User:Bracton/Sandbox/Boundaries and branches

Boundaries
From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy we get:


 * Game theory is the study of the ways in which strategic interactions among rational players produce outcomes with respect to the preferences (or utilities) of those players...

From the Britannica Online Encyclopedia we get a similarly broad definition:


 * Branch of applied mathematics devised to analyze certain situations in which there is an interplay between parties that may have similar, opposed, or mixed interests.

From Lycos retriever we get:


 * Game Theory is the study of situations where multiple decision-makers influence one another.

From a course taught at North Carolina State University we get:


 * Game theory is a branch of logic which deals with cooperation and conflict in the context of negotiations and payoffs. The theory of games can elucidate the incentive conditions required for cooperation, can aid understanding of strategic decisions of nations or actors in conflict, and can help in the development of models of bargaining and deterrence.

From WordIQ we get:


 * Game theory is a branch of mathematics that uses models to study interactions with formalised incentive structures ("games").

From MoneyTerms we get:


 * Game theory is a branch of mathematics that provides a framework for analysing what choices rational individuals will make, when the outcome ("payoff") depends on both their choice and the choices of other "players".

From Science Daily we get:


 * Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics and economics that studies situations where players choose different actions in an attempt to maximize their returns.

From ThinkQuest we get:


 * Game theory is the mathematical analysis of a conflict of interest to find optimal choices that will lead to a desired outcome under given conditions.

From StratGaming we get:


 * ...game theory is the science of strategic thinking. A branch of applied mathematics and economics, game theory is used to analyze interactive situations with two or more “players” whose choices are interdependent. What one does affects what another will want to do, and vice versa, and the combination of their choices determines their respective “payoffs.”

From GameTheory.net we get:


 * Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that studies "rational behavior in interactive or interdependent situations."

From Theodore L. Turocy & Bernhard von Stengel (London School of Economics) Game Theory:


 * The object of study in game theory is the game, which is a formal model of an interactive situation. It typically involves several players; a game with only one player is usually called a decision problem. The formal deﬁnition lays out the players, their preferences, their information, the strategic actions available to them, and how these inﬂuence the outcome.

This last one would seem to indicate the most comprehensive definition for our use in the article.

But the Principia Cybernetica only considers non-cooperative situations:


 * Game theory is a branch of mathematical analysis developed to study decision making in conflict situations.

Likewise Wolfram MathWorld ignores cooperative games:


 * Game theory is a branch of mathematics that deals with the analysis of games (i.e., situations involving parties with conflicting interests).

Branches
David K Levine divides game theory into two branches What is Game Theory?:


 * There are two main branches of game theory: cooperative and noncooperative game theory.

From StratGaming we get:


 * Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson won the 2007 Nobel prize for their work in mechanism design theory, a branch of game theory that extends the application of game theory to how different types of rules, or institutions, align individual incentives with overall social goals.

From Game Studies we get:


 * ... game theory [is] the systematic study of the relationship between rules, choice and outcome in competitive situations. Two main branches exist. Analytical game theory is the analysis of games played by non-empirical players; ... On the other hand, behavioural game theory is the study of actual human players as they are confronted with precisely defined games.

So we have many credible sources that define the boundaries broadly and the branches inclusively. You can list books selected for the focus they take, but others can find other writings with a different focus. We as editors should report on this diversity and not try to impose our own views on how the boundaries or branches should be restricted.