The Playmaker Game in Beta

PLAYMAKER^® beta is a free prototype card game designed for board gamers, high school and college students, board room strategists, counterintelligence officers, and other members of the influence industries.

Unlike any game ever, it showcases the precise “plays” that drive any form or function of influence—from marketing and sales to advertising and PR to politics and information warfare, to media and more.

TEST THE GAME Be among the first to test PLAYMAKER beta by applying here. You’ll be asked for your contact information, agreement to the game’s terms of use, and a promise to complete our questionnaire of your playing experience.

Played with three-to-six individuals or teams in a best-of-seven-rounds format PLAYMAKER challenges participants to out-pitch their peers with strategies and stories that bring to life a preliminary set of 15 familiar scenarios in business, politics and pop culture. Controlled tests have yielded hilarious yet memorable lessons in the art and science of influence.

A production version of PLAYMAKER with approximately 50 scenarios is expected in 2022. Shown right, is an example of a how a round of PLAYMAKER might proceed with standard rules and four players. Three variations on the rules are included for testers to try.

WHAT’S A PLAY? A play (aka, influence play) is a strategy used to influence others, intentional or not—one of 23 elements in Playmaker Systems’ professionally-tested and patented Taxonomy of Influence Strategies. This breakthrough framework, first described in the landmark book, The Elements of Influence by Alan Kelly, sheds light on how kids spin parents and media spin stories, companies protect reputations and marketers burnish brands, politicians go negative, and propagandists hijack truth.

See our announcement of PLAYMAKER beta here.