Poll Results

Total votes: 2785

Yes, damnit!: 1549 (55.6%)
What?: 1236 (44.4%)

For those who don't know, The Game is encapsulated by the following simple rules:

• You are always playing The Game.
• Whenever you think of The Game, you lose The Game.
• Whenever you lose The Game, you must announce that you have lost The Game.

(Aside: In one of his xkcd comics, Randall Munroe deconstructed The Game by declaring that his readers had in fact won it, and were now free of it. It's not clear whether this ruling carries any weight, although judging from the volume of e-mail I received on the subject, many people are willing to accept Randall's word and claim to not be playing The Game any more.)

To some people this whole thing is just an amusing diversion that encompasses the idea of metagames and unites similarly minded people in brief moments of shared obscure knowledge. To other people this is just a patently ridiculous concept with no apparent rhyme or reason.

Some people actively resent being told that they "are" playing a game, with no apparent consent on their part. They feel violated in some fundamental sense.

This simple exercise in attempting to determine how many of my readers are aware of "The Game" concept caused so much vitriol and hostility between people on the Irregular Webcomic! forums that I had to delete the entire discussion thread about this poll.

But The Game is nothing more than an exercise in semantics.

Words have power. They have power to do good, and they have power to cause great harm. Do not doubt it.