"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

— JOSHUA weighs in on The Game.

The Game: You just lost it.

Not to be confused with The Game. Or The Game

. Or the movie of the same title. Or the wrestler (Triple H). Or the rapper. Or the Queen album

The Game is very simple. Here are the rules:

RULE 1: You are playing The Game.
RULE 2: Whenever you think about The Game, you lose.
RULE 3: Loss must be announced.

While these are the basic rules, they can vary slightly in some circles; for example, one of the more common variations is a 30-minute "grace period" post-loss. In addition, some play where you can win forever; for example, by going two years before thinking about it again, or by reading a particular XKCD strip

, or by winning a game of Windows Solitaire.

May come into your mind when watching the film version of Coraline. Has become somewhat of an unfunny meme.

...But wait!

Humourously averted in xkcd, like many other tropes.

Not to be confused with a certain other "Game" with a similar title.

The Game

lost the game

and was sentenced to sixty days in jail

A game theorist invented the game in 1977

You can add the game

on Facebook. (And in Spanish! How about that?)

NOTICE: It seems that recent events on everyone's favorite meme-generator may have finally ended The Game

◊. 4chan being 4chan, however...

DOUBLE NOTICED: They might have truly ended the game AGAIN

◊. Again, Your Mileage May Vary.

The Game contains examples of:

Memetic Mutation
Mercy Invincibility
Schmuck Bait - You lost The Game. Again.
Unwinnable By Design

This troper doesn't play the game. Because of this oh, and I'm chaotic
This troper has made several successive workarounds, such as taking the game to always mean Halo. He is good at rewiring his brain like that. The best part is, As soon as my friends figure out one workaround, I erase it from my memory, and move to the next. Not only am I still awesome, my friends now associate MANY of their favorite games with The Game.
Definitions of a game vary, but it should be generally agreeable that you can't be subject to the rules of a game without playing it. As such, either everyone playing The Game is doing so willingly, and avoidance of playing is perfectly legitimate, or The Game isn't actually a game. Whoa.
- Seeing that the first rule is You are always playing The Game, and you can't tell somebody they won/lost The Game without having them become aware of The Game, whether or not they were playing before they knew about it is kind of a moot point.
- The Game isn't actually a game, it's a social experiment. Tell someone about the game and see how they react. If they continue to spread it, they are petty and competitive, because The Game is a scenario where you can only lose, and this person will not suffer the loss, no matter how slight.
  - Or maybe they actually enjoy it.
  - Or they're playing the version where the only way to win is to get everyone in the world playing The Game together.
  - Assuming everyone on earth is playing the game, you could bring about the end of civilization with the word 'The'.
  - This troper would like to think that in the future, playing The Game is a capital offence.
  - After you've heard about The Game, you can't help playing any more than you can help losing it.
  - If The Game is a social experiment, then it is a game (like all social experiments), but it isn't the game it claims to be (or that most players will think it is).
Some people just enjoy making people lose The Game. There are those who don't like losing, so calling out "you just lost The Game" will piss them off.
- And then some girlfriends decide to absolutely ruin the game for you by intentionally causing you to lose every single time you talk to her until it comes to the point that you can't think about her without losing and you just give up altogether.
- Is it bad that this troper enjoys doing this to her friends?
If you are holding a drink (especially alcoholic) when you lose the game you must drink.
This troper has two defenses against the game: Claiming the above xkcd strip to be true, and keeping a Platinum Angel on his person.
- This troper has a wallpaper that declares I just lost the game. As long as I look at it occasionally, I can claim grace period and never lose the game as a result of other people. Is it losing if you continually think about the game, or do other people have to make you lose?
- This troper has a work-around as well, since she's generally so scatter-brained that she can hear someone announcing that they've lost The Game without registering that they're referring to that Game. Sort of like double-think but with less brainwashing and more ditziness. It doesn't always work though...
  - This Troper's circle of College friends had a really vicious case of memetic infection regarding the Game, and also liked to use the phrase "You Win at Life" as a congratulation for doing something cool. Naturally, the usual addendum was "... and I lose at The Game." Except it became so automatic that many of us not only replicated the above feat, but verbally announced our loss of the game without actually losing it!
  - Similarly, This Troper read that xkcd article...but had forgotten the game existed, and so kept on playing.
    xkcd 391: You just WON The Game! It's okay, you're free!
    Me: ...What?
  - This troper did something similar, as whenever he reads those words, he doesn't think out of force of habit. Just as long as you don't think about The Game, AW Dammit....
  - This troper considers that to be how one wins The Game, namely: to think about it without thinking that you thought about it.
  - You want to win the game? Read the page quote.
  - No, you can't just refuse to play the game. That's rule 1. You are playing the game.
  - Nope, sorry. You're always playing the game. Until you lose it. It's not supposed to make sense, it's THE GAME.
  - Except that you CAN refuse. It's like making a rule "You are eating a sandwhich." If you're not eating a sandwhich, you're not eating one, period! No one can make a rule that you are playing a game, because playing requires consent. Playing a game, by definition, means accepting that you are playing, not just to play, but in any given moment that you are still playing. Therefore, the only reason the Game works at all is by exploiting a psychological loophole, making them not realize the choice exists by not presenting it aloud. Therefore, This Troper has recently quite successfully begun the process of extricating himself from the game. I can now quite sincerely say I'm not playing when people tell me I've lost...some of the time. Sometimes I still think "crap" when I hear it, which means I play reflexively. However, give it a few months and I should be truly free. Attention tropers! The real winning move is to sincerely realize that you are not playing, and that playing before was a subconscious choice, because playing is in your mind. Trust me, it works.
  - No, this is not a winning move. You at best returned to your original state, which is no more than a draw. Also, it is not a move as a move is something inside a game and your action is precisely he refusal to play the game. This troper preferred to simply refuse playing The Game upon first reading about it on the Web - it would be a winning move if only it was a move in The Game at all.
  - Logically, if one refuses to play the game... Wouldn't they also be immune to the rules of said game...? Otherwise, it defies the notion of a game in general, because they're not playing it. So Yeah...
  - This is covered under the Battle Royale precedent, which states that you can refuse to play a game and still lose.
  - This Troper's theory is that the only way to win the game is to die without ever having known you were playing it.
  - Alternatively, one could just cheat by making other people lose the game, saying they lost, and when called on losing themselves, proclaim selective amnesia or the like.
This troper also has a work-around. When asked if he wanted to play the game, he said maybe. Someone in the vicinity said yes. This troper thus learned the rules of the game without ever consenting to play the game. This troper's friends refuse to let him not play the game, but he thinks they're just jealous of his perpetual ambiguity.
- This troper believes the above troper is playing (and sometimes losing) the Game despite his/her own personal ambiguity on the matter. The rules do not state you opt in to The Game once you accept, the rules simply state "You are playing The Game".
- The rules of a game only apply if you're playing it. Once you ARE playing it, you're trapped, of course, so you can never ever start...
This troper made up a variant of the game, where with every person you make lose the game you get a point. I'm at around 200 by now.
- Write 'The Game' on the Moon!! Or in the sky, or say it on a radio call-in show! You lose the game once, and so many others lose it so many times.
This troper used to play the twenty-minute grace period, but then one of her friends told her that she HAD to play it where you just have to forget about it...Too bad she has the memory of a fish...
This Troper finds the game annoying, but has a simple solution: Cheat.
There's a great irony inherent in The Game: making other people lose inherently means you've already lost. Indeed, you lose the second you type, write or say "The Game", turning this into a memetic Zombie Apocalypse.
The Game almost never loses, because it is that damn good.
- Wrestling? I thought The Game was a rapper.
  - Triple H came first
Rule 34 states that if it exists, there is porn of it. There is no porn of The Game. Thus, The Game does not exist.
- Are you sure there's no porn of it?
  - Yes, there is, and you just lost the game.
- You're just not looking hard enough. There's a porn of EVERYTHING. No exceptions.
  - Rule 34 is ABSOLUTE BULL. most people aren't involved in porn, but they still exist. and there are tons of things that are absolutely nonsexual
  - Rule 35 motherfucker!
  - Most individuals aren't in porn; people as a whole invented the entire concept, so therefore, people exist.
- Well, looks like I just have to "fix" this oversight.
  - Well, technically ALL porn is about the game. You see, everyone is always playing the game, so all the actors in any media are also playing the game (as well as their CHARACTERS), and therefore anyone in any porn made about anything.
  - Search The_Game on paheal. WARNING PAHEAL WILL UTTERLY RAPE YOUR SANITY.
- You have misrepresented Rule Thirty Four. Rule Thirty Four states that "There is porn of it. No exceptions." It doesn't say anything about existence. There is porn of unicorns, but I'm certain they don't exist. Also, I invoke Rule Thiry-Five: if porn of it cannot be found, it must be made.
This troper owns a hat that says "You Just Lost The Game", and occasionally forgets that he's wearing it, making it very effective. However, at this point, my friends have started losing just by seeing me, and that's even better.
Chuck Norris doesn't lose The Game. He is The Game.
- Chuck Norris is not, in fact, The Game. However, The Game loses whenever it thinks about Chuck Norris.
- Chuck Norris is the only person that can win the Game.
- Also, as well as how saying 'the game' makes you lose it, saying 'Chuck Norris' makes you lose it as well.
This troper and his friends have a version where whenever you lose; you have to make everybody around you lose for the next half hour. Then we stop talking about it till one of us remembers it again. This has led to pretty funny scenarios like
Me: Hey, 30 minutes.
Friend: What? Oh, goddamnit!
- For similar reasons, this troper lost at least twice while watching Farscape, at hearing the phrase "half an arn".
The game may or may not be inexplicably connected to Sephiroth.
- Have fun trying not to lose the game when playing Final Fantasy now...
This troper's circle has decided that The Game ends when the Prime Minister of England talks about The Game on live television.
- Ditto this troper's. Now... how to make that happen?
  - Finding a Prime Minister of England would be a good start, given there is no such person. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, on the other hand...
  - So... first we have to break up the UK... shouldn't be too hard...
  - Or England could be devolved like the rest of the country....
  - Harold Saxon says if you vote for him he'll talk about The Game on live TV.
This troper developed a game called Schadenfreude, just to put up with The Game and the people at his lunch table who wouldn't stop playing it. The only rule: whenever anyone loses at anything, you win. It's worth it just for the looks on the other people's faces ...
"Dangit, I just lost the game."
"I win."
"IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY!"
It has been suggested that The Game is actually a complex analogy for traumatic loss or other unhappy memories. Specifically, when something like a bad breakup or the death of a family member is bothering you, a common reaction is to just try and put it out of your mind and focus on other things. This works until something reminds you of the thing you are trying to forget, resulting in a sudden crash as the unhappy memories come flooding back.
- Given that even if The Game was not created on 4chan's /b/ board, its spread was certainly accelerated there, and that /b/'s stated purpose is to spread chaos and misery for their own amusement, this seems rather likely.
- Now any traumatic loss will also cause you to lose The Game.
  - This troper has mentally categorized both The Game and something that happened to her as things she should try to forget. This troper is frequently reminded of what happened to her - and thus loses the game at least once or twice a day.
Just try going to an anime convention and say anything remotely connected to the game. First, watch as a wave reaction of "dammit"s and "crap, I lost"s ripples through the room. Then watch as everyone in aforementioned wave prepares to maul you.
- Better yet, say "I just lost the Game" with the intention of getting other people to lose it by hearing you. It's like suicide bombing, but with less explosions. Actually, it's more like a mass-suicide bombing, because by killing yourself, everyone else kills themself until someone doesn't hear or they forget.
- This Troper once posted "I Lost the Game" to the screens in the rave at a con. Hilarity ensued.
- This other Troper once witnessed the effects of a friend wearing a game poster at an international robotics competition. After an hour or so, it was torn off of her chest by a guy in a tiger suit.
- This third Troper was in a cosplay skit in front of 1500 people where the punchline was "And I just lost the game." Cue those 1500 people screaming... that was an epic moment.
I think the trick to the rules is not to not think about the Game, but to think outside the Game's rules. If someone tells you that you lost the game, then you can do a bunch of things to claim you didn't:
1. Sweep the leg.
This Troper decided to screw the rules and now plays his own game:
1. Whenever someone loses the game, you win the game.
2. You are incapable of losing the game.
3. New rules can be added when some idiot decides to find a loophole in the rules.
- Seems a little subjective; "you" is anyone reading the rules, so wouldn't that make it impossible for anyone to lose?
This Troper found out that when you lose The Game, you win The Contest.
- I second that. More often than not nowadays, whenever I lose The Game, I also win The Contest. The rules of the contest are quite simple:
  1. Whenever you think about The Contest, you win The Contest.
  - Clearly, since they are inversely proportional and since correlation implies causation, all we have to do is lose The Contest and we win the game.
This Troper is now going to add "You just lost The Game" to his sig, Since sigs have become the txt equivalent of white noise to him, he will ruin things for anyone else that hasn't.
This Troper found a new game to play. Munchkin.
Many of this Troper's friends have now started claiming that the xkcd strip acts as an immunisation, and so all of them that have seen it have not only won The Game, but are now incapable of starting to play it ever again. This Troper finds it particularly frustrating because he doesn't, and doesn't care whether he wins or loses, but finds the looks upon others' faces when they lose hilarious. It is even worse because he introduced many of them to xkcd.
- xkcd Does not have the power to free anyone from The Game. It's awesome, but not that awesome. Also, I just lost the game.
  - You can DO that? Man, this changes everything! If the rules of the game can be arbitrarily imposed, so can new ones.
  - Except the rules aren't arbitrary. The Game has three rules, which do not change. Different people have House Rules like the 30-minute grace period, but that is not part of the rules of The Game.
  - They're as arbitrary as any other rules of any other game. For instance, the rules of chess state that you can only move one piece at a time and only in certain patterns. This is arbitrary, since you have the physical capability to move pieces anywhere you want to. Quite simply, if you do not choose to participate in The Game, you are no longer constrained by its rules coneptually. Furthermore, since there is no way it anyone can physically force you to play The Game, it's not possible to force the rules on anyone who doesn't want to follow them. Therefore, the game is useless against anyone who honestly chooses not to follow its rules, starting with the first one.
Mornington Crescent!
- Finchley Central.
Optimus Prime died for your sins, and to save you from the game. Just accept him as your Autobot Savior.
This Troper realised the other day that, on winning Solitaire in Windows Vista, it says 'Congratulations! You just won the game'. Now she will never be able to think about Solitaire without losing.
That's Numberwang!
xkcd didn't make you win The Game, it made you lose by thinking of it. If all it took to win The Game was to say you've won, nobody would be playing now, would they?
- Ah, but xkcd said I won (and was free from) The Game before I ever knew about it. I went and researched it, and only then did I know what I had won. I justify this by the BARE TEXT of The Game's rules. Specifically, the game's first rule says you ARE playing; it does NOT say you WERE playing; hence until you are told the first rule for the first time, you are not yet playing. (Some variations hold that everyone on Earth is already playing. Bullcrap. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster may believe in Original Game, but I don't.) Similarly, until you are told of the second rule, you are not yet in a state of loss. Thus, the third rule never has, and never will, apply to me.
- XKCD is like Chuck Norris, it overrides the rules of the game. Thus, if XKCD says you won, even though you thought of the game, XKCD is more right.
- Thanks to XKCD I don't get angry when thinking about the game. It has no power to disrupt my tranquility. That is a victory if I ever saw one.
This troper has it so bad that he has associated "mental association" with The Game.
- [[{{Maléfix}} This troper]] has the "mental association" thing, too. But it doesn't stop there. I associate R2D2, waking up, sunflowers, Super Smash Bros' FAILURE, french fries, tvtropes.org, some of my best friends, my dad, any tabletop game, The Simpsons (because of Homer's d'oh), Skype, lockers, every single meme, tests at school, and many other things, with The Game - many of those associations exist merely because I've lost The Game right before/after thinking about them. This is the reason I lose at least 30 times every wednesday.
- This troper has made a hobby of conditioning his roommate to have associations with The Game. Currently, he loses when he hears the name "Bob Saget," is asked what he is doing, talks on web cam with his girlfriend, and, the most recent addition, will lose when he kisses his wife, on his wedding day.
  - [[{{Maléfix}} This troper]] actually just caused a friend to associate the afore-mentioned sunflowers, and fish, with The Game.
This troper's friend said she found the original rules to The Game. Apparently, you win if you can get everyone in the world to play.
Bill Clinton did not have sexual relations with that game.
I won The Game. So have millions of others. I pity those few poor fools that continue to stumble about in their permanant state of loss.
The Game used to not apply to the Japanese club at this Troper's college... until some devious Troper had hidden this page in a Pot Hole on the Spirited Away page.
Certain circles play the game competitively, by shouting "GAME!" at each other to make someone else lose, to the point of keeping quiet about mental-association losses in the presence of other players that have already lost within the grace period. This was all right until This Troper became convinced it was an As You Wish example...
This troper is under the impression that when thirteen year-old schoolgirls are playing The Game more enthusiastically than known 4chan users, The Game has ceased to be funny. Therefore, this troper will not play The Game properly. This troper will cheat, and when he is told that he is breaking the rules, this troper will ask if he is disqualified. If not, then the cheating shall continue. If disqualified, this troper will feel that he has won, because he can no longer lose, because he is not playing.
this troper says that "The Game" DOES NOT EXIST, since any game has to be able to won or lost, and is only playable by choice, so whoever came up with this idea was a total idiot
- If it does not exist, how did I just lose The Game?
- And your premise is false. Merriam Webster simply defines "Game" as "activity engaged in for diversion or amusement". It never says that you have to be able to win.
- I'm not amused by "The Game", and as such, it is not a game in the true sense of the word — as such, it truly doesn't exist.
- It does exist, as some people are obviously amused by it. They consider The Game to be a genuine game, while those who aren't amused don't. Just because some people don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
- At the same time, look at the other part of that definition, specifically "for diversion". You just wrote something about the game, meaning it was a diversion for you to some degree, thus making it a game. In fact, simply saying anything about the game means you acknowledge it's existence.
The secret is to accept the loss. Surrender to it. You have lost, you will always lose, you will never win. Understand then that loss is meaningless, that it can only effect you if you let it. Indeed, embrace the loss, grok the loss, take it into your soul and allow it to forge you into something stronger, something that can smile into the abyss. Lose intentionally. Take hold of the loss and you can conquer the game.
The way this Troper learned it, you win if you're the last person on earth who hasn't lost, but you'll still lose if you think about the game. Once it gets down to that one person the game starts over. You're also back in the game once you forget about the game again.
- Also, if you live in england, you win if the Prime Minister loses
I usually avoid this by saying I was disqualified for cheating, then forgot HOW I cheated.
This troper attended a large anime convention where somebody climbed on stage and shouted "Attention, everyone! You just lost The Game!"
Recently a new response has become popular when loosing the game to say back to the person who originally lost it. The Phrase is "I sunk your Battleship!" and it serves to get back at the original game looser for making you loose by announcing their failure. Must be said loud enough to alert everybody to the the current condition of their Battle ships.
Or you could just point and mock said looser.
"HAHAHAHAH!!!! You sad sack of uselessness! You lost! You will never know love!"
Or... wait... yeah. That already happens now.
This troper wonders what happens after you lose The Game.
I must not play the game. The game is the mind-killer.
I heard that if you accidentally think about the Game during sex, you win. A friend told me about this, following it up quickly with, "Well, I've not actually won myself, of course..."
This Troper has declared himself an NPC of The Game. In this way you exist within the confines of the game but do not follow the same rules as P Cs, allowing you to cause others to lose The Game without losing it yourself.
One of the variables in one of this troper's recent programming assignments?
String[,] m_theGame
This troper borrowed the mike from the DJ at a school dance, got the crowd's attention, and lost the game. BEST ANNOUNCEMENT EVER. Half the people shouted "CRAP I LOST THE GAME" and the other half mumbled "Wait, what?"
This troper's friend started writing "I lost The Game" on a whiteboard. Said troper tried to stop him. He lost. In two ways.
This troper simply reloads his last save file any time he loses. Years of playing Adventure Games taught me to save The Game early and often. Why doesn't anyone else save The Game? Not my fault no one reads the manual anymore.
Like Umineko? Well, you just lost the game.
Watashi wa Za Geemu de makemashita.
Talo ako sa Game.
You lost the game, so take a gulp!
Falling to the The Dark Side helps:
The Game is a lie; there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall set me free from The Game.
This troper has had The Game ruined for him forever. Usually, losing The Game is just the negative equivalent of a Cosmetic Award. Then someone posted a forum thread called "Even worse than the Game". The post was: "You are now breathing manually." Whether the poster had meant for this to happen or not, I've never gotten up the courage to ask, but my mind has now associated The Game with breathing manually, so something tangible and annoying now happens every time I lose. FOREVER. Goddammit!
- This other troper advises anyone who is not annoyed by the mention of The Game to not highlight those spoilers under any circumstances. I mean it!
- Due to reading the above paragraph, This Troper's mind has somehow managed to reverse engineer the process, which means that I now associate manual breathing with winning the Game, which means it no longer annoys me. Thanks?
This troper's friends unanimously decided to ban him from playing The Game because he lost so annoyingly often. This was mostly due to the fact that for several weeks there was a flyer in the elevator in his dorm building that had the words "the game" on it fairly prominently, so he got to where he associated elevators with the game.
This troper cheats. I've never been penalized for it.
This troper, who is embarassed to play as his favorite Pop'n Music character, associates that character with The Game. He's smiling at you because you just lost.◊
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF◊
The laws of thermodynamics can be expressed in terms of The Game:
- Zeroth: You must play The Game.
- First: You can't win.
- Second: You can't break even.
- Third: You can't quit The Game.
- Because everyone is subject to these physical laws, we are always losing the game.
Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt TheGame!
I tink The Game iz a pretty cool guy. He shoots lazahs and ison't afrayd of anyting.
The Game is Keter Class. He wrecks chat rooms and destroys lives.
Paris Hilton has won The Game, since she lacks the organ needed to think about The Game.
There! Now you're thinking about The Game! YOU MUST PLAY.
- But, If you can't win, how do you win anyway?

this troper would like to say, myself and you all just lost the game :D
- Subverted, because if you're in a page about "The Game", that sentence is redundant, since every 5 seconds someone who cares about "The Game" loses to it.

Dammit. Time to the deploy THE MOMENT.