"Game over" is a message invideo games which informs the player that their play session has ended, usually because the player has reached aloss condition. It also sometimes appears at the successful completion of a session, especially in games designed forarcades, after the player has exhausted the game's supply of new challenges. The phrase has since been turned into quasi-slang, usually describing an event that will cause significant harm, injury, bad luck, or even death to a person. However, since the turn of the century, it has largely fallen out of fashion in favor of unlimited lives and endless checkpoints with autosaves, although it very much remains the norm in arcades, as they require payment inserts.

The phrase was used as early as 1950 in devices such aselectro-mechanicalpinball machines, which would light up the phrase with a lamp (lightbulb).^[1] Before the advent ofhome consoles andpersonal computing,arcades were the predominant platform for playing games, which required users to deposit a token or coin into anarcade game machine to play. Most earlyarcade video games typically had the game end when a timer ran out, withshoot 'em up gameSpace Invaders (1978) later popularizing a game over triggered by the player getting killed by enemies (either by being shot or enemies reaching the player),^[2] with the player given a finite number oflives before the game ends.^[3]

During thegolden age of arcade video games, players would usually be given a finite number of lives (or attempts) to progress through the game, the exhaustion of which would usually result in the display of the message "Game over" indicating that the game had ended. The phrase might also be followed by the message"Play Again?" and a prompt asking the player to insert additional tokens to prevent the game from terminating and instead allowing the player to continue their progress. The message can also be seen flashing on certain arcade games while inattract mode, until a player inserts a credit; at this point the message would change to the number of credits inserted and "Press 1 or 2 player start", or some variation thereof.

As these games were ported to home consoles, the "Game over" screen and "Continue?" prompt remained, but often required only the press of a button to keep the game going; while the video game industry shifted away from being arcade-focused to being home gaming-focused, the inclusion of such a screen was no longer as critical since it offered no financial benefit. However, the concept of Game Over remained imbued in the medium thereafter as a way to add an element of risk: a player who is unsuccessful at carrying out the game's objective (possibly repeatedly) will be faced with such a screen and be forced to start over from either the beginning of the game or level, or to a previous, saved state.

Certain games ask players with no morelives tocontinue or to choose "game over" in a menu.Kamen no Ninja Akakage released in 1988 by Toei for the Famicom has "game over" on top of "continue" with acursor to be properly positioned to get the desired choice. A number offree-to-playmobile games, however, can and have profited from a continue mechanic to pressure players into investing some money into gathering resources or currency needed to buy a continue to prevent an effort to accomplish something important in the game (such as beating a high score or clearing a very difficult level) from being completely negated by a game over.^{[citation needed]}

With the development of the aforementioned save function (complemented by the less popular password system, which is now seen as archaic),^{[citation needed]} the Game Over message has become less common as players are allowed torespawn at a previous state of the game, which has been stored in memory either through a player deliberatelysaving the game or reaching acheckpoint (which causes the game to save automatically). Many modern games do not technically "end" until they are completed, and although "Game over" screens remain present in many of them in some form or another, it is uncommon for them to signify a forced return to the beginning of the game, and only marginally more common for them to signify a substantial loss of progress.Roguelikes are the most common exception to this rule;permadeath is often a staple of the genre.

"Game over" has seen many variations. For instance inLittle King's Story, the message "LIFE OVER" appears upon the death of the player's character.Nights into Dreams... andNights: Journey of Dreams use "NIGHT OVER".Antarctic Adventure andSonic the Hedgehog use "TIME OVER". Screens that display at equivalent points are considered "Game over" screens, even if the message that is displayed is entirely different, such as "YOU ARE DEAD" used inResident Evil,God of War, andLeft 4 Dead, "YOU DIED" seen inDark Souls,Cuphead, andMinecraft (thoughMinecraft uses "Game over" if one dies in hardcore mode), "GOOD NIGHT" seen inKlonoa andLuigi's Mansion. The 2020 Nintendo 3DS gameThe Queen TV-Game 2 usesan expletive to parody playerfrustration. The 1980 arcade gameMissile Command uses "The End", a game over screen that is usually seen upon achieving victory.Red Dead Redemption and its prequel,Red Dead Redemption 2, both simply use "DEAD" upon the player's death. Another variation includes "THE WITCH HUNTS ARE OVER" used in theBayonetta series, "YOU WERE SLAIN" inTerraria, and "DRIVER DOWN" inHill Climb Racing.

Some games give specific loss condition messages, pattern, screen, and sequence exclusive to a level, mission, game mode, or situation. For example, one section inGrand Theft Auto V can end with a game over screen of "MISSION FAILED: The biker escaped." Some other games with definite game over conditions may not show a particular game over message at all should one occur, and would instead take the player through aloading screen to immediately resume play from the last checkpoint, such asTomb Raider Anniversary andMarvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.

The phrase is occasionally used to indicate the end of an argument or process in real life. In January 2011, protesters and rioters in severalNorth African andMiddle Eastern countries used the slogan "Game over" on banners to express theiranti-government sentiments.^[4]

"Game over" is also sometimes used as a phrase to concede defeat, as for example in the movieAliens where one of the protagonists,Private William Hudson (Bill Paxton), shouts, "Game over, man. Game over!" after the dropship meant to rescue him and his expedition is destroyed.^{[5][unreliable source]} Paxton's use of the phrase was included in shortened form in theSNESgame adaptation ofAlien 3,^{[6][unreliable source]} although the Hudson character did not appear in the film. The "Game Over" quote is heard in full after the final ball is drained inZen Studios' virtual pinball adaptation ofAliens.^[7] The "game over" line was not in theAliens script, but was ad libbed by Paxton.^[8]

The phrase is also used various times in theSaw movie series, because of the antagonist's penchant for referring to the traps he creates as "games".

Somegamebooks utilize this phrase as well. Each book in theNintendo Adventure Book series has only one good ending, with all of the bad ones saying "Game Over".

• 1-up
• Saved game
• Branching storylines in videogames
• Kill screen