Tragedy of the Tuna
Faculty Author: Eric W. Orts
Students represent a tuna fishing fleet and balance decisions that impact their own group as well as a commonly-shared resource
- About Tragedy of the Tuna
- More Details
Game play is fairly straightforward. During each round, the teams must decide where to deploy their fishing boats.
They can choose to send boats to either short range or long range fishing grounds, or they can even decide to keep some at home in their harbor.
Teams can catch more fish in the long range grounds, but the cost is higher.
In addition, the following tools can aid teams in their decision-making process:
- Interactive chat— teams can chat with each other to create or break alliances or to attempt to signal their intentions.
- Shipyard— teams can order new boats at a fixed cost. Once ordered, these boats become available in the next round.
- Secondary market— teams can buy and sell used boats from each other.
- Public and Private Contracts— teams can create public or private contracts which set limits on deployment and enforce penalties if contract requirements are not met.
Once all teams in a world have entered their decisions, the simulation calculates catches, costs, and profits and adjusts the world tuna population accordingly.
