Project proposal: A Game of Social Play

An exploration of cooperation, trust, and social roles in a multiplayer game

Our project goal for Semester One is to develop a multiplayer game that is based on the game theory concept of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, a situation in which two people might not cooperate with each other even if it is in their best interest to do so. By developing this game and seeing how people interact with each other whilst playing it, we would like to explore the following questions.
What social roles will people assume in a multiplayer game that allows people to use cooperation and/or defection to win depending on the choices of others? How will people deal with in-game situations based on the Prisoner’s Dilemma? Will they make different choices in comparison to the ones they would make in a serious real life situation? Can there ever be true alliances in this game, or will there always be suspicion and deceit between players no matter what? Will there be common patterns in regard to how often and when people will cooperate and/or defect?
For Semester Two we hope to have even more questions raised as a result of having explored our previous ones, and thus will take the game in a new direction of social experimentation.