The Success Game

What it is

The success game is Will Storr's third form of the status game. Rank is awarded for closely specified outcomes that need skill, talent or knowledge, and corporations and sport are the examples. Real games blend all three forms, with one mode defining the flavour.

In effect

In Storr's account, Kuna tribe members keep a lifetime record of tapir kills, and the best turtle hunters of the Meriam people carry more weight in public disputes. The Why We Project uses the idea in its article on black in branding, where the result on understated luxury, a buyer who wants peers to notice quietly, sits nearest this game.

What it does not say

Storr's framework is an organising idea from a book and not a tested experimental result. It does not say that status is the only thing people want, or that any one brand or colour belongs to one game.

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