Games People Play

4 THE FUNCTION OF GAMES 
Because there is so little opportunity for intimacy in daily life, and because some forms of intimacy 
(especially if intense) are psychologically impossible for most people, the bulk of the time in 
serious social life is taken up with playing games. Hence games are both necessary and desirable, 
and the only problem at issue is whether the games played by an individual offer the best yield for 
him. In this connection it should be remembered that the essential feature of a game is its 
culmination, or payoff. The principal function of the preliminary moves is to set up the situation for 
this payoff, but they are always designed to harvest the maximum permissible satisfaction at each 
step as a secondary product. Thus in "Schlemiel" (making messes and then apologizing) the payoff, 
and the purpose of the game, is to obtain the forgiveness which is forced by the apology; the 
spillings and cigarette burns are only steps leading up to this, but each such trespass yields its own 
pleasure. The enjoyment derived from the spilling does not make spilling a game. The apology is 
the critical stimulus that leads to the denouement. Otherwise the spilling would simply be a 
destructive procedure, a delinquency perhaps enjoyable. 
The game of "Alcoholic" is similar: whatever the physiological origin, if any, of the need to drink, 
in terms of game analysis the imbibing is merely a move in a game which is carried on with the 
people in the environment. The drinking may bring its own kinds of pleasure, but it is not the 
essence of the game. This is demonstrated in the variant of "Dry Alcoholic," which involves the 
same moves and leads to the same payoff as the regular game, but is played without any bottles. 
Beyond their social function in structuring time satisfactorily, some games are urgently necessary 
for the maintenance of health in certain individuals. These people's psychic stability is so 
precarious, and their positions are so tenuously maintained, that to deprive them of their games may 
plunge them into irreversible despair and even psychosis. Such people will fight very hard against 
any antithetical moves. This is often observed in marital situations when the psychiatric 
improvement of one spouse (i-e., the abandonment of destructive games) leads to rapid 
deterioration in the other spouse, to whom the games were of paramount importance in maintaining 
equilibrium. Hence it is necessary to exercise prudence in game analysis. 
Fortunately, the rewards of game-free intimacy, which is or should be the most perfect form of 
human living, are so great that even precariously balanced personalities can safely and joyfully 
relinquish their games if an appropriate partner can be found for the better relationship. 
On a larger scale, games are integral and dynamic components of the unconscious life-plan, or 
script, of each individual; they serve to fill in the time while he waits for the final fulfillment, 
simultaneously advancing the action. Since the last act of a script characteristically calls for either a 
miracle or a catastrophe, depending on whether the script is constructive or destructive, the 
corresponding games ate accordingly either constructive or destructive. In colloquial terms, an 
individual whose script is oriented toward "waiting for Santa Claus" is likely to be pleasant to deal 
with in such games as "Gee You're Wonderful, Mr. Murgatroyd," while someone with a tragic 
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script oriented toward "waiting for rigor mortis to set in" may play such disagreeable games as 
"Now I've Got You, You Son of a Bitch." 
It should be noted that colloquialisms such as those in the previous sentence are an integral part of 
game analysis, and are freely used in transactional psychotherapy groups and seminars. The 
expression "waiting for rigor mortis to set in" originated in a dream of a patient, in which she 
decided to get certain things done "before rigor mortis set in." A patient in a sophisticated group 
pointed out what the therapist had overlooked: that in practice, waiting for Santa Claus and waiting 
for death are synonymous. Since colloquialisms are of decisive importance in game analysis, they 
will be discussed at length later on.