History of Game Theory Timeline

Although pre-twentieth-century naturalists such as Charles Darwin made game-theoretic kinds of statements, the use of game-theoretic analysis in biology began with Ronald Fisher's studies of animal behavior during the 1930s. In his 1930 work, Fisher suggested that 1:1 sex ratios are a result of evolutionary forces acting on individuals who could be seen as trying to maximize their number of grandchildren.

Image source: Ronald Fisher

In his 1957 book An Economic Theory of Democracy, Anthony Downs applies the Hotelling firm location model to the political process, showing how spatial competition models can explain the behavior of political parties and voters.

Quine (1960, 1967) used game theory to develop a philosophical account of convention, an approach later extended by David Lewis (1969), connecting strategic analysis to longstanding questions in philosophy about how conventions arise and persist.

Game theory was applied in 1962 to the Cuban Missile Crisis during the presidency of John F. Kennedy, illustrating how strategic interaction frameworks could illuminate nuclear brinkmanship and deterrence between superpowers.

Image source: Cuban Missile Crisis

The best-known equilibrium in biology is known as the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), first introduced by John Maynard Smith and George Price in their 1973 paper. The ESS describes strategies that cannot be invaded by rare mutant strategies under evolutionary dynamics.

Following Lewis' (1969) game-theoretic account of conventions, Edna Ullmann-Margalit developed theories of social norms that define them as Nash equilibria that result from transforming a mixed-motive game into a coordination game.

The developments in economics were later applied to biology largely by John Maynard Smith in his 1982 book Evolution and the Theory of Games, which systematized evolutionary game theory and cemented its role in biology.

Image source: Evolution and the Theory of Games

This general strategy is a component of the social contract view in political philosophy (see Gauthier (1986) and Kavka (1986)). Philosophers including Bicchieri (1989, 1993), Skyrms (1990), and Stalnaker (1999) worked in this area, examining games such as the prisoner's dilemma, stag hunt, and the Nash bargaining game as explanations for the emergence of attitudes about morality (see, e.g., Skyrms (1996, 2004) and Sober and Wilson (1998)).

Image source: Brian Skyrms

Building on Lewis' game-theoretic account of conventions, Bicchieri (2006) further developed theories of social norms that define them as Nash equilibria resulting from transforming a mixed-motive game into a coordination game.

Image source: Cristina Bicchieri

One example of applied game theory is Peter John Wood's (2013) research looking into what nations could do to help reduce climate change, modeling international cooperation as a strategic game among countries.

Image source: Climate change mitigation

Piraveenan (2019) in his review provides several examples where game theory is used to model project management scenarios, extending strategic analysis into organizational and managerial contexts.

The 1959 military science fiction novel Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein includes references to games and theory, reflecting how strategic thinking had entered popular military culture.

Image source: Starship Troopers

The 1974 novel Spy Story by Len Deighton explores elements of game theory in regard to cold war army exercises, reflecting the period's fascination with strategic modeling of superpower conflict.

Image source: Spy Story (novel)

Based on the 1998 book by Sylvia Nasar, the life story of game theorist and mathematician John Nash was turned into the 2001 biopic A Beautiful Mind, starring Russell Crowe as Nash, bringing game theory and its most famous figure to a global audience.

Image source: A Beautiful Mind (film)

Joker, the prime antagonist in the 2008 film The Dark Knight, presents game theory concepts—most notably the prisoner's dilemma in a scene where he asks passengers in two different ferries to bomb the other one to save their own.

Image source: The Dark Knight

The 2008 novel The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin explores the relationship between extraterrestrial life, humanity, and game theory, using strategic reasoning about distrust and survival as the basis of its central plot device.

Image source: The Dark Forest

In the 2017 film Molly's Game, Brad, an inexperienced poker player, makes an irrational betting decision without realizing and causes his opponent Harlan to deviate from his Nash Equilibrium strategy, resulting in a significant loss when Harlan loses the hand.

Image source: Molly's Game

In 1994, John Nash was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in the Economic Sciences for his contribution to game theory. In 1994 Nash, Selten and Harsanyi became Economics Nobel Laureates for their contributions to economic game theory, marking the discipline's arrival at the center of economics.

Image source: List of Nobel Memorial Prize laureates in Economic Sciences

John Maynard Smith was awarded the Crafoord Prize in 1999 for his application of evolutionary game theory, recognizing his foundational contributions to bringing game-theoretic thinking into evolutionary biology. Fifteen game theorists have won the Nobel Prize in economics as of 2020.

Image source: John Maynard Smith

In 2005, game theorists Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann followed Nash, Selten, and Harsanyi as Nobel Laureates, recognized for enhancing understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis.

Image source: Thomas Schelling

In 2007, Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, and Roger Myerson were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics 'for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory', a field built on the tools of game theory.

Image source: Mechanism design

In 2014, the Nobel Prize in Economics went to game theorist Jean Tirole, honored for his analysis of market power and regulation, much of it grounded in industrial organization and game-theoretic modeling.

Image source: Jean Tirole