Economics Challenge Series 2025 Results – Challenge 4: Ice Cream Game

about 20 hours ago (Edited)

Hi Everyone,

It is time to reveal the results for the 2025 Economics Challenge Series. All six challenges have been posted. Below are the links to these challenges.

The challenge series has become an annual event held in July and August. The challenge series normally consists of seven challenges. This year because of some time constraints, it has been reduced to just 6.

The purpose of the challenge series is to enable participants to use their knowledge of basic economic concepts to help them to win. Concepts include demand and supply, game theory, expected value, and location theory.

The challenge series is set up to reward participation. The first 15 participants are upvoted, and the prize increases by 4 Hive Power with each participant until a maximum of 60 Hive Power is reached. There is also a prize for the overall winner. This prize increases by 1 Hive Power and can reach a maximum of 80 Hive Power. Potentially, a lot of Hive Power could be given away.

You can read about the challenge series in any of the challenge posts.

Results

Welcome to the results post for the Ice Cream Game Challenge. This post contains the results as well as how they were generated using a Microsoft Excel model.

Winner Determined in this Video

▶️ Watch on 3Speak

What is the Ice Cream Game?

The Ice Cream Game requires participants to select a beach and then a location on that beach to set up an ice cream stand. The stand attracts customers based on its proximity to customers. The stand can only attract customers that do not need to pass another ice cream stand (competitor) to reach it. The ice creams sold by each stand are identical. Therefore, participants cannot compete on price or quality of product.

The objective of the game is to obtain the most customers. If two participants obtain the same number of customers, the participant who entered first wins.

Responses to the contest are made in the comments section of the post.

The format of the required entry is explained in detail in the challenge itself.

Results of the Ice Cream Game Challenge

Table 1 contains the locations selected by each participant.

Table 1: Locations Selected by Participants

Note: Participants in red are not considered, as they have selected a location taken by another participant.

Table 2 contains the number of customers on each beach. This includes a basic number that would be attracted to the beach if there was one ice cream stand as well as additional customers attracted to the beach as the number of ice cream stands increases (5% increase per ice cream stand).

Table 2: Total Number of Customers for Each Beach

Beach	Minimum	Maximum	Final Value (Adjusted)
West	400	500	506
East	350	450	469
North	300	600	341

Note: Final values may exceed the maximum because the stated maximum does not include the increase in the number of customers caused by more ice cream stands on the beach.

The values used in Table 2 have been used to determine the number of customers the participants’ ice cream stand received based on their locations. See Table 3 for the results of this challenge.

Table 3: Number of Customers for Each Participant

As 17 participants entered this challenge, the maximum prize of 60 Hive Power can be won: 40 Hive Power for the winner and 20 Hive Power for second place.

Congratulations to @temple for winning the Ice Cream Game Challenge. He attracted 190 customers to his ice cream stand at West Beach. Second place goes to @urrirru for attracting 171 from North Beach. Third place goes to @hatdogsensei for attracting 168 customers from East Beach. @temple wins 40 Hive Power and 30 points. @urrirru wins 20 Hive Power and 20 points. @hatdogsensei wins 10 points.

Overall Series Score

After four challenges, the overall scores for the Challenge Series are as follows:

Position	Participants	Points
1	Micheal87	40
2	Goshen	40
3	Tortangkahoy	30
4	Temple	30
5	Urrirru	20
6	Emeka4	15
7	Bereal47	15
8	Hatdogsensei	15
9	Lee1938	5

This table will be updated in every results post.

Tips for Future Ice Cream Games

The Ice Cream Game is considerably less complex than most of the other games in the Challenge Series. Participants should consider three important areas before selecting a location.

The expected number of customers for the beach. It is better to select a beach that attracts more customers in respect to its length. The mean number of customers is easy to calculate, as a uniform distribution is used. A higher mean is also likely to attract more ice cream stands. This will further increase the number of customers to the beach. However, this also increases the risk of being surrounded by other ice cream stands, thus limiting the number of customers.

The number of ice cream stands in close proximity. It is better to select a location that is not close to other ice cream stands. At the time of entry, this is difficult to determine, as a participant entering later could choose the location next to yours. To reduce the chances of this happening, it might be wise to select a location next to an undesirable location. The least desirable locations are the end locations. Therefore, the second-from-the-end location is likely to attract relatively more customers if the challenge has a high number of entries.

Timing of entry. Entering early has the advantage of winning tiebreakers, which is important in a game where many participants are likely to attract the same number of customers. However, entering early leaves the participant blind to the actions of others. It is possible that his or her location could become surrounded by later entries. Entering too late puts a participant at a disadvantage, as all the good locations have probably been taken. Entering reasonably early is likely to be better than entering very early (e.g., in the first three) or late (e.g., after the 10th). This timing of entry is most advantageous when there are few entries or when the actions of other participants are not strategic (e.g., selecting end locations).

The Sapien Loop Series

I am writing a trilogy of books titled Sapien Loop. The first in the series is Sapien Loop: End of an Era and the second is Sapien Loop: Frozen in Time. I published both of these books as ebooks on Amazon, and I have posted completed chapters to my @captainhive account. I anticipate publishing the third book in early 2027. I expect to title this book Sapien Loop: Worlds Collide. In 2025, I plan to write short stories about some of the characters and their adventures. I will post these to my @captainhive over the course of the year.

Brief Summary of Sapien Loop: End of an Era

This story is based on the fictional planet Sapia and its sole country, Sapey. Sapey is portrayed as a form of utopia for all its citizens. No poverty. No war. Almost no crime. Opportunities for all.

This was enough for most citizens, but not all. In one of the small regions, some of the citizens had become discontent. They felt something important was missing in their lives. Their discontent did not go unnoticed. Some of the Sapey elite wanted to weaponise this discontent to gain more power. This created more chaos than they anticipated. This led to further widespread social unrest.

On top of the chaos, ambition and greed provoked another enemy. This enemy was on a mission to settle both new and old scores.

Brief Summary of Sapien Loop: Frozen in Time

This story is based six years after the original story. The Downs Region is still suffering from a serious health crisis caused by the contaminated water. The main characters are desperately trying to find a cure for the illness that has been caused by the water.

One of the main characters has discovered frozen humanoids in hidden chambers. It appears they have been frozen for a long time. These chambers connect to a vast network of tunnels. While exploring the tunnels, one of the frozen humanoids disappears. It appears he has been stolen.

The story takes a step back in time to tell the story of the frozen humanoids. How and why were they frozen? This part of the story also explains the fall of ancient Sapey and the birth of the Sapiens. Can those from the past be able to coexist with those from the present?