Seminar Polaris-tt: Decomposition of Normal Form Games - Harmonic, Potential, and Non-Strategic Games (Davide Legacci)

In this talk, we will explore the concept of normal form games and their decomposition into non-strategic, harmonic, and potential games. We will begin by introducing the response graph of a game, which is a visual representation of the strategies available to each player and their corresponding utilities. What dictates the strategic interaction among players is the difference between utilities, rather than the utilities themselves. We will introduce an object that captures this behavior, called deviation flow of the game, and use it to define non-strategic, harmonic, and potential games. Finally, we will discuss the properties of these components.