Pokemon Battles: A Dynamic Game with Mixed and Dominated Strategies
Pokemon was created in 1995. It is a Role Playing Game, where one roams a virtual world capturing Pokemon and training them for battle. You can teach them various moves, level them up, and find others who would like to battle. In 2007, Wi-Fi capabilities were added to the game features which expanded its horizons enormously. This allowed for trainers to battle other trainers from around the world. For those like Ferguson, the author of “Inside the Secret World of Competitive Pokemon,” and myself, this was the key we needed to be able to validate our obsession with Pokemon. Since Pokemon battles rely heavily on predicting an opponent’s move and formulating strategies, the game became much more than mere child’s play. A Pokemon battle uses a turn-based system so prediction and intuition are essential to obtain victory. It can be viewed akin to a game of chess, as stated by Ferguson1. One must read the opposing players moves and strategies. As such, the Wi-Fi Pokemon battles can be seen as a dynamic game, more specifically an extensive-form representation of such.
Pokemon double battle involving four Pokemon and four trainers.
An extensive-form representation entails knowing who moves when, what a player is aware of on any given turn, what they can do to react, and the payoffs at the end of the game. A Pokemon battle is between two, four or six trainers which is a perfect extensive-form representation of this dynamic game. A trainer will issue a command of whether the Pokemon should attack, set the field conditions, strengthen itself, or retreat. Although the action happens simultaneously, the trainer is able to determine what move should be made next. Additionally, the goal is to win and any given action is to have the highest payoff in hopes of winning the battle. Another key to winning the game is to understand the opponent’s strategy, and being able to counter correctly. There is no dominant strategy for a given battle, but a trainer must utilize dominated and mixed strategies to win. There is always a chance for the trainer to command the Pokemon to do a random action that could throw off one’s dominated strategy. As such, one must consider the possibilities of randomness and how that may alter a strategies payoff. From all this, you may determine the behavior and type of strategies a trainer may implement and “adjust your play style and try to counter everything they do,” (Ferguson).