ABSTRACT
Games have customarily been thought of as repeated, negative patterns of social interaction arising out of the constraints imposed by scripts. This chapter suggests that certain kinds of ‘horizontal’ games might be better understood as caused and maintained by deficits in options for living within a collective frame of reference. Beginning with a review of Eric Berne’s original game theory, the chapter shows the ways in which these revised ideas are already consistent with some aspects of Berne’s theory whilst challenging his default prioritisation of the psychological over the social in his conceptualisation of how games come about. The chapter concludes with some thoughts on how particular types of contextual conditions and transitions might change the probability of certain games being played whilst arguing that these conditions are themselves often subject to change.
