Reading Review: "The Problem of Other Players"

The self-explanatory title of the article indicates the balancing act that multiplayer games have to contend with. It proposes economic game theory matrices to categorize multiple players' gaming decisions into 'Cooperative', 'Semi-cooperative' or 'Competitive' choices.

The article fails to cover complex present day gaming environments, such as MMORPGs. 'World of Warcraft' for example, allows players to simultaneously indulge in all 3 forms of play - where they 'cooperate' or 'semi-cooperate' with their guild members and 'semicooperate' and 'compete' in dungeon raids. The dynamic between players can alternate between multiple forms in strategy games like 'Age of Empires', where one player may exist 'cooperatively' as an ally, but may switch allegiances to enter into 'competitive' modes. These dynamic relations between players are not examined.

Interestingly, there has been a shift away from the mass popularity of 'competitive' games to 'cooperative' and 'semi-cooperative' forms. While 'Street Fighter' and 'Mortal Kombat' dominated gaming preferences in the 90s, 'Call of Duty' is distinctly 'Semi-cooperative', while popular multiplayer games of other genres like 'Rock Band' are definitely 'Cooperative'.