Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis. Pdfdrive com

5 · Games
1 · DEFINITION
A
GAME
is an ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing
to a well-defined, predictable outcome. Descriptively it is a recurring set of
transactions, often repetitious, superficially plausible, with a concealed
motivation; or, more colloquially, a series of moves with a snare, or ‘gimmick’.
Games are clearly differentiated from procedures, rituals, and pastimes by two
chief characteristics: (1) their ulterior quality and (2) the payoff. Procedures may
be successful, rituals effective, and pastimes profitable, but all of them are by
definition candid; they may involve contest, but not conflict, and the ending may
be sensational, but it is not dramatic. Every game, on the other hand, is basically
dishonest, and the outcome has a dramatic, as distinct from merely exciting,
quality.
It remains to distinguish games from the one remaining type of social action
which so far has not been discussed. An operation is a simple transaction or set
of transactions undertaken for a specific, stated purpose. If someone frankly asks
for reassurance and gets it, that is an operation. If someone asks for reassurance,
and after it is given turns it in some way to the disadvantage of the giver, that is a
game. Superficially, then, a game looks like a set of operations, but after the
payoff it becomes apparent that these ‘operations’ were really manoeuvres; not
honest requests but moves in the game.
In the ‘insurance game’, for example, no matter what the agent appears to
be doing in conversation, if he is a hard player he is really looking for or
working on a prospect. What he is after, if he is worth his salt, is to ‘make a
killing’. The same applies to ‘the real estate game’, ‘the pajama game’ and
similar occupations. Hence at a social gathering, while a salesman is engaged in
pastimes, particularly variants of ‘Balance Sheet’, his congenial participation
may conceal a series of skilful manoeuvres designed to elicit the kind of
information he is professionally interested in. There are dozens of trade journals
devoted to improving commercial manoeuvres, and which give accounts of
outstanding players and games (interesting operators who make unusually big
deals).Transactionally speaking, these are merely variants of Sports Illustrated,
Chess World, and other sports magazines.
As far as angular transactions are concerned – games which are consciously

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planned with professional precision under Adult control to yield the maximum
gains – the big ‘con games’ which flourished in the early 1900s are hard to
surpass for detailed practical planning and psychological virtuosity.
1
What we are concerned with here, however, are the unconscious games
played by innocent people engaged in duplex transactions of which they are not
fully aware, and which form the most important aspect of social life all over the
world. Because of their dynamic qualities, games are easy to distinguish from
mere static attitudes, which arise from taking a position.
The use of the word ‘game’ should not be misleading. As explained in the
introduction, it does not necessarily imply fun or even enjoyment. Many
salesmen do not consider their work fun, as Arthur Miller made clear in his play,
The Death of a Salesman. And there may be no lack of seriousness. Football
games nowadays are taken very seriously, but no more so than such transactional
games as ‘Alcoholic’ or “Third-Degree Rapo’.
The same applies to the word ‘play’, as anyone who has ‘played’ hard poker
or ‘played’ the stock market over a long period can testify. The possible
seriousness of games and play, and the possibly serious results, are well known
to anthropologists. The most complex game that ever existed, that of ‘Courtier’
as described so well by Stendhal in The Charterhouse of Parma, was deadly
serious. The grimmest of all, of course, is ‘War’.