"Why Gym Stagnation Is Not Inevitable: A follow-up on "The ecology of Pokemon Go""

#PokemonGO: Recently, this post reached the top of this subreddit's front page. In it, /u/TheWrongSolution uses ecological principles in support of his argument that gym stagnation is inevitable. Namely, the Allee effect and its contribution to a positive feedback loop in which the team with more players will hold more gyms, which incentivises a larger player imbalance which then enables that team to hold more gyms.However, the reason that gyms stagnation is not inevitable can be found in the very same post: negative density dependence. The simple solution to gym stagnation is to replace this positive feedback loop with a negative feedback loop. This means that there needs to be more incentive for players to play on a losing team than the winning team. If players are encouraged to join and play on the losing teams, the losing teams will gain more ground until they become equal. Any swing in population should increasingly encourage players to join and play on the opposite teams.In fact, ecology gives us a great example of this in the common side-blotched lizard. The male lizards come in three colors: orange, blue, and yellow. The orange lizards are the largest and most aggressive, mate with many females, and steal mates from the intermediate sized blue lizards. Yellow lizards mimic females and mate with unattended females, easier done with the orange lizard's many unattended females. Blue lizards guard smaller territory and have only one mate, and they are well suited to catch yellow lizards. If any one lizard color begins to make up a larger fraction of the population, it's counter will have a competitive advantage and equilibrium will be re-established.Pokemon Go is a game with entirely human made rules, which don't have to follow this positive feedback loop. This distinction between a positive or negative feedback loop is the key to solving gym stagnation. Simply put, if players are incentivised to join and play on the winning team, one team will inevitably dominate. If players are incentivised to join and play on the losing team, we will eventually reach equilibrium.Solutions will vary in terms of fun and exploitability but the exact solution is unimportant. In order to achieve gym balance, the current positive feedback loop must be changed to a negative feedback loop. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2fiAmYi