Games of Strategy

"Games in which joint-action agreements are enforceable and are called cooperative, and those in which such enforcement is not possible, and individual participants must be allowed to act in their own interests, are called noncooperative. This has become standard terminology, but it is somewhat unfortunate because it gives the impression that the former will produce cooperative outcomes and the latter will not. In fact, individual action can be compatible with the achievement of a lot of mutual gain, especially in repeated interactions. The important distinction is that in so-called noncooperative games, cooperation will emerge only if it is in the participants' separate and individual interests to continue to take the prescribed show more actions." p. 26

"the payoffs for one player capture everything in the outcomes of the game that he cares about. In particular, the player need not be selfish, but his concern about others should be already included in his numerical payoff scale." p. 29 show less

Games of Strategy, Second Edition by Avinash K. Dixit (2004)