Easily the most challenging introductory course I've taken, but definitely worth it. I must say though that I learnt more from failing the quizzes than the lectures or practice questions.

It's a good course for people who want to learn solid knowledge of game theory. Contents are rich and formalized.

Things that can be improved in my opinion:

1. In some weeks, the professors just go deep down into definitions and theorems before providing enough ideas about the problem we are trying to solve here, especially in week 7 (coalitional games).

2. There are many typos in the subtitles.

The instruction here is almost never self-sufficient. Except for a few (and very simple) concepts, one has to spend hours on the free web for more accessible explanations of the topics introduced here. My suggestions on improving the course would be three-fold – (i) spend more time within the lectures explaining each concept (ii) increase the number of in-lecture quizzes, and (ii) provide links to more reading materials on each subject.

The course syllabus and contents are tough but great. There are 3 teachers who teach us and that makes it a little difficult to follow though. Also, one of the instructors totally goes off topic and too deep into mathematics without giving much clarity.

I had no previous background in game theory before taking this course. I am an undergraduate physics major with the corresponding mathematical competence (up to multivariable calculus, differential equations, etc.), and an introductory course in Discrete Math. So I had seen the set theory and summation notation before, but had no experience applying them to game theory.

The instructors were excellent and clearly have a deep academic background in the subject, as well as a significant personal interest. This is important because they didn't come off as if they were just relaying information; they gave the impression of genuinely enjoying the material and even going into brief interludes about the motivation behind some of the definitions and examples from their personal perspectives, in addition to the more "standard" lecture material.

The course is definitely an introduction, and doesn't go into most of the more formal proofs of the theorems used, nor does it use examples or homework problems that require a significant background in the subject. I found I was able to complete most of the problem sets within 4-5 hours, with an average of about 3 hours. But your mileage on this may vary, especially if you're less familiar with the mathematical notation and the style of problem solving used. This is not to say the problems are not difficult, because they are! Many of them are non-intuitive and require you to think around corners, or consider methods of thinking and problem-solving that are not commonly used in math and the natural sciences. This, I think, is a byproduct of game theory's preeminent figure -- John Nash's -- unique approach to mathematics. He was famous for using highly intuitive, non-rigorous ways of coming to conclusions before proving them more formally. Thus, the field is a bit unconventional in its methods and approach, and won't be automatically accessible just because someone has already had exposure to advanced math or science. It requires time and careful thought to develop a deep understanding of. But I found that this effort was well rewarded by the end of the course where I started to see all the earlier theorems and techniques coming together to form a unified system of problem-solving capabilities.

I strongly intend to take the advanced version of this course that is also offered on Coursera. As for this one, I recommend it to anyone interested in understanding the mathematics of games, competitive environments, and complex systems in general! Very well done by the instructors.

It was such a helpful course that gave me the opportunity to learn few basic methods and terms about game theory through lots of interesting and to the point examples by three unique professors

Great introduction to game theory, especially for those with some mathematical background. Good examples of using models presented in the course to analyze real-world situations.

Actually, this course is a great one to take. Professors have explained these concepts and main ideas very clearly, therefore students can understand it very easily, even if they do not have previous knowledge about game theory. I want to say “thank you” to all the three professors for making such a concise and intelligible course.

However, I would like to give some suggestions about this course. There is an obvious gap between the quizzes and graded assignments. Sometimes the quiz is very easy and it just requires you to have a basic understanding of the concept, while the assignment is even more difficult than the examples included in the videos. I think this course would be better if the staff can improve the difficulty gap between quizzes and assignments. And for people who want to enroll this course, an exercise book with detailed solution would be helpful for you to learn it better.

As for the content of this course, there are lots of formulas from Week 5 to the end, which are a little difficult to understand. I fully understand this because math is always abstract, and formulation is an essential part of it. I think this problem can be solved by providing more ungraded quizzes for students to practice. They can have a better comprehension of the content through practicing.

Anyway, this course is worth taking. Through learning it you will gain not only the knowledge about game theory, but also a new way to understand relationships around you. Happy learning!

It's a good course and it would definitely better if the subtitles were not down some how. At most of the time I didn't get the point of the course immediately and I learn better with those practice questions. It would be better with more examples. The assignment and practice questions are too easy btw.

Lectures are hard to understand, audibly not intellectually. The speakers are not well organized, they hand wave over complex ideas and the majority of the math assuming you understand linear algebra and higher. The speakers are not engaging. The subject material - usually exciting and clever - becomes a burden to wade through with these instructors. I didn't make it through the course as I couldn't stay awake for it.

Incredibly theoretical with boring videos. I solved everything by watching YouTube videos and ignoring the material by the class entirely. I was very disappointed.

Perhaps it would be more useful for the students if the class was denoted with how theoretical and convoluted it is?

The YouTubers and Khan Academy do an infinitely better job of teaching this subject with much more human examples and much less "math-speak"

A hodgepodge of slides, lots of stuttering and instructors who are bad at presenting concepts. Be prepared to spend a LOT of time researching and studying everything from scratch. Very frustrating course delivery for a very interesting topic.

Shoham's teaching makes this class suffer.

This course is a very enjoyable tour of introductory game theory, covering several different general types of games and a wide variety of examples taken from real-world situations.

The main results of the theory are stated and demonstrated by examples, rather than proved (if you're looking for a proof of Nash's theorem, you won't find it here but you should definitely look at his original one-page paper from 1949 which is freely available online). Some advanced topics are also briefly mentioned so that interested students have the option to look them up for themselves.

Some may find the use of formal mathematical notation offputting, so you'll want to be comfortable with inequalities, linear equations and the basic notation of set theory.

In the discussion forums for my session, the course mentor was very helpful and supportive of all the students. Some feedback on error corrections and suggestions was posted to the forums (including a summary list posted in week 8) which will hopefully reach one of the instructors.

Overall, I highly recommend the course and am looking forward to part 2!

I really enjoyed the course, which I pursued, at a time, I was commencing a project on multi-agent systems. Basically, two opponent robots and how they'd "strategise" against each other, for different tasks.

The lectures/quizzes/ course structure were a HUGE boost to formulating and well, I wouldn't' go as far as saying, solving, but moving towards solving the research problem, as this course helped me understand the technicalities of game theory as well as develop an intuition towards the approach.

One more point I'd raise in praise, is how, as the instructors are from diverse backgrounds, it lends a certain universality to thinking about the applications that come with every week's module - which, is contrary to my usual style of learning, but in this case, mind-expanding.

All in all, I really enjoyed the structure, and look forward to learning and applying further in my doctoral studies. Thanks a lot to the instructors and Coursera for giving me the opportunity to do so!

I think this course covers the basics of Game Theory well. The three professors are competent and explain the topics well. I also enjoyed the assignments because of their practical nature.

If I had to name possible improvements I would suggest three things. One of the professors tends to talk very fast and is hard to follow sometimes. While I enjoyed the assignments more real world examples and applications would have been nice. Finally, I think the last week before the final assignment (week 7) about coalition games felt a little bit rushed and I had a hard time doing the assignment based on the video lectures alone. I had to use external materials to finish the assignment. Of course, that is totally acceptable, but I didn't have to do that for the prior weeks which were self contained.

Interesting one, but I think this course is better called "introduction to introduction to game theory".

As game theory is really a tough discipline, I guess the designer of this course might have taken this point a bit too far, fearing that learners online might have trouble digesting the true game theory course.

In terms of definitions and examples, most analysis are limited to very basic two-player games with simple calculation.

You don't get to understand things without applying it to generality and larger data scale.

Also, I doubt some simple programming could be introduced to enrich the assignment.

I suppose it's better suited for those finance and economics majors, not CS majors.

This course is great. The teachers provide excellent exposition of the problems, the formalization, and the solution concepts of generic agents and types of agents acting simultaneously, sequentially in games with complete and incomplete information. The math required is middle school probability calculation and equations. The formal definitions of games and concepts are more demanding, but a complete understanding of the formal definition is not required to solve the problem sets or the exam. The teachers are good at giving explanations and examples in a natural language to scaffold the understanding of the formal definitions.

The course is superb. However, it would be nice to have more "first principles" examples and explanations, instead of frequently relying on convenient tricks such as iterated removal of strictly-dominated strategies, symmetry, and substitute-able MC answers. These tricks help tremendously in introducing new concepts, but not so much in solving generic problems. For example, while the Nash equilibrium is defined rigorously using best response, in quizzes it is often found by trial-and-error using the no-player-wishes-to-deviate concept instead of the definition.

I decided to undertake this course to help my idealism and my loath for unfairness by seeing what mathematical justification wrong doers have to do what they do. I have gotten my answer, even though I have just scratched the surface of a subject which I would define "sacred". The front of Plato's Academy used to read: "No one [is admitted] who is ignorant of Geometry". Today would add Games Theory as a must, together with Evolutionary Theory. A kind advice to those who are adept of Mathematics and wish to tread this world: learn Game Theory.

I took this course as a refresher on Game Theory. I found it to be a solid way to refine my understanding of the fundamental concepts as well as to expand my exposure to more complex approaches. This course has a reasonable flow for beginner and intermediate learners, and also utilizes simulated games to create an interactive experience towards understanding the course content. I would recommend this course to anyone looking to develop a systematic (and quantifiable) outlook towards strategizing and decision-making.

It was a very informative and mentally stimulating course. I thoroughly enjoyed this course and now look at the world in a different light: considering the pros and cons of each decision I make, critically analysing it. Therefore, I take it upon myself to personally recommend this course to all prospective learners or interested persons. All in all this course will make you a more rational and logical thinker, enabling you to understand the intricacies of everyday decision making.

I would not say that my specialty is math, or logical mathematical thinking, but I wanted to challenge myself by taking this course. The material, while difficult, was taught in a way that was very approachable, even for someone like myself, who had not attended a math class since my undergraduate education nearly a decade ago. The concepts were very interesting, and I had fun working out a path to solving the strategies, be it pure or mixed strategies, to solve each problem.

5 out of 5!

I managed to finish this course in just 10 days. Pretty simple yet practical, providing a very good introduction of Game Theory.

Would totally recommend this to anyone who wants to start learning Game Theory. Assessments are easy relatively; focus more on practical calculations than theoretical questions (which I assumed will be asked in Advanced Level).

All 3 instructors are friendly and experienced in lecturing, which helps a lot in understanding the materials.

Great course to learn the fundamentals of game theory. My advice for an absolute begginer, as myself, it's studying before watching the lectures, given that not everything is going to be explained and some details and procedures may not be completely clear if you only watch the videos, therefore, is very important reading the recommended books in the syllabus, and some others, to get a better idea of what is a mixed strategy, bayesians games and the shapley value.