What is a zero-sum game?
In: 115
In game theory, a zero-sum game is any game where the total winnings equal the total losses.
For example if you and I bet each other $5 on the outcome of a race – if you win, I give you $5, and if I win, you give me $5. That’s a zero-sum game, because the winner gets +$5, the loser gets -$5, and the total of wins and losses is $0.
A zero-sum game means that for every gain that one party makes, another party loses an equivalent amount – if one person wins, another loses. Think of tennis, or baseball, or most sports where if I’ve won a point or a game, the opponent has lost that point. If you and I bet $5 on the Super Bowl, even odds, it’s a zero-sum game, because one of us will gain $5 and the other will lose $5.
Non-zero sum games are uneven, where a win for one side isn’t necessarily balanced on the other. There are such things as win-win situations, or lose-lose, for example. A common example is “A husband and wife want to go out tonight – he wants to see a boxing match, but she wants to see the ballet. Both of them would be happier going with each other than going alone to either event.” So if they go to the ballet , the husband “wins less,” and the wife “wins more,” because he’s still happy not being alone, but neither of them has actually lost in this example.
Another common example is a pirate ship attacking a merchant ship – not really a “game,” but the same idea applies. If the merchant ship wins the fight, they haven’t gained anything from the pirates – they’re just continuing on exactly as they were before. Whereas if the pirate ship wins, they’ll get treasure, while the other side has lost a treasure that wasn’t even really theirs (since they were trading it) and has likely lost their lives as well. Not a zero-sum.
If I steal $100 from you, you lose 100, I gain 100, that works zero.
But…
You may also become anxious, humiliated, angry, just by the fact I may feel guilty. So suddenly, we all lose something.
A zero sum game is where if someone wins, someone else loses. A lot the routine games that we talk about are zero sum, someone wins while the opponent loses. Chess, checkers, tic tac toe, tennis, battleship, etc are all zero sum games. Some games, like a marathon, we don’t say are zero sum. If winning means finishing the race, then there is no limit on how many winners there are. Or if winning means having a good time, then there are no limits to how many winners there are.
The idea is often brought up in terms of business or politics. Performing an endeavor as if something is a zero sum game means that you are determined in winning because if you don’t win, it means you lose. This is especially true in things like business and politics. If a business is #2 in their field, and they make millions of dollars and have great products and employees then it sounds like they are prosperous. However, if the CEO views the business as a zero sum game, it means that the CEO considers the business a loser because it’s in second place. Someone like this might lash out at employees or maybe pursue some underhanded tricks to either make the company appear to be doing better on some metric, or sabotage the success of a rival company.
That’s kind of the core of it – a zero sum game means that all participants are rivals rather than collaborators, and one of them will be a winner and all the others are losers. It is often a pretty dismal way to look at the world.
It’s a game where the wins and losses, when combined, equal 0. For example, say that you have four buddies that all decide to pitch in part of their lunch. One person puts in a cheese stick. One person puts in a sandwich. One person puts in a chocolate milk. And one person puts in fruit snacks. Then you spin a wheel that points at one of the four people, who gets to keep all of the stuff in the pot. All four people put in 1 item for 4 total items. Then one person got all 4 items. So the gain (3 items) are the same as the losses (3 items). That’s a zero sum game.
Answer:
Its actually very simple to put
Any game where: If i win you loose, if you win i loose.
Ie direct advantage for one player is direct disadvantage to opponents
Zero sum game is when you fight for the pizza with your brother. If you get more pizza, your brother gets less.
An example of non zero sum game is when you go to steal some apples from neighbor with your brother. You can compete against your brother, but the amount of apples you pick does not hinder the amount of apples your brother can pick as there are plenty.
In that example the neighbor gets less apples, so to include him to the equation makes it zero sum game again. And that is how it is often in the world. However, consider picking lingonberries, there are plenty in the forest and if nobody picks them up, they just rot.
This is one of those things that might be better understood by looking at an example of a non-zero sum. Understand that ‘game’ simply refers to a model with multiple participants. Politics can be considered a ‘game’ in this context.
Economics is often non-zero sum. For instance if I buy a widget from you for $5, I would have to value that widget above $5 to rationalize handing over the money, and you would have to rationalize the value of the widget at less than $5 to rationalize handing over the widget. Even though we’re $5+1 widget at the start and end, we don’t value it that way. The act of transferring the widget increased its value from you, who presumably can make them for less than $5 to me who presumably *can’t* make them for $5 or less. But that’s harder to see. You have to measure things in the right way to assess whether it’s zero sum or not.
Another classic example is I have two left shoes and you have two right shoes. At the start we have a total of 2 pairs of shoes, but they are effectively worthless to each of us. If we trade one left for one right, we have the same 2 pair of shoes at the end, but now they have value for both of us. In material terms zero sum. In value terms positive sum.
So a zero sum game is *any* game where the outputs are equal to the inputs and the process of the game is nothing more than redistributing those inputs among the participants. There are also negative sum games. Wars are often negative sum. You end up with less than you started – lost lives, destroyed infrastructure, etc. One party might have more at the end than they started with (territory, etc.) but the sum of both parties is lower at the end than at the start. That may still justify the war, though. They may also value the inputs differently – lives lost, etc. A lot of colonialization was industrialized countries securing raw materials that the colonized country didn’t have the technology to make value of.
You see a lot of zero sum in politics, and that should set up alarms. “Immigrants are taking our jobs” is a zero sum argument – that there are a fixed number of jobs being distributed between immigrants and non-immigrants. It presumes that there can’t be new jobs. We know from economic history that immigrants almost always add jobs – and also add other value. If you hear a zero sum argument in politics it’s almost always not just wrong, but wrong and disingenuous.
Five people bring $20 each to the poker table. No matter who wins and who loses, $100 enters the table and $100 goes home with the winner(s). Value at the end of the night minus value at the beginning of the night equals zero, a zero sum game. If one person wins it’s because another person loses.
Now imagine three people, one with bread, one with peanut butter, one with jelly. Each is unhappy with their lunch prospects. They decide to make three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. Even if the peanut butter cost more than the jelly, all three of them have benefitted from the arrangement. This is *not* a zero sum game.
All commerce, all the way back to prehistoric barter networks, is based on the idea that you can find an arrangement where ALL parties leave the table better off than how they started.
There’s the definition which other’s have provided, and then there’s what people *mean* when they say it.
Basically when it’s brought up it basically just means that somebody *has* to lose, and there isn’t a scenario where both sides come out on top.
Latest Answers