The cover of Whole Earth Catalog’s March 1970 issue features a striking image of a group playing volleyball with the Earth—the familiar satellite image printed on the cover of the Catalog’s inaugural issue was reproduced here, this time collaged as Earthball, a larger-than-life game of planetary stakes. It was a fitting accompaniment for an issue dedicated to “The World Game,” a proposal by the eccentric architect R. Buckminster Fuller to use gaming techniques to unify the world’s power networks under a single grid—a plan he believed could circumvent politics to bring about global peace.

However, this collage traces another parallel genealogy: in 1966, before founding the Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand and other countercultural organizers began developing a repertoire of “New Games.” These experiments in serious fun subverted the competitive norms of traditional sports, introducing more anti-hierarchical and cooperative modes of play. One of Brand’s inventions, Earthball—which bears particular resemblance to the collage—was played in two teams by pushing a giant inflatable globe to opposite ends of a field. But rather than try to “win,” players often cooperated to keep the world in perpetual equilibrium. New Games activities would make continued appearances in later issues of the CoEvolution Quarterly. After all, if new tools needed new rules, they also needed new games.