The term game is c. 1200, from Old English gamen "joy, fun; game, amusement," common Germanic (cognates: Old Frisian game "joy, glee," Old Norse gaman "game, sport; pleasure, amusement," Old Saxon gaman, Old High German gaman "sport, merriment," Danish gamen, Swedish gamman "merriment"), said to be identical with Gothic gaman "participation, communion," from Proto-Germanic *ga- collective prefix + *mann "person," giving a sense of "people together."

Humans have enjoyed games since the dawn of time. Game theory is the process of modeling the strategic interaction between two or more players in a situation containing set rules and outcomes. Game theory assumes that agents make rational decisions at all times. Utility refers to some ranking, on some specified scale, of the subjective welfare or change in subjective welfare that an agent derives from an object or an event. Games theory is useful to "play out" various scenarios in customer experience, product design, and decision making.

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Merriment in sport, modeling the game of life, participation