Game Theory vs. Decision Theory

Iain Banks’s 1988’s novel The Player of Games is all about gaming and game theory. The main character Jernau Morat Gurgeh finds himself in an intergalactic gaming competition versus some of the universe’s most elite gamers. Banks uses some of the novel’s unique game platforms as a reflection of social conditions.

The game-based society Empire of Azad had created a labyrinth as a prison for convicted criminals. The basis of the labyrinth was moral insofar as each criminal could be free within a couple of weeks by successfully passing certain virtue-based scenarios; or, upon failure, would be damned to fall deeper into the labyrinth. If the offender were to fail these moralithms continuously, they would eventually be deported to a penal colony. How fair: the most epic escape game where freedom is a prize for the condemned.

In a more advanced society, could a realistic decision theory-based simulation bypass legalities and assess someone’s moral compass? Yes and no. The catch-22 in The Player of Games ‘legal labyrinth’ is that it could only assess its participant’s morality if the scenario isn’t exactly the same as the one in which they were convicted and/or the perpetrator has prior knowledge of their conviction within the moral scenario. Otherwise, Azadians are only testing for systematic manipulation.

Escape games like Krakit use gaming cryptarithmic scenarios to outline parallels to real life conundrums. It doesn’t mean that you are a bad person if you can’t pass a Krakit escape game, but it may mean you need to practice puzzling in order to develop keener lateral styles of thinking.

In Burnaby’s escape room, you might develop mental tools for taking care of business you never knew you were capable of using—and, you can have a ton of fun. Nothing sucks about that!