without player there will be no game. blame the player.

I disagree with this statement in general. Institutions/nature (the game) cannot be held accountable. Persons can be. If we want to change the world, it starts with changing the behaviour of individuals, slowly changing the institution.

The person who needs to change their behavior is the hiring decision person. The player is just making the best of his situation. The fact that the game is running means the most likeable person will be promoted, even if they aren't liked much.

The players should cooperate to not end up with someone bad for the players being promoted.

When there is no rulebook, definitely blame the players.

I'm only learning to play correctly in mid-career. No amount of being good at technical stuff will get you promoted in most orgs—maybe to mid-tier dev levels, but not much higher. Being hyper-social, will. Not the normal amount of social you need to be to do a good job as a developer, but spreading out your "footprint" on purpose so you're known by and often interacting with a lot more people, even if those interactions are actually a drag on overall productivity. I've learned from observing others who are good at doing a lot of talking in meetings, and who eagerly start adding shit to people's calendars and stuff their first week. It fucking works. Reliably. Be bold, and be noisy. Get promoted.

Do you really want to be promoted?

I certainly don't, I'm fine where I'm at (software architect).