Game Theory

I arrived home for Christmas break on the 18th of December and have been hanging out, playing with friends, and visiting family since then. The last several days as I have had little to do I have turned to game design more and more. This is something I do when I'm not busy. When I have lots of free time my thoughts turn to designing games. I have also been reading a few articles I've found on Gamasutra. I have been discussing a little bit of game theory with someone online. Too bad I don't have another month or two off or else I might come up with an idea for a Warcraft III map, which seems to be the only game that I can modify right now.

The link for this post is a simple game with a whiteboard and a lot of letters. You can drag the letters around with your mouse and create words. The catch is that there are 49 other people doing the same thing. As you are trying to create a word someone else is either purposefully or unwittingly taking your letters to create their word. There are those who see what someone else is making and starts helping, and there are those who see that someone else is making a word and immediately tries to steal their letters. As a game I quickly lost interest. There is no goal, no rules, no wind condition. But as a study of how people play I find this "game" fascinating. I need to go back and read this articles on what types of people play games and why they play them.