The condition which ensues when a player runs out of Hit Points, loses their last life, or fails a major objective or mission. The player will be informed of this state by text or an animation and gameplay will be terminated.

What happens after? In the earliest games, players usually had to start over from the very beginning. Later games supported saving progress, and players could reload their last saved game. Some games may allow the player to continue from the latest Checkpoint, but with a penalty. More unusually, some games might incorporate death into the plot, such as by letting you play through your afterlife.

Messaging accompanying a Game Over can include:

• A description of the player character's fate.
• The spotlight being placed on the player character's demise, sometimes literally.
• Some Guilt-Based Gaming lecturing the player on their failure and its consequence on the game world.
• Making fun of the player.
• A pep talk encouraging the player to try again, possibly coming from the player character themselves.
• A specific tip to help for next time.
• Accompaniment from a Game-Over Man or an End-Game Results Screen.
• Cruel or sad outcomes when the player screwed up and failed the mission, punishing players by making them look at what they have done. This variation is often put into Tear Jerker or Nightmare Fuel.

Game Over has been such an Omnipresent Trope that some games use the phrase whenever you have failed in some way, even if this failure does not end your game. Some games will display a game over screen when you successfully complete the game, using "Game Over" in a literal sense. Modern gamers who are not used to arcade games may find it rather jarring to see a screen associated with death being used to indicate success, especially if the failure soundtrack still plays.

A Non-Standard Game Over is a variant that occurs in special circumstances, when you've really screwed the pooch. Some games might make use of a Continue Countdown to give you a chance to keep playing before hitting the Game Over screen.

Also the name of a single by Club Caviar. It is also the title of a book, an adult CGI animated series, and the third Spy Kids movie.

This trope is too ubiquitous for a proper examples list; we'd be here all century if we tried. Examples go in the Quotes section.