Symmetric / Asymmetric[edit]
E F
E 1, 2 0, 0
F 0, 0 1, 2
An asymmetric game
Main article: Symmetric game
A symmetric game is a game where the payoffs for playing a particular strategy depend only on the other strategies employed, not on who is playing them. If the identities of the players can be changed without changing the payoff to the strategies, then a game is symmetric. Many of the commonly studied 2×2 games are symmetric. The standard representations of chicken, the prisoner's dilemma, and the stag hunt are all symmetric games. Some[who?] scholars would consider certain asymmetric games as examples of these games as well. However, the most common payoffs for each of these games are symmetric.
Most commonly studied asymmetric games are games where there are not identical strategy sets for both players. For instance, the ultimatum game and similarly the dictator game have different strategies for each player. It is possible, however, for a game to have identical strategies for both players, yet be asymmetric. For example, the game pictured to the right is asymmetric despite having identical strategy sets for both players.