Microsoft’s Project Waterloo: How the Facebook Community May Contribute to Game Theory
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/researchgames/
A phenomenon has occurred in recent years in which internet networking sites, such as Facebook, have made it possible for individuals to reconnect with individuals from the past, keep in touch with current friends and acquaintances, and meet people that they may not otherwise meet. Not only are they able to “meet” and talk, they instantly know what interests are shared, what friends are shared, and will then proceed to while away the hours playing games with each other without actually being in the others’ physical presence. While playing games through Facebook may support feelings of connectedness and provide sources for entertainment for the individuals playing them, more lofty pursuits may be intended by game creators. Such is the case with Microsoft’s new endeavor on Facebook, “Project Waterloo.”
Through Project Waterloo, Microsoft has developed a method for extracting theoretical data on behavioral game playing. Each of two players is given 100 troops at their disposal to allocate to different locations based on that player’s assumption of where he/she thinks the other player will place their troops. A battle is won if the player has allocated more troops than their opponent to a specific area. The player that wins the most battles wins the game. Some of the questions that Microsoft wishes to answer through this experiment are: “how do people negotiate with one another? How does such negotiation take place in social networks? How can we aggregate opinions of individuals to arrive at high quality decisions? In what ways do people reciprocate other people’s actions?” Microsoft’s future plans include the creation of a “Facebook Game Theory Lab” where these and other questions may be answered.
Indeed, Microsoft may have the upper hand in terms of research in the area of game theory. With millions of users around the globe, Facebook offers a sample that is extremely large and diverse in sex, age, and ethnicity. Interesting variables that may be addressed by Facebook research in game theory may include: Do players change their strategy when playing their friends versus mere acquaintances? Does age, sex, or ethnicity affect the strategy of individual players? In instances where individuals frequently play one another: How does strategy adapt in successive games? Does an inequality in wins among two players affect strategy or amount of play? Are players that have a significant strong connection, as relayed in the amount of Facebook interactions, more adept or less adept at strategically playing the game? Data collected from such a large and diverse sample may shed real light on some of the more variable aspects of game theory, namely the “players.”