Songfacts®:

• In September 2021, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk and Grimes announced their "semi-separation" after a three-year relationship. The pair maintain a good a relationship that allows them to continue as co-parents of their son. This brisk house track is Grimes' first single release following their split.
• Grimes sings about their doomed romance, hinting she had to let Musk go so he could concentrate on his work.
  
  If I loved him any less
  I'd make him stay
  But he has to be the best
  Player of games
  
  Musk's career played a large role in his and Grimes' decision to reevaluate their relationship. "It's mostly that my work at SpaceX and Tesla requires me to be primarily in Texas or traveling overseas, and her work is primarily in LA," he told Page 6.
• The Player of Games is a 1988 science fiction novel by the late Scottish writer Iain M. Banks. In 2015, Musk named two SpaceX autonomous spaceport drone ships - "Just Read The Instructions" and "Of Course I Still Love You" - after ships in the book as a posthumous tribute to Banks.
• Grimes co-wrote and co-produced the song with her fellow Canadian, Illangelo. DJ Carlo "Illangelo" Montagnese produced the entirety of The Weeknd's Trilogy of mixtapes, and several of his Beauty Behind The Madness and After Hours tracks, including the hit singles "The Hills" and "Heartless."
• Grimes first performed "Player Of Games" at the Australian virtual reality festival Splendour XR on July 25, 2021.
• The song features as the theme song for the fifth season of the vehicular sports video game Rocket League.
• Anton Tammi directed the otherworldly video, which is based on a story written by Grimes. In the video, the Vancouver-born artist faces off against an enigmatic figure called the Dark King, played by Andreï Pishchalnikov.