Game theory is designed to find an equilibrium that ensures the best outcome for every participant. The article detailed that way that the New York City High School application process was overhauled using this principle of game theory to improve the access to certain students. By having the students rank the schools that they wanted to go to, and then using deferred acceptance algorithm, students would be accepted into schools. However, the students didn’t have to accept until the end of the process.
The article did a very good job of explaining the goals of game theory in lay terms. Rather than getting confused with terms such as optimal, or stable and equilibrium, it simply described it as everyone getting the best outcome that they can.
A lot of the sources that I have found have looked either at nebulous examples of games, or specific examples that can be explained as games. This article is the first example of how game theory can be applied in the design process to build a better system, which is why I am including it in my content resource collection.
Spencer Hight 