YMMV / The Game (2005)

• Condemned by History: The book was a massive success when it first came out in 2005, selling over 3 million copies and propelling its central subject, former magician and self-proclaimed "seduction guru" Mystery, to stardom with his own best-selling book and reality show. However, as the subculture of pick-up artists became better understood, the book became subject to increasingly harsh scrutiny for promoting and glorifying an openly misogynistic lifestyle that treated women as robots that could be "won" with the right tactics, and little in the terms of actually caring about them as people. The final death blow was a decade later in 2015, when Strauss published the follow-up The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships, where he openly denounced his original book and showed how following it like he did ultimately did nothing but damage his own life and relationships. Today, the book is only remembered for emboldening a dangerous subculture, with Mystery and those like him now viewed as bitter con artists who used the book's success as a means of earning profit.
• Designated Hero: Neil attempts to cast himself as the Only Sane Man in a community filled with lotharios, but he comes off as just as bad (if not worse) and his attempts to justify or explain his own behavior come off as disingenuous at best. Among other instances in the book, he knowingly gets involved in affairs with married or committed women, steals women from their boyfriends in the middle of clubs, mocks other men for their inability to score, uses every advantage he can (up to and including fake personas) to get what he wants, and generally acts like a smarmy, self-entitled man throughout the original book and its companion.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing:
  • The book concludes that the Seduction Community can become hollow over time and that being able to pick up scores of women will not solve your problems. In fact, as the climax shows, it can actually make things worse, and perhaps the only way to make your life better is to do it yourself. Yet, many PUAs cite that this is the book that started their journey.
  • While Rules of the Games first volume ostensibly tries to get the reader to a point where they'll be comfortable hosting their own dinner party with people they might not even know, the book itself repeatedly has disclaimers and warnings saying that you should not pursue the techniques within unless you're absolutely confident in your abilities.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Not only did Neil and Lisa's relationship fail but he became permanently linked to the pickup artist community as well as makes money supporting their lifestyle via the Stylelife Academy.

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