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Equilibrium Analysis of Customer Attraction Games

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Web and Internet Economics (WINE 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14413))

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Abstract

We introduce a game model called “customer attraction game” to demonstrate the competition among online content providers. In this model, customers exhibit interest in various topics. Each content provider selects one topic and benefits from the attracted customers. We investigate both symmetric and asymmetric settings involving agents and customers. In the symmetric setting, the existence of pure Nash equilibrium (PNE) is guaranteed, but finding a PNE is PLS-complete. To address this, we propose a fully polynomial time approximation scheme to identify an approximate PNE. Moreover, the tight Price of Anarchy (PoA) is established. In the asymmetric setting, we show the nonexistence of PNE in certain instances and establish that determining its existence is NP-hard. Nevertheless, we prove the existence of an approximate PNE. Additionally, when agents select topics sequentially, we demonstrate that finding a subgame-perfect equilibrium is PSPACE-hard. Furthermore, we present the sequential PoA for the two-agent setting.

This research was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. 62172012), and Beijing Outstanding Young Scientist Program No. BJJWZYJH012019100020098, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and the Research Funds of Renmin University of China No. 22XNKJ07, and Major Innovation & Planning Interdisciplinary Platform for the “Double-First Class” Initiative, Renmin University of China.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/digital-content-market-11516.

  2. 2.

    https://www.demandsage.com/youtube-stats/, https://www.demandsage.com/tiktok-user-statistics/.

  3. 3.

    In the following, we sometimes use “node” to represent customers in language.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies, School of Computer Science, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Xiaotie Deng, Ningyuan Li & Weian Li

  2. Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

    Qi Qi

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  1. Xiaotie Deng
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  2. Ningyuan Li
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  3. Weian Li
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  4. Qi Qi
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Correspondence to Qi Qi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, University of Illinois System, Urbana, IL, USA

    Jugal Garg

  2. Institute of Mathematics, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Max Klimm

  3. Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies, Peking University, Beijing, Beijing, China

    Yuqing Kong

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Deng, X., Li, N., Li, W., Qi, Q. (2024). Equilibrium Analysis of Customer Attraction Games. In: Garg, J., Klimm, M., Kong, Y. (eds) Web and Internet Economics. WINE 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14413. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48974-7_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48974-7_14

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