Of the supporters of PUA I've read, they break down into two groups - single men and married women. (Married men don't seem to write about PUA, although given that married women do, presumably there are some who have picked up its ideas and simply don't add to the discussion.)

So apparently a lot of women appreciate being "Gamed" in long-term relationships as well, and appreciate the changes in attitude from guys who switch to it. No idea about the statistics. "Alpha attitudes" preclude jealousy, dependency, and insecurity, all attitudes which tend to be destructive. There seem to be a lot of threads on PUA forums about how to maintain a facade of confidence and security going into a LTR. Heh. The major failing point of PUA - it more frequently teaches guys how to pretend to be confident, independent and secure in themselves than how to -be- confident, independent and secure in themselves. For some people, that's enough; they become what they see themselves as. For others, not so much.

Some aspects of it have been useful in my personal life - simply recognizing that neediness was an unattractive element. I had previously expected, incorrectly, that women wanted to be needed. Distinguishing neediness from desire was helpful.

So there are some elements there that are helpful. Unfortunately, Sturgeon's Law applies.

I agree, but Viliam_Bur raised that particular hypothetical, so I was curious as to his estimate of its likelihood.

ETA: note that "useful skills for establishing and maintaining long-term relationships" is presumably beside the point, though. That is, if "the Game" makes its practitioners more likely to never have a long-term relationship they will thereby also be made less likely to have a $200,000 divorce.

it doesn't follow that it's also teaches useful skills for establishing and maintaining long-term relationships

I'm under the impression that the book The Game itself explicitly laments that PUAs aren't good at that. (OTOH, there's no point in learning how to maintain a relationship if you don't even know how to establish one in the first place, so it can still be useful. Not to avoid divorce, though.)