Game theory is the fun-sounding branch of economics introduced in the 1940s by Hungarian genius John von Neumann and developed in the 1950s by Princeton’s John Nash, subject of the 2001 Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind.

Over the years, the status of game theory — which describes the interactions of self-interested parties such as poker players and deal makers — soared, and its insights were applied to fields as far-reaching as evolution, auctions, even counterterrorism. Playing along, we here at the CDU decided to find out just how much court time game theory gets in the big game of business. After all, it has been taught to almost every one of the some 2.5 million MBAs and economists in the United States alone. Surely, we thought, it would be a slam dunk to turn up dozens of examples of game theory applied in the real world.

Adopting our usual rigorous methodology, we set the following parameters. To count, an example must:

be an actual business situation where somebody used the insights of game theory; have occurred within the past five years; and involve real, live, actual companies — not governments, nonprofit organizations, or Russell Crowe.

First, we scoured the literature. We selected a relevant portfolio of 40 publications and submitted our queries. We tried again. And again. And we found . . . nothing. There were plenty of mentions of government spectrum auctions, and A Beautiful Mind came up hundreds of times. Not quite what we had in mind.

Perhaps, we thought, the media just doesn’t get it. Undaunted, we assembled a panel of 30 respected game theorists around the world, and we sent them a survey asking, “Can you think of any examples of real, live companies that have consciously applied game-theoretical concepts to a real business problem?”

The response was . . . a deafening chorus of head scratching.

“The short answer is, I don’t know,” said David Levine of UCLA. “Let me think about this,” replied MIT’s Muhamet Yildiz.