The Creators...?

Mornington Crescent is a game that parodies games and sports with overly-complex rules. Players take turns to announce the names of London underground (subway) stations, and the winner is the first player to announce "Mornington Crescent". The objective is to give the appearance of skill and strategy by invoking very complicated and confusing rules.

In the early 1970s, John Horton Conway, a prominent game theorist and the father of combinatorial game theory, attempted to create a game that did not fit the von Neumann definition of a game. He created a parody of Mornington Crescent, called Finchley Central, by reducing it to only one rule; the first person to announce "Finchley Central" wins the game.

In 1977, members of the Cambridge University Science Fiction Society (CUSFS) would regularly meet at the Horse and Groom pub (Kings Street, Cambridge, UK) to, among other things, discuss game theory and drink beer. One member, Richard Pinch, had been taught Finchley Central by John Conway and they would sometimes play it in the pub.

In attempt to violate von Neuman's definition of a game even further, they created a parody of Finchley Central by reducing its one rule to its logical extreme. The first person to think of the game itself would lose. The rest, as they say, is history.

The members of CUSFS assert that the creation of The Game was a collective effort, but Nigel Goldenfeld and Mark Haslett were probably the most responsible for releasing it into the public. The CUSFS 1977 collective includes:

* Dr Nigel Goldenfeld - "What's scary about all this is that it took so long for it to take over the world."
* Mark Haslett - "We did not realise what a viral concept it was and I continue to lose from time to time now 30 years on."
* Philip Brice - "The idea developed of a game in which you didn't know you were competing in until you weren't."
* Dr Nick Lowe - "Our meetings are still punctuated, and often opened, with the words 'Gah! I lose.'"
* Dr Richard Pinch

So, after more than 3 years of searching for its origins, is it possible that we've finally tracked down the individuals who masterminded The Game over 30 years ago? Is The Game a parody of a parody of a parody, created by drunken game theorists who had no idea of what they had unleashed on the world?

While there is of course no hard evidence to prove these claims, unless this is some kind of very elaborate hoax, it is certainly the most plausible story we've heard so far and the closest we've ever come to knowing The Game's true origins.

I lost so many times in that, so:

lol could be worse, the current world champion of the game was 86 years old and not lost once since birth so she was sent a letter explaining it causing her to loose

wow that was so cool i always wondered where it came from xD i remeber just being stood and someone would go... "damn i lost" and everyone would stare blankly before all going "DAMN IT!."

lol it's so fun making people loose

I sucked XD I always lost

lol XD we all lose reading that

lol thats the beuty of it