Infinite Game vs Finite Game

Biological Parallel

Finite games have fixed rules and endpoints—territorial contests where winners claim space and losers disperse. Infinite games have shifting rules and no end—the evolutionary arms race where surviving to the next generation is the only goal. Red Queen dynamics exemplify infinite games: predators and prey co-evolve endlessly, neither winning permanently, both running to stay in place. Companies playing finite games (quarterly earnings, market share battles) lose to those playing infinite games (survive, adapt, persist). Extinction is the only loss condition in infinite games; everything else is a learning cycle.