Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Ese juego es divertido aunque pierda muchas veces. - That game is fun even if I lose many times.

Indicative (fact you present as real):
- Aunque pierdo muchas veces, ese juego es divertido.
  = Although I lose many times, that game is fun. (I really do lose.)
Subjunctive (something hypothetical, not confirmed, or presented as not very important to the main idea):
- Ese juego es divertido aunque pierda muchas veces.
  = That game is fun even if I (might) lose many times.

In your sentence, using pierda (subjunctive) suggests:

the losing is not the focus, or
it’s more like even if I lose / even though I may lose,
rather than a plain factual I (definitely) lose many times.

So what exactly is the nuance of aunque pierda here?

Aunque pierda with the subjunctive leans toward:

“even if I lose many times”
or
“even though I may lose many times”

The idea is: Whether I lose or not (or how much I lose) doesn’t change the fact that the game is fun.

If you used the indicative, aunque pierdo, it sounds more like:

“although I (actually) lose many times” — a straightforward, confirmed fact.

Subjunctive = more hypothetical / backgrounded;
Indicative = more factual / asserted.

Who is the subject of pierda? How do we know it means “I lose”?

Pierda is the present subjunctive form for:

yo pierda (I may lose)
él / ella / usted pierda (he/she/you-formal may lose)

Spanish normally drops subject pronouns when context makes them clear.

In this sentence, the most natural reading is:

The speaker likes a game, even if the speaker loses many times.

So the implied subject is yo:

…aunque (yo) pierda muchas veces. = …even if I lose many times.

In another context, it could mean he/she loses; only context tells you which one.

Could the sentence also mean “even though it (the game) loses many times”?

Grammatically, pierda could refer to el juego (the game), because juego is masculine singular and matches pierda as a 3rd person singular.

But semantically, a game losing many times is odd: the person who loses is normally the player, not the game.

So a native speaker will almost always interpret:

…aunque pierda muchas veces
as
…even if I lose many times (the player speaking),
unless the wider context somehow personifies the game.

Can I say Ese juego es divertido aunque pierdo muchas veces? What’s the difference?

Yes, that’s perfectly correct Spanish, but the nuance changes:

Aunque pierdo (indicative):
- That game is fun, although I (actually) lose many times.
- Losing is presented as a known, real, established fact.
Aunque pierda (subjunctive):
- That game is fun, even if I (might) lose many times.
- The losing is less asserted, more like a possibility or something that doesn’t matter for the main statement.

In many everyday conversations, speakers might choose either form, but the indicative sounds more factual, and the subjunctive more “even if / regardless of whether” in feel.

How is the form pierda built from the verb perder?

Perder is an -er verb with a stem change e → ie in the present tense and the present subjunctive.

To form the present subjunctive:

Take the yo form of the present indicative:
- yo pierdo
Remove the -o:
- pierdo → pierd-
Add subjunctive endings for -er/-ir verbs:
- yo: -a → pierda
- tú: -as → pierdas
- él/ella/usted: -a → pierda
- nosotros: -amos → perdamos (here the stem change normally disappears)
- vosotros: -áis → perdáis
- ellos/ellas/ustedes: -an → pierdan

So pierda is the yo or él/ella/usted form of the present subjunctive.

What does ese juego mean exactly, and how is it different from este juego or aquel juego?

All three mean “that/this game”, but they differ in distance (physical or psychological):

este juego
- this game (near the speaker, e.g. in your hands or right in front of you)
ese juego
- that game (a bit farther from the speaker, often near the listener or not right here, but not very far away)
aquel juego
- that game over there (far from both speaker and listener, or distant in time/mentally)

In Spain, people follow this distance contrast quite consistently, though in casual speech ese sometimes overlaps with este and aquel a bit.

Why is it divertido and not divertida or divertidos?

Adjectives must agree in gender and number with the noun they describe.

juego is masculine singular: el juego
therefore the adjective must be masculine singular: divertido

Some patterns:

el juego divertido (masculine singular)
los juegos divertidos (masculine plural)
la película divertida (feminine singular)
las películas divertidas (feminine plural)

So we say:

Ese juego es divertido…
because juego is masculine singular.

Why do we say muchas veces instead of something like mucho or a menudo?

Each option has a slightly different meaning:

muchas veces = many times
Emphasizes the number of times it happens.
- Pierdo muchas veces. = I lose many times.
mucho (as an adverb) = a lot / very much
Emphasizes intensity or frequency in a more general way.
- Pierdo mucho. = I lose a lot (in general or by a lot of points).
a menudo = often
Focuses on frequency but not number of times counted.
- Pierdo a menudo. = I often lose.

In your sentence, muchas veces conveys: I lose on many occasions, which fits very naturally.

Can aunque come at the beginning of the sentence instead of in the middle?

Yes. Both are correct:

Ese juego es divertido aunque pierda muchas veces.
Aunque pierda muchas veces, ese juego es divertido.

When aunque starts the sentence, you usually add a comma after the clause:

Aunque pierda muchas veces, ese juego es divertido.

The meaning and nuance (subjunctive vs indicative) stay the same; only the emphasis shifts slightly:

Initial aunque clause feels a bit more like a condition/concession up front:
- Even if I lose many times, that game is fun.

Is there any difference in how this sentence would be used in Spain versus Latin America?

The sentence:

Ese juego es divertido aunque pierda muchas veces.

is fully natural and widely understood both in Spain and Latin America.

No regional difference in:

use of aunque
- subjunctive here,
meaning of juego, divertido, or muchas veces,
or the omission of the subject pronoun.

You might hear different vocabulary for game in some specific contexts (e.g. partida, juego de mesa, videojuego), but the structure and grammar of this sentence are standard across the Spanish-speaking world.