Blue Shell Subsidies

Imagine for a second a system where you are in direct competition with other agents at a certain task. You and your peers in this group are ranked in terms of performance, and the ranking shifts occasionally as certain individuals either scramble ahead or are knocked behind.

Now, imagine that an external force provides some form of help to you and all the other agents. The amount of help you receive is inversely proportional to how well you’re doing at any one time. The help provided to those at the lower end of the rankings is extreme — sometimes even resulting in them taking the lead, other times simply sabotaging the current leader and leaving the lower standings unchanged. The assistance given to those near the front of the pack is minimal — occasionally helping to maintain their standings, but little else.

What we’ve just described is one of two things: possible effects of government intervention and subsidies on economic competition, or a game of Mario Kart.

In both cases, incentive to strive for success is reduced. Failure is sometimes mitigated by government bailouts and powerful items given only to those doing poorly in the race. Those racers who do well are rewarded with poor items, like banana peels, which only prove a minor deterrence to those behind. Items like the Bullet Bill, which takes hold of your racer and jets you ahead, smashing aside the competition in the process, are given only to those doing extremely badly.

Being “the best” in Mario Kart is potentially much less appealing than doing so in business. A particularly insidious item — the winged Blue Shell — is given fairly often to those near the back of the race. When launched, it seeks out and almost unfailingly devastates the leader, also harming anyone in the immediate vicinity. Even falling behind won’t save you, as the shell targets whoever was in first at the time of launch.

This type of help is different and probably has no direct analogue in economical terms. Unlike other effects which propel the player forward and increase chances of victory (or help a firm “stay in the game”), the blue shell seldom has much effect on the race of the player who launches it. As it seeks out the leader, the shell rarely affects more than two or three players, resulting in a shift in the top standings but not directly impacting those players in the back, including, presumably, the player who fired it. Thus, the shell is more of a vengeance move, and one that greatly reduces incentive to be in the lead.

Any mechanic which wrests sense of control and desire to succeed from a player is dangerous in a game, and it is easy to see how certain individuals might find that they have no real reason to try much harder, when racing at a mediocre level is seemingly rewarded by a system which, as a friend of mine has put it, seemingly does not want you to win — or at least, be winning.