“Linguistic Harbingers of Betrayal: A Case Study on an Online Strategy Game” by Nucuale et al investigates how language can be used to predict future interactions and choices of users within an online game.
I wonder if these results can go beyond online games to in-person and normal interactions between friends? I think that there are many people who are relatively unconcerned with the game’s outcome either due to a non-competitive nature or having a separate motivation for playing. These players would act quite differently when placed in a situation that demands more commitment. I feel that the authors hoped that this research would extend beyond the game table, but I do not see a strong connection and think a new study in real-world relationships would be needed to find linguistic patterns that can be safely generalized.
There is also the question of if these findings can be extended to other games? Many games do not have a “Prisoner’s Dilemma” setup, and therefore, would not entice players to betray one another. Even for games that do have a possible win-loss scenario, games are not always played between strangers or anonymized. An interesting demonstration of how trust evolves naturally from simple systems that are in place over long periods of time can be seen in “The Evolution of Trust“, an interactive graphic by Nicky Case. It can be seen how players that cooperate in games actually fare better than players that do not in the longer run. Perhaps the same kinds of small simulations that “The Evolution of Trust” uses can be applied to simulate a multitude of Diplomacy games, and see if the results match up to human behavior. These simulations can even account for occurrences of miscommunication or overall player strategics. Perhaps this would give an alternative conclusion to the original paper’s findings by suggesting the type of communication and strategy that would benefit Diplomacy players the most in games, and also verify if the real Diplomacy games and players can be effectively simulated in order to find better modes of communication (whether by building more trust or betraying more).
I highly recommend taking the time to view “The Evolution of Trust“, as it is a great demonstration of some core facets of sociology and communication, and is applicable to everyone, not just computer scientists.
