Games People Play

5 THE CLASSIFICATION OF GAMES
Most of the variables used in analyzing games and pastimes have already been mentioned, and any 
of them can be used in classifying games and pastimes systematically. Some of the more obvious 
classifications are based on the following factors: 
1. Number of players: two-handed games (Frigid Woman), three-handed games (Let's You and 
Him Fight), five-handed games (Alcoholic) and many-handed games (Why Don't You-Yes But). 
2. Currency used: words (Psychiatry), money (Debtor), parts of the body (Polysurgery). 
3. Clinical types: hysterical (Rapo), obsessive-compulsive (Schlemiel), paranoid (Why Does This 
Have to Happen to Me), depressive (There I Go Again). 
4. Zonal: oral (Alcoholic), anal (Schlemiel), phallic (Let's You and Him Fight). 
5. Psychodynamic: counterphobic (If It Weren't for You), projective (PTA), introjective 
(Psychiatry). 
6. Instinctual: masochistic (If It Weren't for You), sadistic (Schlemiel), fetishistic (Frigid Man). 
In addition to the number of players, three other quantitative variables are often useful to consider: 
1. Flexibility. Some games, such as Debtor and Poly-surgery, can be played properly with only one 
kind of currency, while others, such as exhibitionistic games, are more flexible. 
2. Tenacity. Some people give up their games easily, others are persistent. 
3. Intensity. Some people play their games in a relaxed way, others are more tense and aggressive. 
Games so played are known as easy and hard games, respectively. 
These three variables converge to make games gentle or violent. In mentally disturbed people, there 
is often a noticeable progression in this respect, so that one can speak of stages. A paranoid 
schizophrenic may initially play a flexible, loose, easy game of first-stage "Ain't It Awful" and 
progress to an inflexible, tenacious, hard third stage. The stages in a game are distinguished as 
follows: 
a. A First-Degree Game is one which is socially acceptable in the agent's circle. 
b. A Second-Degree Game is one from which no permanent, irremediable damage arises, but which 
the players would rather conceal from the public. 
c. A Third-Degree Game is one which is played for keeps, and which ends in the surgery, the 
courtroom or the morgue. 
Games can also be classified according to any of the other specific factors discussed in the analysis 
of IWFY: the aims, the roles, the most obvious advantages. The most likely candidate For a 
systematic, scientific classification is probably one based on the existential position; but since 
knowledge of this factor is not yet sufficiently advanced, such a classification will have to be 
postponed. Failing that, the most practical classification at present is probably a sociological one. 
That is what will be used in the next section. 
NOTES 
Due credit should be given to Stephen Potter for his perceptive, humorous discussions of 
maneuvers, or "ploys," in everyday social situations^ and to G. H. Mead for his pioneering study of 
the role of games in social living.3 Those games that lead to psychiatric disabilities have been 
systematically studied at the San Francisco Social Psychiatry Seminars since 1958, and this sector 
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of game analysis has recently been approached by T. Szasz.4 For the role of games in the group 
process, die present writer's book on group dynamics should be consulted.* 
REFERENCES 
1. Maurer, D. W. The Big Con. The Bofabs-Merrill Co., New York, 1940. 
2. Potter, S. Theory and Practice of Gamentanship. Henry Holt & Company, New York, n.d. 
3. Mead, G. H, Mind, Self, and Society. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1934. 
GAMES / 65 
4. Szasz, T. The Myth of Mental Illness. Harper & Brothers, New York' 1961. 
. . 
5. Berne, E. The Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Group's. J. B. Lippincott Company, 
Philadelphia and Montreal, 1963. 
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