, it is reasonable to assume that integrating games into language courses would benefit students’ learning experiences. In addition, interactive games allow students to achieve practical knowledge as well. In contrast to books and movies, computer games are interactive and allow for socialization and participation in the language learning process (Prensky, 2001a). Using interactive games to facilitate learning in educational settings has a number of recognized benefits. For most students, games are highly engaging and motivating. Games provide real-time feedback and built-in goals that can motivate students to improve. In addition, students must make decisions as they play games, and they can see the results of those decisions right away and use that information to inform their next decisions. Our present day, the use of educational games in learning environments is an increasingly relevant trend. The motivational and immersive traits of game-based learning have been studied, but the systematic design and implementation of educational games remain an elusive topic. In this study some relevant requirements for the design of educational games in online education via technology and web 2.0 softwares will be analyzed, and a general game design method that includes adaptation and assessment features for young learners will be proposed. Finally, a particular implementation of that design will be described in light of its applicability to other implementations and EFL class settings depending upon the outcomes of Ministry of National Education in Turkey

Efficiently detecting outlying behavior in video-game players.

In this paper, we propose a method for automatically detecting the times during which game players exhibit specific behavior, such as when players commonly show excitement, concentration, immersion, and surprise. The proposed method detects such outlying behavior based on the game players’ characteristics. These characteristics are captured non-invasively in a general game environment. In this paper, cameras were used to analyze observed data such as facial expressions and player movements. Moreover, multimodal data from the game players (i.e., data regarding adjustments to the volume and the use of the keyboard and mouse) was used to analyze high-dimensional game-player data. A support vector machine was used to efficiently detect outlying behaviors. We verified the effectiveness of the proposed method using games from several genres. The recall rate of the outlying behavior pre-identified by industry experts was approximately 70%. The proposed method can also be used for feedback analysis of various interactive content provided in PC environments.

A Panorama of Artificial and Computational Intelligence in Games

This paper attempts to give a high-level overview of the field of artificial and computational intelligence (AI/CI) in games, with particular reference to how the different core research areas within this field inform and interact with each other, both actually and potentially. We identify ten main research areas within this field: NPC behavior learning, search and planning, player modeling, games as AI benchmarks, procedural content generation, computational narrative, believable agents, AI-assisted game design, general game artificial intelligence and AI in commercial games. We view and analyze the areas from three key perspectives: 1) the dominant AI method(s) used under each area; 2) the relation of each area with respect to the end (human) user; and 3) the placement of each area within a human–computer (player-game) interaction perspective. In addition, for each of these areas we consider how it could inform or interact with each of the other areas; in those cases where we find that meaningful interaction either exists or is possible, we describe the character of that interaction and provide references to published studies, if any. We believe that this paper improves understanding of the current nature of the game AI/CI research field and the interdependences between its core areas by providing a unifying overview. We also believe that the discussion of potential interactions between research areas provides a pointer to many interesting future research projects and unexplored subfields.

On Derivation and Evolutionary Classification of Social Dilemma Games

We propose an axiomatic derivation and a classification of multiperson social dilemma games. For the two-person symmetric games, the axiomatization leads to three types of the social dilemmas only: the Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) game, the Chicken (Snowdrift) game and the Stag Hunt game. The popular multiperson games, such as for example the N-person PD, the Public Goods, the Tragedy of the Commons, the Volunteer’s Dilemma and the Assurance game, are included in the proposed frame. For general social dilemma games with arbitrary payoffs, their simple classification is proposed, based on the number of stable equilibria of the corresponding replicator dynamics.

Computationally efficient attack design for robustness analysis of air transportation networks

Maintaining robustness is a key challenge for present and future air transportation. The analysis of network robustness is a time-demanding task, whose complexity increases with the size of networks. Accordingly, network attacks are often built on network metrics, for instance, attacking the nodes in decreasing order of their degree or betweenness. Albeit the results can be insightful, there is no guarantee regarding the quality or optimality of these attacks. In this paper, we propose a new exploration/exploitation search technique for a computationally efficient attacking model, adapted from general game playing. We propose an incremental solution for the efficient computation of robustness measures, by exploiting the network similarity before and after executing an attack, and thus, avoiding redundant computations. We define four tasks in the attacking model: Static attack, interactive attack, dynamic attack, and finding the best attack. The analysis of real-world air transportation networks reveals that commonly used network metric-based attacking strategies are already suboptimal for short attacks of length two. Our computationally efficient attacking model contributes to scalable analysis of robustness, not only for air transportation, but also for networks in general.

Game-theoretic model of asymmetrical multipath selection in pervasive computing environment

In order to transfer the ever increasing multimedia data we need to make use of multiple paths to realize the bandwidth aggregating. In pervasive computing environment, the combination of ubiquitous overlay networks and the capacity of multihoming can provide the possibility of exploiting plentiful available paths. Thus, we introduce a Pervasive Multipath Architecture (PEMA), in which we use the game theory to investigate the selfish strategic collaboration of multiple heterogeneous overlays when they are allowed to use the massively-multipath transfer. Overlay networks are modeled as “players” in this multipath selection game, and we study the asymmetric case where all overlays have different Round Trip Times (RTT) and different degrees of waste. We demonstrate the existence and uniqueness of Nash equilibrium (NE). In addition, we find that overlays differing only in their RTTs still receive proportional throughput shares and utilities at the NE. However, if overlays differ only in their degrees of waste, a more wasteful overlay has a larger utility and a larger throughput (bandwidth) share than a less wasteful overlay. Since maintaining connected paths consumes resource, we further consider a more generalized cost function where an overlay’s total resource consumption includes both transferring data packets and maintaining path connections. In this general game, we find that the overlay is more conservative, which opens smaller number of paths and obtains smaller efficiency loss at the NE than in other simplified games. Our simulations confirm the effectiveness and friendliness of multipath transfer for a range of path numbers and in the presence of multi-overlay traffic.

A policy game intervention to enhance collaboration between stakeholders in local policy development

Background The generic policy game In2action was developed to stimulate collaboration between identified stakeholders at local level in three cases in EU countries: The Netherlands, Denmark and Romania. Development and implementation of public health policy increasingly takes place at local level, involves many different stakeholders, each with own goals and interests, and evidence is hardly being used in inter …

Monte-Carlo Dual Bounds for Finite Horizon Zero-Sum Games

We extend the duality approach of Haugh-Kogan and Rogers to two-player stochastic zero-sum stopping games where players have asymmetric information of the state space at each action time, and modify the Andersen-Broadie primal dual method to present a Monte-Carlo framework for estimating their optimal values. In addition, we provide a practical sub-simulation solution for evaluating general stochastic zero-sum games with symmetric information. The methods generate both lower and upper bounds for the optimal value, and hence give a valid confidence interval.

General game playing with stochastic CSP

The challenge of General Game Playing (GGP) is to devise game playing programs that take as input the rules of any strategic game, described in the Game Description Language (GDL), and that effectively play without human intervention. The aim of this paper is to address the GGP challenge by casting GDL games (potentially with chance events) into the Stochastic Constraint Satisfaction Problem (SCSP). The stochastic constraint network of a game is decomposed into a sequence of µSCSPs (also know as one-stage SCSP), each associated with a game round. Winning strategies are searched by coupling the MAC (Maintaining Arc Consistency) algorithm, used to solve each µSCSP in turn, together with the UCB (Upper Confidence Bound) policy for approximating the values of those strategies obtained by the last µSCSP in the sequence. Extensive experiments conducted on various GDL games with different deliberation times per round, demonstrate that the MAC-UCB algorithm significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art UCT (Upper Confidence bounds for Trees) algorithm.

On Nash Equilibrium and Evolutionarily Stable States That Are Not Characterised by the Folk Theorem.

In evolutionary game theory, evolutionarily stable states are characterised by the folk theorem because exact solutions to the replicator equation are difficult to obtain. It is generally assumed that the folk theorem, which is the fundamental theory for non-cooperative games, defines all Nash equilibria in infinitely repeated games. Here, we prove that Nash equilibria that are not characterised by the folk theorem do exist. By adopting specific reactive strategies, a group of players can be better off by coordinating their actions in repeated games. We call it a type-k equilibrium when a group of k players coordinate their actions and they have no incentive to deviate from their strategies simultaneously. The existence and stability of the type-k equilibrium in general games is discussed. This study shows that the sets of Nash equilibria and evolutionarily stable states have greater cardinality than classic game theory has predicted in many repeated games.

A Parallel Algorithm for Game Tree Search Using GPGPU

Game tree search is a classical problem in the field of game theory and artificial intelligence. Fast game tree search algorithm is critical for computer games asking for real-time responses. In this paper, we focus on how to leverage massive parallelism capabilities of GPU to accelerate the speed of game tree search algorithms and propose a concise and general parallel game tree search algorithm on GPU. The performance model of our algorithm is presented and analyzed theoretically. We implement the algorithm for two real computer games called Connect6 and Chess. We also use these two games to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of our algorithm. Experiments support our theoretical results and show good performance of our approach. Compared to classical CPU-based game tree search algorithms, our algorithm can achieve speedups of 89.95x for Connect6 and 11.43x for Chess, in case of no pruning. When pruning is considered, which means the practical performance of our algorithm, the speedup can reach about 10.58x for Connect6 and 7.26x for Chess. The insight of our work is that using GPU is a feasible way to improve the performance of game tree search algorithms.

Symmetric Games and Symmetry Groups

In this paper, we distinguish three types of symmetric games, namely, ordinary symmetric games, renaming symmetric games and name-irrelevant symmetric games, in an order of increasing broadness. Making these distinctions is meaningful even for some elementary two by two games, e.g., Battle of Sexes is renaming symmetric but not ordinary symmetric, and Matching Pennies is name-irrelevant symmetric but not renaming symmetric. In addition, some nice properties are preserved when ordinary symmetric games are extended to renaming symmetric games, e.g., when each player has two strategies, they are both exact potential games and thus pure Nash equilibria are guaranteed, which is not the case for the most general name-irrelevant symmetric games. We investigate these classes of games via the corresponding player symmetry groups, which have very rich mathematical structures. Building on the coveringness idea of Peleg et al. (1999), we provide characterizations of these player symmetry groups. We also extend the ordinially symmetric games of Osborne and Rubinstein (1994) from two to n players, and show that ordinally symmetric games with two strategies are ordinal potential games.

Existence of equilibria of maps for pair of generalized games

In this paper, we prove some new common equilibrium existence theorems for generalized abstract economy pertaining to socio and techno economy with different types of correspondences.

An Interaction between Government and Manufacturer in Implementation of Cleaner Production: A Multi-Stage Game Theoretical Analysis

This paper shows how game theory can be applied to modeling the interaction between government and manufacturer in implementation of cleaner production. A generic game model based upon ‘Two-person Non-cooperative’ static game is created to allow various strategic actions being tested by stages, and aid decision making by selecting optimal strategy for both manufacturer and policy maker to reduce lifecycle based environmental impact while maximizing the economic benefits. The game theoretical result suggests a ‘win-win’ strategic situation as the best interaction, which indicates that manufacturer implements the clean technology voluntarily and government no longer needs to intervene intensely in manufacturer’s environmental unfriendly behavior. In addition, a case example is given to help a tombarthite manufacturer select the feasibly optional clean technology to improve the existing process of production, which provides a useful insight into the application of game theory. Limitations of the game theoretical analysis are discussed to lay out a foundation for further study.

A INFÂNCIA INDÍGENA: PESQUISA COM CRIANÇAS NA ALDEIA CANUANÃ (FORMOSO DO ARAGUAIA - TO)

This study aimed to investigate how indigenous children of the village Canuana move between their children's cultures and the cultural universe in which they live; understand the indigenous children through the eyes of infants and to analyze the relationship of children with specific modes of socialization of their community and intercultural influences present in their social context. For this, we chose to ethnographic research in the village Canuana (Formoso do Araguaia - TO), in the years 2012 and 2013, where approximately 1,200 indigenous lives, most of them from Javae ethnic, which aimed an anthropological perspective to unveil this infant universe through the eyes of indigenous children, using as main participant observation. We also have educational games as production drawings, wandering the community guided by children, photographs, games in general. The analysis results pointed to three categories that guided the study: the river, the myths and the bilingual and intercultural education, which were present in the speeches and daily life of that child's universe.

Rationalizability in general situations

The main purpose of this paper is to present an analytical framework that can be used to study rationalizable strategic behavior in general situations—i.e., arbitrary strategic games with various modes of behavior. We show that, under mild conditions, the notion of rationalizability defined in general situations has nice properties similar to those in finite games. The major features of this paper are (1) our approach does not require any kind of technical assumptions on the structure of the game, and (2) the analytical framework provides a unified treatment of players’ general preferences, including expected utility as a special case. In this paper, we also investigate the relationship between rationalizability and Nash equilibrium in general games.

Games among relatives revisited

We present a simple model for the evolution of social behavior in family-structured, finite sized populations. Interactions are represented as evolutionary games describing frequency-dependent selection. Individuals interact more frequently with siblings than with members of the general population, as quantified by an assortment parameter r, which can be interpreted as “relatedness”. Other models, mostly of spatially structured populations, have shown that assortment can promote the evolution of cooperation by facilitating interaction between cooperators, but this effect depends on the details of the evolutionary process. For our model, we find that sibling assortment promotes cooperation in stringent social dilemmas such as the Prisoner׳s Dilemma, but not necessarily in other situations. These results are obtained through straightforward calculations of changes in gene frequency. We also analyze our model using inclusive fitness. We find that the quantity of inclusive fitness does not exist for general games. For special games, where inclusive fitness exists, it provides less information than the straightforward analysis.

Strategic Behaviour in Imperialist Interstate Conflict: A Game-Theoretic Analysis

This paper aims at presenting a game-theoretic analysis of interstate conflict in modern East Asia involving two countries, by focusing on historical junctures whereby imperial expansion reached and conflicted with China, Japan, and Korea. Two questions are addressed regarding the outcome and the rule of the game: why did some crises end up peacefully while others escalated to armed conflict, and how can we explain the process of strategic interaction? I conducted two works: First, I built up a generic game, the structure of which is determined by the attitude of the target country and the type of foreign power. Second, I analyzed the process of conflict resolution using standard game theory and the Theory of Moves, which assume different rules of play. I argue that the latter provides more coherent accounts for dynamic aspects of imperialist interstate conflict in modern East Asia.