I’m talking in the context of the “capitalist rules”. If you say the aforementioned sentence, you remove the responsibility of the player by dismissing the fact that the winner makes the rules.
PS: Doesn’t work for every context: if the player aims to change the rules because he doesn’t like them, he might see winning as a way to change them. “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” I guess…
My first thought after hearing that saying 20-something years ago was “the player perpetuates the game.”
If people refuse to play, there is no game to hate.
If people refuse to play, they die. The game evolved over millions of years.
There are many types of game. The saying is specifically designed to perpetuate one particular game.