When people talk of playing a “game” in regard to any social obligation - especially when they admit that the playing of the game is largely indistinguishable from earnest ethical behavior - they are telling on themselves, not their environment. They are saying they view their obligations and the attitude of their interlocutors as artifice and sincerity as idiocy. They expect constant, low-level deception from their peers, over-generalizing past negative experience. If a critical mass of participants adopt this attitude, the earnest among them are turned out and the imagined hostile environment becomes real.

I mean I hate to break it to you, but there is an undercurrent of mentality among everyone that is: people will sell you out if it means their job is on the line. No amount of friendship, interaction, or skill level of yours will come into play. When it's either them or you, they side with themselves (or the majority) every time.

I stopped playing being the good employee and just started viewing everything as a means to an end. Talking? Figure out what makes them tick. Milk everything for what its worth. Engage positively out of purely Machiavellian instinct. You shouldn't do good because it's good, you should do good because you believe there is a reward somewhere. Is it evil? Well it could be considered that way, but when you work with a varying degree of people who have different dark triad traits, you need to evaluate how much of it on your end you're willing to engage with in order to get ahead. In my life, I've found that if you don't do this, people will notice and walk all over you.

Thanks for breaking it to me. I think my theory of mind is more considered, though.

> They are saying they view their obligations and the attitude of their interlocutors as artifice and sincerity as idiocy

This seems like a big leap in conclusions just from calling life (or social norms) a game.