Game over

Message which signals that the game has ended "Game over" screen from the game Torus Trooper Gameplay footage of Mini Metro where the player reaches a loss condition and the game ends "Game over" is a message in video games which informs the player that their play session has ended, usually because the player has reached a loss condition, such as character death. It also sometimes appears at the successful completion of a session, especially in games designed for arcades, 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. History The phrase was used as early as 1950 in devices such as electro-mechanical pinball machines, which would light up the phrase with a lamp (lightbulb). Before the advent of home consoles and personal computing, arcades were the predominant platform for playing g