Response to “Playing for Keeps: An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Games” Although I had arrived at most of the same conclusions myself before reading the article, I was particularly pleased by one thought in particular, inspired by the article’s analysis.  It has always seemed strange to me that we often find lying and exposing another’s gullibility to be funny.  This article proposes that all play is preparation for adult skills demanding similar processes.  When one teasingly lies, one is playing in order to learn how to tell others lies and how to detect lies when others exploit them around you.  That is also why saying “I got you” is such an integral part of the sequence.  Without the final confession and re-confederation, one is actually lying to profit from the other person without their knowledge.  Given that we are so socially dependent, it makes a good deal of sense that we practice betrayal and betrayal recognition in a playful way. This idea fits in line with the theory that we play sports games to learn how to organize for warfare, we make witticisms to contend in displays of intelligence, we play hide-and-go seek to learn how to cache ourselves from predators and enemies and to track those we seek to eliminate. However, it is quite obvious that humans have also remade play into a non-instructive pursuit.  People play games as ends not means.  If games were merely vehicles to encourage practice and training, we would not see adults playing games at all.  Typically, as an adult–save for a few exceptions–games do not improve one’s talent as a breadwinner.  This paper lacks an adequate explanation for why adults continue to play games for their entire lives, whereas other mature animals lose interest in playing them.