We have developed a game, called Project Waterloo2
, which allows users of the online social network
Facebook, to play Blotto with friends and strangers. Our implementation allows users to play either
random players whose identity is hidden from the player, or known players from their friend list or
from a list of players who have played the game before. Figure 1 shows screenshots of the various
steps of the Project Waterloo application.
Previous experimental studies of Blotto have used monetary incentives to recruit human subjects. In
contrast, we rely on entertainment and reputation incentives to attract users to play the game. The
reputation incentive is realized by showing users their ranking (based on performance) among all
players and players in their friend network. Users are ranked according to their rating (R) which is
computed as: R =
#Games Won
#Games Played+10
× 100. This measure encourages users to play more games
as it makes sure that people who have played a very small number of games are not given a high
rating.