<p>Easy is relative, quite a few students struggle with these concepts. It is also worthwhile to note that the title of the book is "<strong>A Primer</strong> in Game Theory". If you are bored during the course you are more than welcome to help yourself to one of the more advanced books, such as the one from <a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0262650401" rel="noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Osborne and Rubinstein</a>.</p>

<p>You could also try to prove that all finite games have a Nash-equilibrium. This result is 70 years old, but most would consider it non-trivial. Not von Neumann though, who is alleged to have said to Nash</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>"That's trivial, you know. That's just a fixed point theorem."</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Because again, easy is relative.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-03-18T19:40:20.037Z
Given the outline of the topics mentioned by OP, I think s/he may be referring to Gibbons's other text, *Game Theory for Applied Economists*.
Herr K.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-03-18T20:03:28.147Z
@HerrK. That "easy" book even has the Intuitive Criterion...perhaps my skills I are more below average than I thought.
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-03-18T19:32:31.133Z
2019-03-18T19:32:31.133Z
Giskard
<p>I have a course in game theory coming up, and I decided to look at the curriculum, which is a book by a guy called Gibbons on game theory.</p>

<p>I skimmed it, but it seems that the core theory can be summarized in 4 categories: nash equilibrium models, dynamic subgame perfect nash models, bayesian models and perfect bayesian models.</p>

<p>I did not quite understand perfect bayesian models, but, in less than 1 hour, I feel like I properly grasped the 3 other concepts:</p>

<p>Nash models: static game where equilibrium is when all players are simultaneously choosing their best responses to the opponents' strategies.</p>

<p>Dynamic nash: same as above, but the nash equilibrium needs to hold in every "subgame". So we can do this just by backwards induction.</p>

<p>Bayesian nash: same as Nash model, except we replace our utility with expected utility.</p>

<p>I mean, that seems insanely easy and simple. Is this really all there is to game theory?</p>

<p>The book by Gibbons I mentioned above only has these 4 concepts as its main theory: the rest is just application to different economic settings....</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-03-18T19:34:17.017Z
You can take a look at some of the questions under the tag [`game-theory`](https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/game-theory) to gauge the level of difficulty of the materials you'll encounter.
Herr K.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-03-19T18:30:21.030Z
I am not sure where this question is supposed to lead. Yes, the general idea of game theory is easy, but an individual game can still be complicated to solve. Just because something is easy, it does not mean that it is not interesting, and vice versa. What I like about game theory is that you can set up a game you find interesting and solve it. In many cases, this leads to fascinating insights. 
I also feel like you are not painting the full picture in your post. Sometimes many equilibria exist, which ones do you find plausible then? Sometimes no equilibria exist at all... There is much more.
Bayesian
<game-theory>
Is game theory supposed to be this easy?
Baap
# Is game theory supposed to be this easy?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-03-18)

I have a course in game theory coming up, and I decided to look at the curriculum, which is a book by a guy called Gibbons on game theory.

I skimmed it, but it seems that the core theory can be summarized in 4 categories: nash equilibrium models, dynamic subgame perfect nash models, bayesian models and perfect bayesian models.

I did not quite understand perfect bayesian models, but, in less than 1 hour, I feel like I properly grasped the 3 other concepts:

Nash models: static game where equilibrium is when all players are simultaneously choosing their best responses to the opponents' strategies.

Dynamic nash: same as above, but the nash equilibrium needs to hold in every "subgame". So we can do this just by backwards induction.

username_2 nash: same as Nash model, except we replace our utility with expected utility.

I mean, that seems insanely easy and simple. Is this really all there is to game theory?

The book by Gibbons I mentioned above only has these 4 concepts as its main theory: the rest is just application to different economic settings....

**Tags:** game-theory

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: You can take a look at some of the questions under the tag [`game-theory`](https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/game-theory) to gauge the level of difficulty of the materials you'll encounter.  
> **username_2**: I am not sure where this question is supposed to lead. Yes, the general idea of game theory is easy, but an individual game can still be complicated to solve. Just because something is easy, it does not mean that it is not interesting, and vice versa. What I like about game theory is that you can set up a game you find interesting and solve it. In many cases, this leads to fascinating insights.  I also feel like you are not painting the full picture in your post. Sometimes many equilibria exist, which ones do you find plausible then? Sometimes no equilibria exist at all... There is much more.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2019-03-18. Score: 5

Easy is relative, quite a few students struggle with these concepts. It is also worthwhile to note that the title of the book is "**A Primer** in Game Theory". If you are bored during the course you are more than welcome to help yourself to one of the more advanced books, such as the one from [Osborne and Rubinstein](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0262650401).

You could also try to prove that all finite games have a Nash-equilibrium. This result is 70 years old, but most would consider it non-trivial. Not von Neumann though, who is alleged to have said to Nash

> "That's trivial, you know. That's just a fixed point theorem."

Because again, easy is relative.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Given the outline of the topics mentioned by OP, I think s/he may be referring to Gibbons's other text, *Game Theory for Applied Economists*.  
> **username_3**: @HerrK. That "easy" book even has the Intuitive Criterion...perhaps my skills I are more below average than I thought.  

---

