In general, the games are played on a host graph, where each node is a
selfish independent agent (player) and each edge has a fixed link creation cost
\alpha. Together the agents create a network (a subgraph of the host graph)
while selfishly minimizing the link creation costs plus the sum of the
distances to all other players (usage cost). In this paper, we pursue two
important facets of the network creation game. First, we study extensively a
natural version of the game, called the cooperative model, where nodes can
collaborate and share the cost of creating any edge in the host graph. We prove
the first nontrivial bounds in this model, establishing that the price of
anarchy is polylogarithmic in n for all values of α in complete host
graphs. This bound is the first result of this type for any version of the
network creation game; most previous general upper bounds are polynomial in n.
Interestingly, we also show that equilibrium graphs have polylogarithmic
diameter for the most natural range of \alpha (at most n polylg n). Second, we
study the impact of the natural assumption that the host graph is a general
graph, not necessarily complete. This model is a simple example of nonuniform
creation costs among the edges (effectively allowing weights of \alpha and
\infty). We prove the first assemblage of upper and lower bounds for this
context, stablishing nontrivial tight bounds for many ranges of \alpha, for
both the unilateral and cooperative versions of network creation. In
particular, we establish polynomial lower bounds for both versions and many
ranges of \alpha, even for this simple nonuniform cost model, which sharply
contrasts the conjectured constant bounds for these games in complete (uniform)
graphs
