Auction Settings Reference

Auction Layout separates participant information, mechanism rules, sequence, eligibility, and lifecycle presentation.

Settings workspace

The process sequence stays at the top, followed by a compact row for participant count and eligible Player Types. The left column contains the mechanism, Value information, Auction type, timing and pricing. The right column contains the active distributions, signal and payoff.

Show explanations defaults on. Turning it off hides descriptive help while retaining settings, formulas and errors. The choice is saved in this browser and does not change the game or participant view.

Players per session is the Assignment participant count. A value of 0 means open.

Under Auction type, choose Buyer (bid to buy) or Procurement (bid to supply). Under Value information, choose Private values or Common value with signals for buying, or Private costs or Common cost with signals for procurement. In English and sealed-bid auctions, the highest bid wins when buying and the lowest wins in procurement.

Standard Uniform distributions offer direct numeric bounds. The Individual signal (sᵢ) card shows the signal formula. For a standard symmetric signal, Distribution of εᵢ controls the noise using ε. Unsupported/custom expressions remain editable formulas and are not approximated. The observed signal range is shown only when it follows exactly from those standard formulas.

A winning buyer receives value minus clearing price. A winning supplier receives clearing price minus cost. In common environments the true shared value or cost determines profit. The bidder uses their individual signal during bidding. Non-winners receive zero.

Mechanism

Sealed Bid

Choose First price sealed bid or Second price sealed bid under Auction mechanism. Each eligible participant has the configured Bid submission deadline (seconds). Tie-breaking rule explains the random selection among tied highest bidders for buying or tied lowest bidders for procurement.

• First price settles at the winning participant's own bid.
• Second price selects the same winner but settles at the relevant next-ranked bid.

English Auction

Starting price is the first price offered on the acceptance button. Before anyone accepts, Current price has no accepted bid to show. After an acceptance, Current price shows that bid and the button offers the next price, increased for private-value or common-value bidding and decreased for procurement. The amount is labelled Price increment for increasing prices or Bid decrement for decreasing English procurement bids. Players accept the offered price rather than entering an arbitrary amount. No-bid timeout (seconds) sets how long the auction waits for a new bid. An accepted bid restarts it.

Dutch Auction

Starting price is the first clock price available to accept. Price decrement (buying) or Price increment (procurement) is the amount of each change, and Price step interval is the number of seconds between changes. The price decreases for buying and increases for procurement. The first participant to click Accept at the displayed price wins, and the auction ends.

Sequence

An Auction game may contain one or two Auction modules.

• select a sequence card to edit that Auction,
• swap changes the order of two Auctions,
• plus adds the second Auction,
• Trash removes the selected Auction,
• an optional Between auctions Stage may appear only between two Auctions.

The between-auctions Stage uses the shared Page editor. It is suitable for transition instructions or a participant's own first-auction input, but should not reveal information intended only for final Results.

Eligible Player Types

Eligible Player Types determines who participates in the selected Auction. It is based on Assignment Player Types and is separate from Page Audience.

A Player Type may be eligible for the mechanism but have no visible Page, or receive a Page that is not part of the selected Auction. Check both eligibility and Audience when diagnosing missing participant content.

Game Presentation

Instructions, Results, and Moderator use the shared lifecycle Stage cards. Each may contain multiple Pages and Audience rules. Not included means the lifecycle Stage does not exist; plus creates it.

Auction templates may manage generated text and formulas until an author edits them. After manual editing, later mechanism changes preserve the authored content instead of overwriting it silently.

Derived Behavior

The mechanism and information model jointly determine whether the objective is highest or lowest bid, which action appears, how settlement is calculated, and which generated Variables are available.

After changing Auction mechanism or Value information, review the distributions, Instructions, Results, and Validation together.