Hunger Games through Game Theory
The story is about a society which is made of a central capital, the Capitol, and 12 districts that come under its ruling. About three-quarters of a century ago, the districts kindled a rebellion against the authorities that the Capitol had to put down. Hunger Games are played, annually, as a reminder of what happens to people who do not follow the commands of the Capitol. For the Games, each district has to send in two tributes- a boy and a girl- who fight to the death until there is a lone survivor who is deemed the Victor. In order to get an edge, some tributes form a coalition, based solely on trust on others.
Let’s move on to the Game Theory aspect of the Games. Inside the ring, a factor I thought was very important for survival was sleep. In a coalition, it is not easy to trust the other people completely with your life, specially in this case when the other person benefits from your death. Using Game theory, I will analyze the situation for an individual in regards to whether to sleep or not, in a coalition.
Consider the following table:
| All Other People | |||
| Don’t Sleep | Sleep | ||
| One Person | Don’t Sleep | Tired, Tired | Kill, Killed |
| Sleep | Killed, Kill | Rest, Rest |
The matrix represents the likely outcomes when alliance members decide to sleep or not. If everyone else sleeps and you do not, then, even though you get an easy option of killing others and getting closer to being crowned the Victor, you will be vulnerable to the other well-rested tributes of other alliances. On the other hand, if nobody from the alliance sleeps except you, you are at their mercy of them holding their word. They can easily kill you and move one step closer to victory. If nobody in the alliance decides to sleep, then the whole alliance becomes vulnerable to some other alliance of well-rested tributes. The last possible case is when everybody in the alliance sleeps and gets rest. The risk on this option is that if others find the alliance, they can easily kill everyone their sleep. Here, we assume that getting tired is better than being killed, which is very plausible. So, the best thing for anyone would be to get tired and not sleep at all rather than risking death. Even though it is the most rewarding option, sometimes, people take their chances by trusting their alliance members, who possibly benefit from your death, and sleep. This gives them the required rest but it comes at the risk of being killed. The ideal option, in this case, would probably be the one where everybody, in the alliance or not, decides to sleep. This gives everyone the required rest and removes any sleep deprivation disadvantages. But in this case, if one person betrays, she has an advantage to easily kill the others.
This connects with the analysis of Game Theory we learned in class. It is interesting how something that is mathematically and statistically their best option is not always the thing to do. You need to consider other factors as well. In these situations, similar to the Prison Break problem discussed in class, it is important to factor in the chance of betrayal of others as it is in everyone’s self- interest to betray the others.