Games People Play

5 THEY'LL BE GLAD THEY KNEW ME
Thesis
. This is a more worthy variant of "I'll Show Them." There are two forms of "I'll Show 
Them." In the destructive form White "shows them" by inflicting damage on them. Thui he may 
maneuver himself into a superior position, not for the prestige or the material rewards hut because 
it gives him power to exercise his spite. In the constructive form White works hard and exerts every 
effort to gain prestige, not for the sake of craftsmanship or legitimate accomplishment (although 
those may play a secondary role), nor to inflict direct damage on his enemies, but so that they will 
be eaten with envy and with regret for not having treated him better. 
In "They'll Be Glad They Knew Me," White is working not against but for the interests of his 
former associates. He wants to show them that they were justified in treating him with friendliness 
and respect and to demonstrate to them, for their own gratification, that their judgment was sound. 
In order for him to have a secure win in this game, his means as well as his ends must be honorable, 
and that is its superiority over "I'll Show Them." Both "I'll Show Them" and "They'll Be Glad" can 
be merely secondary advantages of success, rather than games. They become games when White is 
more interested in the effects on his enemies or friends than he is in the success itself. 
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PART III Beyond Games 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
The Significance of Games 
1. GAMES are passed on from generation to generation. The favored game of any individual can be 
traced back to his parents and grandparents, and forward to his children; they in turn, unless there is 
a successful intervention, will teach them to his grandchildren. Thus game analysis takes place in a 
grand historical matrix, demonstrably extending back as far as one hundred years and reliably 
projected into the future for at least fifty years. Breaking this chain which involves five or more 
generations may have geometrically progressive effects. There are many living individuals who 
have more than 200 descendants. Games may be diluted or altered from one generation to another, 
hut there seems to be a strong tendency to inbreed with people who play a game of the same family, 
if not of the same genus. That is the historical significance of games. 
2. "Raising" children is primarily a matter of teaching them what games to play. Different cultures 
and different social classes favor different types of games, and various tribes and families favor 
different variations of these. That is the cultural significance of games. 
3. Games are sandwiched, as it were, between pastimes and intimacy. Pastimes grow boring with 
repetition, as do promotional cocktail parties. Intimacy requires stringent circumspection, and is 
discriminated against by Parent, Adult and Child. Society frowns upon candidness, except in 
privacy; good sense knows that it can always be abused; and the Child fears it because of the 
unmasking which it involves. Hence in order to get away from the ennui of pastimes without 
exposing themselves to the dangers of intimacy, most people compromise for games when they are 
available, and these fill the major part of the more interesting hours of social intercourse. That is 
the social significance of games. 
4. People pick as friends, associates and intimates other people who play the same games. Hence 
"everybody who is anybody" in a given social circle (aristocracy, juvenile gang, social club, college 
campus, etc.) behaves in a way which n:ay seem quite foreign to members of a different social 
circle. Conversely, any member of a social circle who changes his games will tend to be extruded, 
but he will find himself welcome at some other social circle. That is the personal significance of 
games. 
NOTE 
The reader should now be in a position to appreciate the basic difference between mathematical and 
transactional game analysis. Mathematical game analysis postulates players who are completely 
rational. Transactional game analysis deals with games which are un-rational, or even irrational, 
and hence more real.