The sole objective is to go for as long as possible without consciously thinking or talking about the game in any way. Once you realize you have, you've temporarily lost the game and have to start over. You must also announce your loss to others, forcing them to lose the game with much swearing.

Once you know about it, you're automatically playing it. In all versions, there is either no way to stop playing or the game isn't over til some event happens that is 100% never going to happen.

OP has lost and dragged everyone in the comments down with them

[–] SkyeCat@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

The way I learned it, the event was the Pope having his hat knocked off, which happened within a few years of me hearing about The Game (and seemingly a few more times since).
Since then I have simply stayed winning according to my arbitrary ruleset.