Chapter 1 sets out the conceptual framework through which the book examines research evaluation and names the key players and processes involved. It begins by outlining The Evaluation Game’s key contention that research evaluation is a manifestation of a broader technology which the book refers to as “evaluative power.” Next, it describes how the evaluative power comes to be legitimized and how it introduces one of its main technologies: research evaluation systems. The chapter then defines games as top-down social practices and, on the basis of this conceptual framework, presents the evaluation game as a reaction to or resistance against the evaluative power. Overall, the chapter shows how the evaluation of both institutions and knowledge produced by researchers working in them have, unavoidably, become an integral element of the research process itself.