God's imitator

Chapter 385 Bidding
At the same time, Yang Yuting was also staring at the two screens in front of her, paying attention to the situation of the 'inner field players' and 'outer field players' respectively.

On Fu Chen's side, they were still working together to pull the chains. Although it had become a bit difficult, there was nothing seriously wrong for the time being, and the scene was basically still.

Therefore, Yang Yuting focused her main attention on Zhou Guifen.

As a spectator, Yang Yuting's venue was a separate room with screens for observing both venues, a control panel, and some equipment exclusively for the spectators.

However, each audience member is in a separate cubicle, and there is no means for them to interact with each other.

Furthermore, unlike "King's Trial," the rules for the audience were not immediately announced upon entering the game. This may be because the game is still in the early preparation stage and has not yet officially started.

Yang Yuting could only roughly confirm one piece of information: there were likely 20 spectators in this game.

There are 20 different small screens on one of the walls. Although they don't display specific information yet, they are most likely related to some special function for the audience.

Yang Yuting's room has a number '16', which should mean that she is audience member number 16.

Furthermore, judging from the team pairings of the "inner circle players" and "outer circle players" announced, a total of 11 communities participated in the game. Community 17 was selected as the audience, so the other communities should have similar situations.

This roughly matches the figure of '20 audience members'.

It's possible that some communities only had one audience member selected, but it's impossible to confirm which community that was.

As a viewer, Yang Yuting can't do much for the time being, but she still tries to think along with the game's content.

"From the current situation, there is good news: our community is the only one with two players selected."

"Could it be a coincidence? No, it could also be an accident, after all, Aunt Zhou was recruited from the 12th community."

"If no one had been poached, then at this point, there would be two players selected from the 12th community."

"But this would bring an additional benefit: Aunt Zhou could potentially act as a bridge, which means we have a natural cooperative relationship with Fu Yujun of the 10th community and Shen Xing of the 5th community."

"Speaking of which, the arcade actually hosted a parent-child game... These people are clearly related..."

Looking back now, I realize that the game had many hints before it even started.

The name "lifting game" and the requirement for participants to be "under 30 or over 50" reveal some clues.

After the team relationships were announced, the "family ties" became even more obvious.

Jiao Hongtao and Jiao Hai, Fu Yujun and Fu Chen, Peng Hong and Peng Xinyuan, Liu Mingxin and Liu Jie—the first three pairs are clearly father and son, while Liu Mingxin's pair is mother and daughter.

Because they share the same surname, and there are some clues to be found in their appearances.

Clearly, all the players in the outer area have realized this as well.

Wu Xiaomei advised others to remain calm and not change their established strategies, but she wasn't really trying to persuade them to calm down, since she herself was the least calm one.

She said that simply because, according to the original plan, she had decided on the "sports car" and that she could most likely get it after paying 3 yuan.

While the specific rules are still unclear, generally speaking, there are two strategies that are unlikely to cause major problems:
One option is to pay 3 yuan to bid on the 'sports car';
Another option is to pay 1 yuan to win the "van" while other players are bidding normally.

Whether other items are worthwhile depends on the specific bid price. For example, bidding for the "small truck" with 2 funds is worthwhile, but if everyone crashes, bidding for the "small truck" with 3 funds is not worthwhile at all.

Wu Xiaomei realized that other players would likely also blindly offer 3 to grab the 'sports car', so she tried to persuade everyone to continue bidding according to the original strategy.

But obviously, this is impossible.

Judging from Peng Hong's attitude, he has changed his mind and will most likely no longer bid for the originally planned pickup truck, but instead choose to use the 3 yuan budget to snatch the sports car.

According to Fu Yujun's initial analysis, this was clearly an irrational strategy.

If everyone thinks like that, everyone contributes 3 and gets electrocuted together, but in the end, someone will still get a worse item.

However, the situation is different now. If the players in the team are random strangers or players from the same community, Fu Yujun's strategy is likely to be effective, since it is a better choice from a rational perspective.

But the players inside are their own children.

Even knowing it's not worth it, even knowing there's a high probability of being electrocuted, most parents would still find it difficult to remain rational in such a situation and would still want to get the best equipment for their child.

If you've been filmed but are eliminated during the audition, there's nothing you can do about it.

But if you didn't film it in the first place and gave the better car to someone else, it's hard to accept emotionally.

Even if the saved funds can be useful in the later stages of the game.

"Aunt Zhou, calm down..."

Yang Yuting prayed silently.

If she could offer advice, she would definitely suggest that Zhou Guifen use the 2000 yuan budget for the auction.

The reason is simple: among the six players outside the arena, there is a high probability that three or more players will choose to directly spend 3 to snatch the 'sports car'.

In this situation, forcibly seizing the item would be absolutely irrational.

Since that's the case, why not do the opposite and consider how to spend as little money as possible?

If a player chooses to bid with 1 unit of funds, then 2 units of funds will guarantee them the bid for the fifth-ranked truck.

If players contribute 1 and 2 funds respectively, then 3 funds will guarantee a bid for the pickup truck in the 4th tier.

The perfect scenario is if you use 3 funds to bid on the pickup truck, while the player before you spends 3 funds but loses in the electric shock round and only gets the off-road vehicle.

Of course, this idea is somewhat idealistic, because players who contribute 1 or 2 funds are likely to be able to come up with it as well.

This is somewhat like the logic of a multi-game theory, where you can only rely on luck if you don't know the personalities of the other players.

Therefore, Yang Yuting would prefer to use 2000 yuan to bid, and whatever she wins is what she gets.

But she couldn't offer any advice, so she could only watch.

……

The auction lasted for 5 minutes, but it felt like it took a very long time.

Several players in the outer area stood in front of their respective consoles, sometimes deep in thought, sometimes making bids, and sometimes looking at other players.

But these actions are not very meaningful because they cannot see the numbers on other people's control panels.

Through the screen, Yang Yuting saw that some players, including Jiao Hongtao and Peng Hong, had pressed the numbers on the control panel more than once.

Although the specific bids from these individuals are unknown, the repeated use of the control panel is clearly not a good practice.

According to the game rules, players can increase their bids at any time during the auction, but cannot cancel or reduce their bids.

This is a small but significant pitfall: once a player offers more than 2, they are very likely to continue increasing their bid due to sunk costs, eventually reaching 3.

Because they will unconsciously consider the worst-case scenario: what if they spend 2 while other players spend 3?
Since that's the case, why not add a little more and try to snag the best 'sports car'?

What if I manage to snag one?

The shorter the thinking time, the more likely some players are to impulsively go all in. This is human instinct, and it takes considerable rationality to overcome this instinct.

Soon, the countdown ends.

(End of this chapter)