I don't think the categories should be watered down as Antoine has
suggested. Let me attend to the meanings of the words I chose for the
categories. A classic is something whose popularity has survived a
considerable passage of time. It is part of the definition of classic that
its value has been time-tested. Thus, a classic variant must be old enough
to be time-tested. This would immediately rule out such recent games as
Ultima and Fischer Random Chess, whose inventors are both alive. In
general usage, vintage is roughly a synonym of classic. As with classic,
time-testedness is an essential measure of what has vintage value. I chose
to use both Classic and Vintage, because there is a huge gulf between the
popularity of the top three and the popularity of other CV's of
time-tested, enduring value. The classics are the CV's that are so
massively popular and well-regarded that they serve as the standards by
which we judge other CV's. As for the Vintage games, I consider remaining
popular past the death of the inventor an important benchmark, because
sometimes a game will be popular largely through the activity of the
inventor. When this can be ruled out, and it can be seen that a game
remains popular on its own merits, then it has passed an important test of
time-tested value. The definitions that Antoine proposes for Classic and
Vintage make no reference to the significance that age and time-testedness
have in the meanings of these words.

His proposed definition of Popular is more watered down than what I
intended. I kept it stricter than this, because I would not presume to say
that my own games are popular just because several people are playing them
on Game Courier. Also, Antoine has left out Acclaimed, yet he hasn't
watered down his definition of Popular enough to cover such already
recognized variants as Crazy 38's and Flip Chess and Flip Shogi, which
aren't being played on Game Courier at all. One of the reasons I came up
with the tiers I did was to exhaustively categorize all the games that had
already been recognized. For this purpose, it is important to distinguish
between Popular and Acclaimed.

Ancient is one of the terms I considered for the tier I suggested calling
Noteworthy. What I have against the term Ancient is that it is purely
descriptive rather than normative. The terms I have suggested are all
normative, which means that they refer to the worth or significance of the
game. The term Ancient just refers to the age. I suggested the term
Noteworthy, because it can simply mean that a game is worth taking note of
for some reason. This would typically be for a game's historical
importance, but it would leave open the option of being noteworthy for
some other reason. Noteworthy games whose significance is not strictly
historic might include games from science fiction novels, such as Jetan,
or games that break world records, such as Charles Fort's Super Chess,
which may be the largest CV anyone has ever attempted to play.