For Thinking About What the 'It' Might Be (Otherwise Known as the 'what'/the 'this'/the 'something')

From Notes of 7 March 2011

From Ken Binmore’s Playing it for Real: A Text on Game Theory

‘A game is being played whenever people have anything to do with each other. Romeo and Juliet played a teenage mating game that didn’t work out too well for either of them. Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin played a game that killed off a substantial fraction of the world’s population. Khruschev and Kennedy played a game during the Cuban missile crisis that might wiped us out altogether.

Drivers maneuvering in heavy traffic are playing a game with the drivers of the other cars. Art lovers at an auction are playing a game with the rival bidders for an old master. Bargain-hunters bidding on eBay are also playing an auctioning game. A firm and a union negotiating next year’s wage contract are playing a bargaining game. When the prosecuting and defending barristers in a murder trial decide what arguments to put before the jury, they are playing a game. Bill Gates made himself immensely rich by playing the computer software game. A supermarket manager deciding today’s price for frozen pizzas is playing a game with all the other storekeepers in the neighbourhood with pizza for sale.