The Modern Game was developed as a purely exhibition fowl after the demise of legalised cock-fighting in Britain.

During its developmental years, the Modern Game caused great consternation among the fighting-cock fraternity who believed that their style of fowl was being completely destroyed. What in fact was happening, was the beginning of a completely new breed of fowl that bore little resemblance to the fowls held so dear to the hearts of the fighting-cock purists and as such, should not have caused any discontent among them.

The large varieties of Moderns were developed first and by the very early 1900s had reached a stage of perfection not seen among other breeds of fowls. However their reign as the top exhibition fowl was relatively short-lived as greedy entrepreneurs virtually priced the best birds out of the reach of most people, which left them in the hands of the very rich. The lack of new breeders thus caused, resulted in the virtual extinction of this fine breed and by the late 1920s, they had nearly disappeared. Today, large Modern Games are a rarity.

The bantam varieties fared much better than their large cousins. As they had appeared even before the bantamised form of the traditional fighting-cock, they held a much stronger position than had the large Moderns.

Today, the Modern bantam is still quite popular as a show fowl, though not nearly so, as the Old English Game. However a good Modern Game is always a show stopper when presented properly. To succeed at show, the Modern must be well trained to present itself to the judge but as the Modern Game is a quiet bird, this is not really a difficult task. Pile and Black Red are the most commonly seen varieties in Australia, with Duckwings, Brown Reds,  Birchens and some off-colours seen at various shows. Unfortunately, the Brown Reds today, lack the correct lemon colouring, due to numerous crosses with Black Reds to improve type.

A magnificent Pile bantam cockerel

A Pile pullet

A Black Red cockerel