The real estate industry operates under what economists call a "prisoner's dilemma" where individual rational behavior leads to collectively irrational outcomes. Industry participants tacitly coordinate around a 6% commission structure, knowing that any defection could cause system-wide collapse. This coordination doesn't require explicit agreements---it emerges naturally from the structure of interdependencies that make each player's success dependent on maintaining the status quo.

The robustness of this collusive equilibrium became evident after the NAR v. Sitzer Burnett ruling, which many observers expected to trigger fundamental fee restructuring. Instead, no structural changes occurred. Commissions remained stable, processes unchanged, and consumer costs unaffected. This demonstrated that the game theory structure runs deeper than any single legal ruling or regulatory intervention. The system's participants understand intuitively that price competition would destroy everyone's margins without creating sustainable competitive advantages.

Mortgage brokers exhibit similar coordination by embedding compensation in interest rates rather than revealing fees transparently. Any broker who attempts to show fees clearly loses business to those who maintain opacity, reinforcing the status quo. This creates a feedback loop where transparency becomes a competitive disadvantage, ensuring that obfuscation remains the dominant strategy across all participants.

The game theory trap extends beyond pricing to innovation itself. Any individual company that invests heavily in efficiency improvements faces the risk that competitors will free-ride on their innovations while maintaining lower cost structures. This creates systematic underinvestment in productivity improvements, as rational actors recognize that innovation benefits accrue to the entire industry rather than the innovator.