only game in town

plural only games in town

1. idiomaticalmost always preceded by theThe only opportunity, activity, or resource available.

   When exports are the only game in town, currency gyrations can be a killer.

   1999 December 12, “Will the yen's surge do Japan in?”, in BusinessWeek, retrieved 01 Jan 2014

   5 more examples

   It was the first elected position he had ever held, his single incumbency and, he had to admit, his best prospect, the only game in town.

   1973, Stanley Elkin, Searches & Seizures: Three Novellas, Boston, Mass.: Nonpareil Books, David R. Godine, Publisher, →ISBN, page 265

   Java won't long be the only game in town. Microsoft already plans to publish a rival software, code-named Blackbird.

   1995 November 12, Adam Rogers, “Now for some Hotjava”, in Newsweek, retrieved 01 Jan 2014

   If you surf the Web, chances are you're using some version of either Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. […] But contrary to popular belief, they aren't the only games in town. While the two combatants offer great interfaces and features, there is something to be said for taking the road less traveled.

   1999 November, Rebecca Rohan, “Beyond the browser wars: Navigator and Explorer aren't the only games in town”, in Black Enterprise, volume 30, number 3, New York, N.Y.: Earl G. Graves Publishing, →ISSN, page 48

   Once myth and error are dissipated, these are the only games in town. The empirical approach is the only valid way of acquiring knowledge, and this becomes evident as soon as we free ourselves from the thraldom of a false metaphysics.

   2007, Charles Taylor, “What is Secularity?”, in Kevin [Jon] Vanhoozer, Martin Warner, editors, Transcending Boundaries in Philosophy and Theology: Reason, Meaning and Experience (Transcending Boundaries in Philosophy and Theology), Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, →ISBN, page 69

   […]the underlying message for Britons is relentless: raw capitalism is the only game in town, and you need to start working much harder.

   2012 August 22, Andy Beckett, “Britannia Unchained: the rise of the new Tory right”, in The Guardian