Quick Look: Split or Steal

I will personally say that I got the doubler early and are of the opinion that if you want to care about this game and the things that take place, don't get the doubler. Once you have the doubler and always keep 25% you kinda stop caring what happens cause split or steal, you're getting paid either way.

That said it is a neat game and the doubler is cheap. So do what you want. That Binary btw seems to be jiberish.

This is a cool dumb idea and I know I never want to play it. But I could probably watch these guys play it for a while longer!

When there's no actual money on the line, i don't understand the appeal. In the gameshow it's this big decision between two people. They have 1 shot of winning, and they can get fucked over royally. Here you can get into a game every few seconds. Oh no, i'm back at tier 1, well i guess i spend 3 min hammering the split button to get back where i was. There's no real penalty.

Seems like the most dramatic thing that can happen in this is that you join a very demanding organization and you might get kicked out if you don't contribute enough. Sorry but i think that's so much less interesting than someone fucking over the other person and making a bunch of money on their own, after them holding hands and staring into eachothers puppy eyes while they promise they will split.

Would anyone be excited to watch this if the money & human aspect didn't matter that much?

Seems like all the added systems surrounding the core split/steal choice kind of betrays the premise of the prisoner's dilemma and removes the interesting game theory aspect. The whole point is that the penalty for stealing is the risk of getting nothing at all. By adding a public reputation system you both remove the ambiguity of trust as well as directly penalize the act of stealing, resulting in 'split' being the de facto choice in almost all cases.

I think this game needs like a chat roulette prompt so when you steal you can finesse that the other person kicks dogs or something so you were obligated to steal.

This makes me want to replay Virtue's Last Reward.

And I agree that I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the meta game stuff. Showing "recently stole" is kind of weird.

I feel like they need to remove the 10 tiers so that you can continue accruing money forever until you decide to cash out or get all your money stolen.

Only stupid people split.

Ben: Spends whole video worried about people stealing from him.

Also Ben: Only person in the video that steals.

This has to be a covert psychology project.

And the whole world is the lab, virtually speaking...

Goddamnit, this game is so dumb but I can get why it's showcased. But the world is cruel huh, you might spend years building an epic and never be noticed.

Ben is a villain.

The beautiful game.

I agree with Jeff that this game was better without world chat. Stealer bullying and try-hard meta chasers calling out players who steal at tier X level kills the whole game.

It's not about the moneeeyyy. It's about sending a message

What does that binary code mean?

this game is just so good (i'm multitask playing it while i watch this QL)

Not one person in that whole video (aside from Ben) chose to steal.........

@segajupiter said:

I definitely could have done it wrong but I put it into a translator and it was a bunch of random extended ascii characters.

Ben telling people to give the developers money.

Freud calls this projection

The way this game encourages roleplaying, reading the other player's intent and such reminds me of Velvet Sundown. I have no interest in playing it but I would love to watch some more.

the tiers before the high stakes seem really pointless?

Only stupid people steal.

I came here to post that clip. It's so good. Absolutely required viewing:

EDIT:Radiolab did an episode about it, which if I recall (don't have time to listen now) revealed that the above clip is heavily edited, and actually played out over a much longer length of time.

Ben should've bought the Banana Tripler.

This is fun to watch but too removed from the prisoner's dilemma, the stakes of fake money just don't seem that thrilling. Someone make this where if you choose betray, the other user is banned and if you both do, you both are lol.

fuckin digidugi....

I wonder... could the binary be from people chatting in another language? I put that last one in a translator and got characters reminiscent of when I've seen Japanese translated into gibberish because there was not Japanese character set. Just a theory.

Splitters never win.

This feels like the kind of thing that assholes will absolutely RUIN.

And I don't mean people who just steal.

Game Theory: The Game

When I saw this on upf I was afraid it would devolve into an “only split” meta. Going to download this rn and literally only steal

Wassup with the weird time jump @ 17:50

I don't know why, but I find it hilarious that people are constantly being called thieves in global chat

@development: And then someone in chat says 'Development steals' and there goes your fun.

I don't think it's in the spirit of game theory to say that one variant breaks another.

The prisoner's dilemma is often discussed first as a single event and then as an iteration, with and without a specified ending. This talks about how players optimize given knowledge of a known number of iterations, knowledge of play history, player pool personalities, etc. Player personalities are given names like tit-for-tat where a player will play whatever the other player did the round before, punishing and rewarding the other person's playing.

It looks like there is some fun in optimizing for the people playing and I would expect changing slight rules over time might keep things interesting.

I think people also like using games as a way of exploring things about the "real world". If this game does settle on a split-most-of-the-time strategy because of the public shaming, maybe that says something about access to information. It feels more than a little too similar to the little I know about the system in China where you have a government score.

Hey Ben, here’s one of those “I love you BUT” comments :)

Why is your mic hot in the last videos and what’s with the keyboard sound (in this one) and the gamepad sound (in other videos). Just watched many GB East videos and the audio quality is in another level, I’m kind of wondering and just wanted to ask, maybe I’m nitpicking and If I am I’m sorry, but sometimes it’s a little annoying (for me). :(

@mistercoke: I've also thought controller and keyboard sounds are more noticeable than GBEast and Ben seems so much louder than anyone else I have to turn the volume down. I always used to watch GB and Youtube on my PS3 or TV so button clicks never bothered me, now I use headphones more on PC (though still on the TV) it's sometimes overbearing.

Because your cashed out cash never disappears, there is literally no good reason to steal. The game is an idler so stealing for more money doesn't make a huge difference in the long run, plus it puts a target on you and you can be raided.

The only reason people steal is because they either don't understand the other half of the game or they're just trying to be a jerk. So, stealers, pick your poison: Ignorance or malice.

I look forward to read the results of this social experiment when published...

Is there any point to trying to guess what the other player will do? They steal you always lose, they split you always win. Can't change the outcome for yourself.

Literally only two options, and people cry in global chat if you pick one of them? What kind of horseshit is this?

@1337w422102: Politics?

The Fast 5 ending has ruined this game!