A no-win situation, also called a lose-lose situation, is one where a person has choices, but no choice leads to a net gain. For example, if an executioner offers the condemned the choice of death by being hanged, shot, or poisoned, all choices lead to death; the condemned is in a no-win situation.

In game theory

In game theory, a "no-win" situation is a circumstance in which no player benefits from any outcome, hence ultimately losing the match. This may be because of any or all of the following: * Unavoidable or unforeseeable circumstances causing the situation to change after decisions have been made. This is common in

text adventure '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...

s. * ''

Zugzwang Zugzwang (German for "compulsion to move", ) is a situation found in chess and other turn-based games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage because of their obligation to make a move; a player is said to be "in zugzwang" when any legal move ...

'', as in

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

, when any move a player chooses makes them worse off than before such as losing a

piece Piece or Pieces (not to be confused with peace) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * Piece (chess), pieces deployed on a chessboard for playing the game of chess * ''Pieces'' (video game), a 1994 puzzle game for the Super NES * ...

or being checkmated. * A situation in which the player has to accomplish two mutually dependent tasks each of which must be completed before the other or that are mutually exclusive (a

Catch-22 ''Catch-22'' is a satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. Often cited as one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century, it uses a distinctive non-ch ...

). * Ignorance of other players' actions, meaning the best decision for all differs from that for any one player (as in the

prisoner's dilemma The Prisoner's Dilemma is an example of a game analyzed in game theory. It is also a thought experiment that challenges two completely rational agents to a dilemma: cooperate with their partner for mutual reward, or betray their partner ("def ...

In history

Carl von Clausewitz Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (; 1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral", in modern terms meaning psychological, and political aspects of waging war. His mo ...

's advice never to launch a

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

that one has not already won characterizes war as a no-win situation. A similar example is the Pyrrhic victory in which a military victory is so costly that the winning side actually ends up worse off than before it started. Looking at the victory as a part of a larger situation, the situation could either be no-win, or more of a win for the other side than the one that won the "victory", or victory at such cost that the gains are outweighed by the cost and are no longer a source of joy. For example, the "victorious" side may have accomplished their objective, which may have been worthless; it may also lose a strategic advantage in manpower or positioning. For example, the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

was one of the victorious powers of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

but was so weakened that it could no longer maintain its status as a

great power A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power in ...

in a world that became dominated by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. A related concept is sometimes described as winning the battle but losing the war. Then a lesser objective is then won, but the true objective beyond it is not well pursued and is lost. In the past in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

, those accused of being witches were sometimes bound and then thrown or dunked in water to test their innocence. A witch would float (by calling upon the devil to save her from drowning), and then be executed, but a woman not a witch would drown (proving her innocence but causing her death).BBC - h2g2 - Matthew Hopkins, 'Witchfinder General' of East Anglia
/ref>

In video games

Many

s, graphical adventure games and role-playing video games can reach an unwinnable state where it has become impossible for the player to win the game (either due to a bug or by design), and where the only options are restarting the game, loading a previously

saved game A saved game (also called a game save, savegame, savefile, save point, or simply save) is a piece of digitally stored information about the progress of a player in a video game. From the earliest games in the 1970s onward, game platform hardw ...

, wandering indefinitely, or a game over (a negative game end, such as death). This is also known as a dead end situation. A ''softlock'' is a state in a game that prevents the player from continuing without the computer

freezing Freezing is a phase transition where a liquid turns into a solid when its temperature is lowered below its freezing point. In accordance with the internationally established definition, freezing means the solidification phase change of a liquid ...

and rendering the game unplayable. Usually, this is the result of the player's previous choices, and not due to the game itself lacking a path to victory. Unwinnable states are usually not fatal in games that utilize checkpoints or are divided into levels in which progress cannot be saved midway through one, allowing players to reload a checkpoint or restart the level to reverse an unwinnable situation. However, in other games, softlocks may cripple or

corrupt Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

save files, forcing the player to start completely anew from the very beginning of the game in order to get further in the game. For example, in games such as '' Goldeneye 007'', '' Perfect Dark'', and '' TimeSplitters'', the level does not end once a player fails an objective short of being killed, but it is impossible to progress to the next level no matter what the player does afterwards. Other games take steps to ''avoid'' unwinnable situations; for example, a game may not allow players to drop items which are necessary to continue. Softlocks can be triggered by incorrect manipulation of game code or mechanics, as seen in speedrunning – should a certain sequence of tasks to perform a sequence break be carried out incorrectly, the game may become softlocked, forcing either a restart of the game or the console altogether. ''Unwinnable'' should not be confused with ''unbeatable'', which is used to describe a character, monster, or puzzle that is too powerful or difficult to be overcome by the player or character at a lower standing, and is normally found in role-playing video games. In many cases, "unbeatable" gamestates occur because of

integer overflow In computer programming, an integer overflow occurs when an arithmetic operation attempts to create a numeric value that is outside of the range that can be represented with a given number of digits – either higher than the maximum or lower ...

or other errors programmers did not take into account, called a

kill screen ''Kill Screen'' (stylized as ''KILL SCREEN'') was a print and online magazine founded in 2009 by Jamin Warren and Chris Dahlen and owned by Kill Screen Media, Inc. It focused on video games and culture, but also included articles based on e ...

. In this situation, the game may also

crash Crash or CRASH may refer to: Common meanings * Collision, an impact between two or more objects * Crash (computing), a condition where a program ceases to respond * Cardiac arrest, a medical condition in which the heart stops beating * Couch su ...

In other media

In the film ''

WarGames ''WarGames'' is a 1983 American science fiction techno-thriller film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film, which stars Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, and Ally Sheedy, follow ...

'', the supercomputer WOPR simulates all possible games of

tic-tac-toe Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. ...

as a metaphor for all possible scenarios of a nuclear war, each of them ending in a

nuclear holocaust A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenar ...

(

mutual assured destruction Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the ...

). The computer then exclaims: "A strange game; the only winning move is not to play". In the '' Star Trek'' canon, the ''

Kobayashi Maru The ''Kobayashi Maru'' is a training exercise in the ''Star Trek'' franchise designed to test the character of Starfleet Academy cadets in a no-win scenario. The ''Kobayashi Maru'' test was first depicted in the 1982 film '' Star Trek II: The ...

'' simulation is a no-win scenario designed as a character test for command track cadets at

Starfleet Academy In the fictional universe of ''Star Trek'', Starfleet Academy is where recruits to Starfleet's officer corps are trained. It was created in the year 2161, when the United Federation of Planets was founded. The Academy's motto is "''Ex astri ...

. It first appears in the film '' Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan''. In the film, Admiral James T. Kirk states that he does not believe in the no-win scenario. In the TV show '' Quantico'', the agents are put in a terrorist hijack flight simulation mission that is unbeatable.

References

External links