I don’t think this game is a prisoner’s dilemma, since the tournament implies that all pure deterministic strategies yield the same outcome (an all-players tie) if applied by everyone, while the interesting thing about PD is that mutual cooperation is preferable to mutual defection.
Also, it is not a “program equilibrium” game, since running simulations gives much less information than analyzing the source code. For instance, clique strategies, which are often occur in the Nash equilibria of program equilibrium games, are impossible in your game.
Good points. Simulations do give much less information than visible source code—this was a deliberate design choice on my part, but you are probably right that this kind of setup is not really “program equilibrium.” I admit, I don’t have a very good understanding of where the limits of the PD game really are, and I hadn’t considered the problem of the all-players tie (fortunately I don’t think it is going to happen in practice). Mutual cooperation and cliques are still viable strategies here, but they may not be the Nash equilibrium anymore. Regardless, I agree that this tournament is horribly misnamed.
I don’t think this game is a prisoner’s dilemma, since the tournament implies that all pure deterministic strategies yield the same outcome (an all-players tie) if applied by everyone, while the interesting thing about PD is that mutual cooperation is preferable to mutual defection.
Also, it is not a “program equilibrium” game, since running simulations gives much less information than analyzing the source code. For instance, clique strategies, which are often occur in the Nash equilibria of program equilibrium games, are impossible in your game.
Good points. Simulations do give much less information than visible source code—this was a deliberate design choice on my part, but you are probably right that this kind of setup is not really “program equilibrium.” I admit, I don’t have a very good understanding of where the limits of the PD game really are, and I hadn’t considered the problem of the all-players tie (fortunately I don’t think it is going to happen in practice). Mutual cooperation and cliques are still viable strategies here, but they may not be the Nash equilibrium anymore. Regardless, I agree that this tournament is horribly misnamed.