Recognizing the games that others are playing is useful, however refining your own games seems the much better play.

What are your personal win conditions? What are the odds and your confidence in those odds that those will remain stable for the rest of your life? Are any inconsistent with the other conditions?

Are all your win conditions attainable? Can you create a simple-to-follow path that leads to those win conditions and avoids going near loss conditiions? Will that path clash with any other people's win conditions paths?

Makes me respect game worlds designed so people can play however they wish.