I kind of wonder if Grey is trying to game Youtube’s algorithm with this and raise his view stats; if so, well done.
Don't look at this spoiler until you've played through at least one game.
Are you sure?
After you’ve cheated your way to the end, go into your watch history and look at the view count of each video you watched in the series. After Grey has drilled into your head the chances of finishing successfully, the actual view counts will show you that you were nowhere near the only one who cheated.
I went through this and I didn’t understand it. I guess I “cheated” but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get out of it either way, so I assumed there would be some payoff that I was supposed to get on the left route and I wasn’t sure why the right route was even there.
I chose Rock each time.
The game chose Rock the first few times, which is a draw.
However the game only allowed me to choose win or fail as the result.
So I put win … but eventually got bored and gave up after drawing each time.
That’s there to allow players to be honest and tell the system that they lost the throw. You’ll be shown a different video and a different path to follow.
He really should have stated it clearly in the first video that a draw was a loss/fail. He did state it plainly in the pinned comment or the notes for at least some of the videos. That was an unfortunate mistake on his part and yeah, putting that info as an afterthought in the notes/comments isn’t good enough.
So yeah I persevered and made it through to the very final video. I’d link directly to it here but that might blow the statistics I’m sure he’s keeping careful track of.
He got into a kind of eschatological mood there in the end, but I think he made another major mistake, in speaking to viewers who manage to “win” in the far future. He’s making a big assumption on those buttons continuing to work for as long as Youtube still exists. He’s already had to deal with Youtube changing how embedded video links work at least once in his Youtube career and all his carefully set up internal links became useless, with no way to fix them. It’s inevitable Youtube will come back and “improve” things once again, breaking all older videos that relied on the feature.
I’m going to blur my post here so I don’t give anything away.
Okay, I love the idea and it’s a pretty good implementation. However, it’s still lacking something. In real life, if you and your opponent in Rochambeau throw the same sign, it’s a tie and you go again. In Grey’s version, if you throw the same sign, it’s a loss for the viewer participant.
It turns out, also, that you have three lives in Grey’s game. Of course you don’t lose a life if you win. If you lose (to inlude tying the video player), you lose one life. That takes you to the second chance bracket. If you lose there, you go to the third chance bracket. And if you lose that third life, you’re SOL.
I would like to know what the probabilities are for the game with just one life under the rules Grey set and also what the probablities would be knowing you have three lives. I’d also like to know what the probabilities are with the game’s real rules where a tie is not a loss for the human player.
I would also love to understand the forhtcoming answers from the SDMB’s math gurus who’re going to post their responses explaing those probabilities.
The chances of winning are 50/50 in the case where a tie simply means you go again until somebody wins. And in the “first bracket” he’s telling you the chances every single step of the way, in terms of how many are left.1/3 each time.
Fail… but was given a kindly second chance at starting!
fail… but was given a sympathetic third chance at starting!
fail… but was given an embarrassing forth chance at starting!
success! Yesssssssssssssssssss! Finally! I get to advance!
Fail… Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Straight off to the denouement. Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out.
<—