The genre of adventure games is frequently overlooked. Lacking the constantly-evolving graphics and graphic violence of their counterparts in first-person and third-person shooters or role-playing games, they are often marketed to and beloved by players outside of mainstream game communities. While often forgotten by both the industry and academia, adventure games have had (and continue to have) a surprisingly wide influence on contemporary games, in categories including walking simulators, hidden object games, visual novels, and bestselling titles from companies like Telltale and Campo Santo. In this examination of heirs to the genre's legacy, the authors examine the genre from multiple perspectives, connecting technical analysis with critical commentary and social context. This will be the first book to consider this important genre from a comprehensive and transdisciplinary perspective. Drawing upon methods from platform studies, software studies, media studies, and literary studies, they reveal the genre's ludic and narrative origins and patterns, where character (and the player's embodiment of a character) is essential to the experience of play and the choices within a game. A deep structural analysis of adventure games also uncovers an unsteady balance between sometimes contradictory elements of story, exploration, and puzzles: with different games and creators employing a multitude of different solutions to resolving this tension.

The Unpredictability of Gameplay explores the many forms of unpredictability in games and proposes a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding and categorizing non-deterministic game mechanics. Rather than viewing all game mechanics with unpredictable outcomes as a single concept, Mark R. Johnson develops a three-part typology for such mechanics, distinguishing between randomness, chance, and luck in gameplay, assessing games that range from grand strategy and MMORPGs to slot machines and card games. He also explores forms of unanticipated unpredictability, where elements of games fail to function as intended and create new forms of gameplay in the process. Covering a range of game concepts using these frameworks, The Unpredictability of Gameplay then explores three illustrative case studies: 1) procedural generation, 2) replay value and grinding, and 3) player-made practices designed to reduce the level of luck in non-deterministic games. Throughout, Johnson demonstrates the importance of looking more deeply at unpredictability in games and game design and the various ways in which unpredictability manifests while offering an invaluable tool for game scholars and game designers seeking to integrate unpredictability into their work.

This book covers a large spectrum of cutting-edge game theory applications in management science in which Professor Georges Zaccour has made significant contributions. The book consists of 21 chapters and highlights the latest treatments of game theory in various areas, including marketing, supply chains, energy and environmental management, and cyber defense. With this book, former Ph.D. students and successful research collaborators of Professor Zaccour wish to honor his many scientific achievements.

This book is an authoritative collection of contributions in the field of soft-computing. Based on selected works presented at the 6th World Conference on Soft Computing, held on May 22-25, 2016, in Berkeley, USA, it describes new theoretical advances, as well as cutting-edge methods and applications. Theories cover a wealth of topics, such as fuzzy logic, cognitive modeling, Bayesian and probabilistic methods, multi-criteria decision making, utility theory, approximate reasoning, human-centric computing and many others. Applications concerns a number of fields, such as internet and semantic web, social networks and trust, control and robotics, computer vision, medicine and bioinformatics, as well as finance, security and e-Commerce, among others. Dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of Fuzzy Logic and to the 95th Birthday Anniversary of Lotfi A. Zadeh, the book not only offers a timely view on the field, yet it also discusses thought-provoking developments and challenges, thus fostering new research directions in the diverse areas of soft computing.

A lot of economic problems can be formulated as constrained optimizations and equilibration of their solutions. Various mathematical theories have been supplying economists with indispensable machineries for these problems arising in economic theory. Conversely, mathematicians have been stimulated by various mathematical difficulties raised by economic theories. The series is designed to bring together those mathematicians who are seriously interested in getting new challenging stimuli from economic theories with those economists who are seeking effective mathematical tools for their research.

Game Theory--the formal modelling of conflict and cooperation--first emerged as a recognized field with the publication of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern's "Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour" in 1944. Since then, game-theoretic thinking about choice of strategies and the interdependence of people's actions has influenced all the social sciences. However, little is known about the history of the theory of strategic games "prior" to this publication.
In this volume, the history of strategic games--from its origins up to 1945--is traced through the work of 19th Century economists such as Cournot and Edgeworth; voting theorists, including Lewis Carroll; conflict theorists Richardson and Lanchester; probabilists such as Bertrand, Borel, and Ville; and later economists, notably Stackelberg and Zeuthen. This authoritative account of the history of game theory concludes with a historical perspective on the achievement of von Neumann and Morgenstern and an appraisal of the reception of their book.

In the quarter of a century since three mathematicians and game theorists collaborated to create Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, the book has become the definitive work on the subject of mathematical games. Now carefully revised and broken down into four volumes to accommodate new developments, the Second Edition retains the original's wealth of wit and wisdom. The authors' insightful strategies, blended with their witty and irreverent style, make reading a profitable pleasure. In Volume 2, the authors have a Change of Heart, bending the rules established in Volume 1 to apply them to games such as Cut-cake and Loopy Hackenbush. From the Table of Contents: - If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em! - Hot Bottles Followed by Cold Wars - Games Infinite and Indefinite - Games Eternal--Games Entailed - Survival in the Lost World

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of tax consequences in an oligopolistic market. It provides the reader with a systematic and precise way of understanding the research content of tax incidence. A major feature of the book is its analysis of tax incidence from both domestic and international oligopolies. Then, by examining various oligopoly models, it approaches the essence of domestic and multilateral tax issues. Starting with the general theory of commodity tax incidence in an oligopoly, the topics addressed in this book include tax reform, environmental regulation, and policy coordination in international oligopolies. In addition to the usual oligopoly model, managerial oligopoly, the public pricing problem for firms in an oligopoly, and mixed oligopoly are dealt with. By presenting individual issues and explaining the relevance of each topic, this book is highly recommended for readers interested in policymaking and the global market in relation to the interdisciplinary developments of public economics, regional economics, and international economics. This book is also valuable as an advanced textbook on applied economics.

The ancient game of Go is one of the less obvious candidates for mathematical analysis. With the development of new concepts in combinatorial game theory, the authors have been able to analyze Go games and find solutions to real endgame problems that have stumped professional Go players. Go players with an interest in mathematics and mathematicians who work in game theory will not want to miss this book because it describes substantial connections between the two subjects that have been, until now, largely unrecognized.

This classic on games and how to play them intelligently is being re-issued in a new, four volume edition. This book has laid the foundation to a mathematical approach to playing games. The wise authors wield witty words, which wangle wonderfully winning ways. In Volume 1, the authors do the Spade Work, presenting theories and techniques to "dissect" games of varied structures and formats in order to develop winning strategies.

A comprehensive study of the connection game genre, Connection Games provides a survey of known connection games while exploring common themes and strategies. This book aims to impose some structure on this increasingly large family of games, and to define exactly what constitutes a connection game. Key games are examined in detail and complete rules for over 200 connection games and variants are provided. A connection game is a board game in which players vie to develop or complete a specific type of connection with their pieces. This might involve forming a path between two or more goals, completing a closed loop, or gathering all pieces together into a single connected group.

The focus of this book is on establishing theories and methods of both decision and game analysis in management using intuitionistic fuzzy sets. It proposes a series of innovative theories, models and methods such as the representation theorem and extension principle of intuitionistic fuzzy sets, ranking methods of intuitionistic fuzzy numbers, non-linear and linear programming methods for intuitionistic fuzzy multi-attribute decision making and (interval-valued) intuitionistic fuzzy matrix games. These theories and methods form the theory system of intuitionistic fuzzy decision making and games, which is not only remarkably different from those of the traditional, Bayes and/or fuzzy decision theory but can also provide an effective and efficient tool for solving complex management problems. Since there is a certain degree of inherent hesitancy in real-life management, which cannot always be described by the traditional mathematical methods and/or fuzzy set theory, this book offers an effective approach to using the intuitionistic fuzzy set expressed with membership and non-membership functions. This book is addressed to all those involved in theoretical research and practical applications from a variety of fields/disciplines: decision science, game theory, management science, fuzzy sets, operational research, applied mathematics, systems engineering, industrial engineering, economics, etc.

The progress of society can only happen through interpersonal cooperation, because only cooperation can bring about mutual benefit, thus bringing happiness to each person. This should be our collective rationality, but we often see it conflicts with individual interests, which leads to the so-called "Prisoners' Dilemma" and does not bring happiness to all. From a game theoretical perspective, this book addresses the issue of how people can cooperate better. It has two objectives. The first is to use common language to systematically introduce the basic methodologies and core conclusions of Game Theory, including the Nash equilibrium, multiple equilibriums, dynamic games, etc. Mathematics and theoretical models are used to the minimum necessary scope too, to make this book get access to ordinary readers with elementary mathematical training. The second objective is to utilize these methods and conclusions to analyze various Chinese social issues and institutional arrangements, with a focus on the reasons people exhibit non-cooperative behaviors as well as the institutions and cultures that promote interpersonal cooperation. In addition to economics, specialists in sociology, law, history, politics and management will also be attracted by this book for its insightful analysis on the issue of cooperation in these fields. Also, readers curious about Chinese society will benefit from this book.

The Presidential Election Game may change the way you think about presidential elections and, for that matter, American politics in general. It is not filled with statistics about the voting behavior of citizens, nor does it give detailed histories of past campaigns. Rather, it is an analytic treatment of strategy in the race for the presidency, from the primaries to the general election. Using modern game theory and decision theory, Brams demonstrates why certain campaign strategies are more effective than others and supports his analysis with historical evidence.

Game theory is the theory of social situations, and the majority of research into the topic focuses on how groups of people interact by developing formulas and algorithms to identify optimal strategies and to predict the outcome of interactions. Only fifty years old, it has already revolutionized economics and finance, and is spreading rapidly to a wide variety of fields. "LQ Dynamic Optimization and Differential Games" is an assessment of the state of the art in its field and the first modern book on linear-quadratic game theory, one of the most commonly used tools for modeling and analyzing strategic decision making problems in economics and management. Linear quadratic dynamic models have a long tradition in economics, operations research and control engineering; and the author begins by describing the one-decision maker LQ dynamic optimization problem before introducing LQ differential games.This book: covers cooperative and non-cooperative scenarios, and treats the standard information structures (open-loop and feedback); includes real-life economic examples to illustrate theoretical concepts and results; presents problem formulations and sound mathematical problem analysis; and, includes exercises and solutions, enabling use for self-study or as a course text. It is supported by a website featuring solutions to exercises, further examples and computer code for numerical examples. "LQ Dynamic Optimization and Differential Games" offers a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of this extensively used class of economic models, and will appeal to applied mathematicians and econometricians as well as researchers and senior undergraduate/graduate students in economics, mathematics, engineering and management science.

Mathematics in Games, Sports, and Gambling: The Games People Play, Second Edition demonstrates how discrete probability, statistics, and elementary discrete mathematics are used in games, sports, and gambling situations. With emphasis on mathematical thinking and problem solving, the text draws on numerous examples, questions, and problems to explain the application of mathematical theory to various real-life games.This updated edition of a widely adopted textbook considers a number of popular games and diversions that are mathematically based or can be studied from a mathematical perspective. Requiring only high school algebra, the book is suitable for use as a textbook in seminars, general education courses, or as a supplement in introductory probability courses.New in this Edition: Many new exercises, including basic skills exercises More answers in the back of the book Expanded summary exercises, including writing exercises More detailed examples, especially in the early chapters An expansion of the discrete adjustment technique for binomial approximation problems New sections on chessboard puzzles that encourage students to develop graph theory ideas New review material on relations and functions Exercises are included in each section to help students understand the various concepts. The text covers permutations in the two-deck matching game so derangements can be counted. It introduces graphs to find matches when looking at extensions of the five-card trick and studies lexicographic orderings and ideas of encoding for card tricks.The text also explores linear and weighted equations in the section on the NFL passer rating formula and presents graphing to show how data can be compared or displayed. For each topic, the author includes exercises based on real games and actual sports data.

Despite the proliferation of video games in the twenty-first century, the theory of game design is largely underdeveloped, leaving designers on their own to understand what games really are. Helping you produce better games, Game Design Theory: A New Philosophy for Understanding Games presents a bold new path for analyzing and designing games. The author offers a radical yet reasoned way of thinking about games and provides a holistic solution to understanding the difference between games and other types of interactive systems. He clearly details the definitions, concepts, and methods that form the fundamentals of this philosophy. He also uses the philosophy to analyze the history of games and modern trends as well as to design games. Providing a robust, useful philosophy for game design, this book gives you real answers about what games are and how they work. Through this paradigm, you will be better equipped to create fun games.

The H control has been one of the important robust control approaches since the 1980s. This book extends the area to nonlinear stochastic H2/H control, and studies more complex and practically useful mixed H2/H controller synthesis rather than the pure H control. Different from the commonly used convex optimization method, this book applies the Nash game approach to give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of the mixed H2/H control. Researchers will benefit from our detailed exposition of the stochastic mixed H2/H control theory, while practitioners can apply our efficient algorithms to address their practical problems.

This book considers a range of problems in operations research, which are formulated through various mathematical models such as complementarity, variational inequalities, multiobjective optimization, fixed point problems, noncooperative games and inverse optimization. Moreover, the book subsumes all these models under a common structure that allows them to be formulated in a unique format: the Ky Fan inequality. It subsequently focuses on this unifying equilibrium format, providing a comprehensive overview of the main theoretical results and solution algorithms, together with a wealth of applications and numerical examples. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of nonlinear optimization techniques - e.g. convex optimization, nonsmooth calculus, proximal point and descent algorithms - as valuable tools for analyzing and solving Ky Fan inequalities.

The solitaire game "The Tower of Hanoi" was invented in the 19th century by the French number theorist Edouard Lucas. The book presents its mathematical theory and offers a survey of the historical development from predecessors up to recent research. In addition to long-standing myths, it provides a detailed overview of the essential mathematical facts with complete proofs, and also includes unpublished material, e.g., on some captivating integer sequences. The main objects of research today are the so-called Hanoi graphs and the related Sierpinski graphs. Acknowledging the great popularity of the topic in computer science, algorithms, together with their correctness proofs, form an essential part of the book. In view of the most important practical applications, namely in physics, network theory and cognitive (neuro)psychology, the book also addresses other structures related to the Tower of Hanoi and its variants. The updated second edition includes, for the first time in English, the breakthrough reached with the solution of the "The Reve's Puzzle" in 2014. This is a special case of the famed Frame-Stewart conjecture which is still open after more than 75 years. Enriched with elaborate illustrations, connections to other puzzles and challenges for the reader in the form of (solved) exercises as well as problems for further exploration, this book is enjoyable reading for students, educators, game enthusiasts and researchers alike. Excerpts from reviews of the first edition: "The book is an unusual, but very welcome, form of mathematical writing: recreational mathematics taken seriously and serious mathematics treated historically. I don't hesitate to recommend this book to students, professional research mathematicians, teachers, and to readers of popular mathematics who enjoy more technical expository detail." Chris Sangwin, The Mathematical Intelligencer 37(4) (2015) 87f. "The book demonstrates that the Tower of Hanoi has a very rich mathematical structure, and as soon as we tweak the parameters we surprisingly quickly find ourselves in the realm of open problems." Laszlo Kozma, ACM SIGACT News 45(3) (2014) 34ff. "Each time I open the book I discover a renewed interest in the Tower of Hanoi. I am sure that this will be the case for all readers." Jean-Paul Allouche, Newsletter of the European Mathematical Society 93 (2014) 56.

The series is designed to bring together those mathematicians who are seriously interested in getting new challenging stimuli from economic theories with those economists who are seeking effective mathematical tools for their research. A lot of economic problems can be formulated as constrained optimizations and equilibration of their solutions. Various mathematical theories have been supplying economists with indispensable machineries for these problems arising in economic theory. Conversely, mathematicians have been stimulated by various mathematical difficulties raised by economic theories.

In the modern world the theory of probability is used extensively in mathematics, science, engineering, medicine and, of course, gambling. A proposition bet is one that involves the use of probability -both estimated and actual -where an individual makes an apparently attractive bet to someone who is easily deceived by the odds, which are at first glance in his favor. The Book of Proposition Bets gathers together, and reveals the true mathematics behind, over 50 classic and original proposition bets. From the famous Three Card Monty (really an exercise in the Monty Hall Paradox), to probabilities based on rolling dice and pulling playing cards, or whether or not a mark can guess 3 correct digits of a one dollar bill's serial number (spoiler: the odds are against it), author Owen O'Shea here compiles a fascinating and engaging survey of prop bets. In addition, Part 2 of the book contains a brief history of the theory of probability and some examples of cons and scams perpetrated on the general public to this day around the world, (plus a few more mathematical proposition bets!). Whether to learn the intricacies used by hustlers, or borrow a couple of tricks for yourself, we wager that there is a high probability that readers will enjoy this entertaining and illuminating book!

This book is dedicated to applied gamification in the areas of education and business, while also covering pitfalls to avoid and guidelines needed to successfully implement for a project. Using different theoretical backgrounds from various areas including behavioral economics, game theory, and complex adaptive systems, the contributors aim to help readers avoid common problems and difficulties that they could face with poor implementation. The book's contributors are scholars and academics from the many areas where the key theory of gamification typically comes from. Ultimately, the book's goal is to help bring together the theories from these different disciplines to the field of practice in education and business. The book is divided into four parts: Theory, Education, Business, and Use Cases. Part I provides a foundation on the theory of gamification and offers insight into some of the outstanding questions that have yet to be addressed. In Part II, the application and value that gamification can bring within the education sector is examined. The book then changes focus in Part III to spotlight the use of gamification within business environments. The topics also cover educational aspects like improved learning outcomes, motivation, and learning retention at the workplace. Finally Part IV concentrates on the applications and use of gamification through a series of case studies and key elements that are used in real situations to drive real results.

In today's confrontational and connected world, communication is the key strategic act. This book uses drama theory-a radical extension of game theory-to show how best to communicate so as to manage the emotionally charged confrontations occurring in any worthwhile relationship. Alongside a toolset that provides a systematic framework for analysing conflicts, drama theory explains why people need to listen to, and rely on, their feelings to help shake themselves out of fixed, unproductive positions and to find new ways of solving tough problems. This guide provides a sufficient grounding in the approach to enable you to apply it immediately for your own benefit and for the benefit of those with whom you work. A host of inspirational examples are included based upon actual situations in social and personal relations, business and organisational relations, defence and political management. These will give you an entirely fresh way of seeing how power is exercised in everyday interpersonal exchanges and a greater critical awareness of such factors as subtext and plotholes in public narratives. Using this approach you will be able to overcome the dilemmas of credibility and disbelief to build compelling messages that underpin your strategic intent. Moving beyond the vague platitudes of concepts like emotional intelligence, drama theory will also help you to avoid the pathologies that bedevil the process of managing conflicts and find ways of achieving authentic resolutions.

This book is a collection of selected papers presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Academy of Management and Business Economics (AEDEM), held at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Barcelona, 05 07 June, 2012. This edition of the conference has been presented with the slogan Creating new opportunities in an uncertain environment . There are different ways for assessing uncertainty in management but this book mainly focused on soft computing theories and their role in assessing uncertainty in a complex world.

The present book gives a comprehensive overview of general management topics and discusses some of the most recent developments in all the areas of business and management including management, marketing, business statistics, innovation and technology, finance, sports and tourism. This book might be of great interest for anyone working in the area of management and business economics and might be especially useful for scientists and graduate students doing research in these fields."