Game playing is a powerful metaphor that fits many situations where interaction
between autonomous agents plays a central role. Numerous tasks
in computer science, such as design, synthesis, verification, testing, query
evaluation, planning, etc. can be formulated in game-theoretic terms. Viewing
them abstractly as games reveals the underlying algorithmic questions, and
helps to clarify relationships between problem domains. As an organisational
principle, games offer a fresh and intuitive way of thinking through complex
issues.
As a result mathematical models of games play an increasingly important
role in a number of scientific disciplines and, in particular, in many branches
of computer science. One of the scientific communities studying and applying
games in computer science has formed around the European Network ‘Games
for Design and Verification’ (GAMES), which proposes a research and training
programme for the design and verification of computing systems, using a
methodology that is based on the interplay of finite and infinite games,
mathematical logic and automata theory.
This network had initially been set up as a Marie Curie Research Training
Network, funded by the European Union between 2002 and 2006. In its four
years of existence this network built a strong European research community
that did not exist before. Its flagship activity – the annual series of GAMES
workshops – saw an ever-increasing number of participants from both within
and outside Europe. The ESF Research Networking Programme GAMES,
funded by the European Science Foundation ESF from 2008 to 2013, builds
on the momentum of this first GAMES network, but it is scientifically broader
and more ambitious, and it covers more countries and more research groups.