Transaction Analysis is a social psychology which focuses on a person's external behavior. Moreover. Transaction Analysis is a system that deals on understanding people's interaction or socialization with his fellow being. Eric Berne, a Canadian-born US psychiatrist developed Transaction Analysis in the late 1950's.
Berne simplified and defined the human interpersonal relationship according to "ego-states" namely the Parent, Adult or Child which can occur at different levels. Each one of these ego-states has it;s own system of communication and function.
The Parent ego state represents the value language, the Adult stands for rationality and logic while the Child symbolizes the language of emotions. Effectual functioning of every interaction in the world depends on how intact and available these ego states are. One of the key ideas of Transaction Analysis are its 5 ways of time structuring in which game analysis is a part of.
A "game" is a series of transactions played by the Parent,Adult and Child ego states, in which the number of players are fixed. However, in some cases role switching could also happen in which these players can have multiple roles.Games are transactions often times characterized by complementary factors which eventually results in a predictable outcome of a situation.
There are dozens of games identified, but regardless of how or when they are being played, each game should see to it that they end up on the same similar structures of how many players are involved, the rules and the goals of the game itself.
Each game has its own merits to it's players such as achieving satisfaction, sympathy and other emotions that affects the life script. The sublimity of the game is to somehow deprive actors of their pay off. Berne identifies or labels socially dysfunctional behavior patterns in terms of these "games" and the role that people play.