The Grasshopper is philosopher Bernard Suits' effort to define the concept of “game” and explore how an understanding of games can inform the kind of lives we'd like to live. This is not a minor undertaking, Wittgenstein suggested that defining games was impossible, that a “family resemblance” to other games is the best you can do. However, a lot of things look impossible until someone does it, and Suits makes a credible effort to do so. Some commentators suggest that all efforts to define “games” are a gate-keeping effort to exclude unwanted voices, but I don't detect any malice or social maneuvering in Suits' book. Furthermore, it's common in fields from art to physics to probe definitions to seek better understanding, and this sort of investigation can lead to new and exciting innovations in those fields. While I feel that Suits' definition ultimately comes up short I feel it's a well-written book that does bring forward some interesting and useful ideas.

The main character of the book is The Grasshopper, the same one from the Aesop's Fables story with the ant. In a recontextualization of that story, the Grasshopper doesn't play all the time because he's lazy or doesn't know the value of food or the danger of winter, it's because he has a total commitment to a certain philosophy of life that demands play and not work. Most of the ideas in the book are conveyed via devotees of the Grasshopper who are trying to puzzle out the ideas and implications of his philosophy. Suits casts him as a Utopian idealist living before the establishment of Utopia.

The writing

The book itself is written with a certain playfulness. Rather than a dry explication of the philosophical arguments, the book uses characters and dialog to develop the points. On the flip side, the characters are basically philosophers pondering each others' ideas, so how much difference is there? But I think these weird Moebius twists in the structure are part of the point. I can't say with certainty whether or why this was a good way to express these ideas, but it seemed satisfying to me. I don't think it could carry the book for someone who wasn't interested in the philosophy of games, but I think it did help make it a bit more enjoyable to read.

Suits' definition of games

The core idea of the book is the definition itself (Suits uses the Latin-derived word “lusory” to specify that these terms are related to games):

To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude]. I also offer the following simpler and, so to speak, more portable version of the above: playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.

To apply that to an example: A foot race is a game because you're trying to cross the finish line (goal) by running (the means permitted by the rules) even though there would be faster ways to do so (cars or other conveyances are forbidden), and you choose to follow those rules because you want to participate in the race (and if you weren't following the rules of racing you wouldn't be racing, you'd be doing something else).

My thoughts on the definition

It certainly seems like a solid candidate for a sound definition of “game”, and the “voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles” bit is quite a pithy formulation. However, I'm not sure I completely buy it for a few reasons. One, the concept of the “goal” is not entirely obvious. Suits himself has a character offer the counterexample of children's make-believe games like Cops and Robbers or Cowboys and Indians. The Grasshopper resolves this by the introduction of the concept of the “open game”:

I would define an open game generically as a system of reciprocally enabling moves whose purpose is the continued operation of the system. Then, as you suggest, various species can be found within this larger class. Open athletic games, perhaps, would make up one such species, since all of the moves in such games would be bodily maneuvres. Games of make-believe, then, would make up another species, for in them all of the moves would be dramatic performances.

Since one of my areas of interest is Roleplaying Games I do find it a bit gratifying that Suits acknowledges this as a valid type of game (it's not uncommon for people to say that Dungeons & Dragons is a more sophisticated Cops and Robbers), but perpetual play isn't always the goal of these types of games (although when it was released some internet commentators tried to argue that @paulczege's game My Life with Master wasn't really an RPG because it has an explicit endgame mechanic). My feeling is that in order to be a useful and functional definition the parts need to be usable by the average user. I think a clever arguer like Suits or his alter-ego The Grasshopper will be able to come up with some story about what the “real goal” of any activity that they know is a game, but it's not clear to me that that's a reliable enough process to think that it's actually doing work in categorizing things as games or not-games. If you're allowed to cleverly formulate non-obvious goals, how can you ever be sure that an activity doesn't have one and you just haven't articulated it?

Grasshopper: But surely all activities are goal-directed, or at least all intelligent activities (if that is not, in fact, a redundant expression) are. I take it that participation in such pastimes qualifies as intelligent activity?
Skepticus: It does.
Grasshopper: Then surely such activity must have some goal or purpose. Otherwise it would be just a series of random movements.
Skepticus: I agree, Grasshopper, that such pastimes have some point to them, that is, some goal.

It seems to me that the Grasshopper handwaved past that too quickly, or perhaps his interlocutor Skepticus was insufficiently skeptical and could have probed a little deeper. I think that a flat assertion that all activities “must have some goal or purpose” provides a strong incentive for “just so” stories. Suits says that people adopt roles to attain goals, but I wonder if that might be backwards: maybe goal-attainer is merely one of many possible roles that can constitute playing a game.

The other element of Suits' definition that I'm not completely sold on is his point about efficiency.

I define efficiency as the least expenditure of a limited resource necessary to achieve a given goal. I specify limited resource because if some resource is unlimited there is no reason to say that using more of it is less efficient than using less of it would be, ceteris paribus, regardless of the purpose or purposes for which it is used. …
… Contestants in a foot race, for example, run fast either because they are competing against a record which limits the amount of time at their disposal (they do not have five minutes in which to run a four-minute mile) or against another runner whose pace limits the amount of time at their disposal. Their goal, that is, requires that they use as little time as possible. Since that is so; it can be said that running is a less efficient means for completing the course than, for example, riding a bicycle or driving a Ferrari.

Do grasshoppers knit their own sweaters?

Knitting is something that many people engage in as a hobby activity. Is it a game? It seems like something that has an end goal (a sweater, a scarf, etc.), has rules about how to do it (you use knitting needles and yarn) and rules out some ways that might be more efficient, like buying a sweater from a store or using a knitting machine. But are those methods more efficient? Maybe the goal isn't just to have a sweater, but to have a hand-knit sweater, which would rule out machine knitting. Is buying one from an etsy store more efficient? Does it matter if the Grasshopper is rich or poor, or a fast or slow knitter? Should whether or not knitting is a game be contingent on questions like that? (Also a side note: as someone who plays a lot of games and has also tried my hand at knitting, I'd say that knitting is not a game – it can be enjoyable and pleasant, but if anything it's more meditative than gamelike).

My concern here is that the technical-sounding “efficiency” may be providing an illusion of precision rather than the real thing and tends to break down when you try to actually apply it. Consider these two thought experiment scenarios:

• Anthony and Gareth develop a goal to get to a certain finish point in the shortest possible time. Anthony, being serious and efficient, thinks the most obvious and efficient way to do so would be to use the fastest vehicle available. Gareth, being more playful, wants to make a game of it: they should restrict themselves to the less efficient method of human locomotion.

• Cavemen Arrog and Gress develop a goal to get to a certain finish point in the shortest possible time. Arrog, being serious and efficient, thinks the most obvious and efficient way to do so would be to run. Gress, being more playful, wants to make a game of it: they should restrict themselves by adding a requirement to invent some sort of vehicle that they can use to convey themselves.

It seems odd to me that efficiency could be so context-dependent as to give 180 degree opposite conclusions about whether running is efficient. When I suggested this thought experiment on social media one person suggested that the cavemen could still be racing because running is less efficient than simply murdering the other participant and strolling to the finish line. But how can we know? What if the attempted murder isn't simple but turns into a prolonged fight? What resources should be be measuring to determine which is more efficient, running or murdering? Again, I suspect this element of the definition invites handwaving and just-so stories about things that are determined to be games or not-games by other means rather than doing a lot of actual work in defining things.

Lusory Attitude

Despite those issues, I think there is one aspect of the book that is excellent and praiseworthy, which is Suits' idea of the Lusory Attitude:

Lusory attitude The attitude of the game player must be an element in game playing because there has to be an explanation of that curious state of affairs wherein one adopts rules which require one to employ worse rather than better means for reaching an end.

Basically, Suits is saying that the mental state of the player(s) are an essential component of making something a game. He illustrates it with a rather fanciful thought experiment:

Smith arrives at the starting line of the 200 metre finals just as the race is about to begin. He has only that moment learned that a time bomb has been planted in the grandstand at the finish line (which is located on the other side of the oval track at a point directly opposite the starting line), and that it will go off in a matter of seconds. The information has so shocked Smith that he is temporarily bereft of speech and so cannot warn anyone of the impending catastrophe. His first impulse is to run straight across the infield and defuse the bomb, but he sees with dismay that the infield has been fenced off with a high chain-link barrier, evidently to protect spectators and participants from the fifty or so man-eating tigers that roam hungrily inside the enclosure. At the instant Smith realizes that his only hope of getting to the bomb in time is to make a half circuit of the track, the starting gun is fired, and Smith and the other entrants are off and running hard.

Now, I put it to you, Skepticus, that the other runners are playing a game but that Smith is not, and that this is so because the other runners have lusory attitude and Smith does not. Let me explain. Two rules relevant to lusory attitude are at issue in this episode: the rule which requires entrants to begin running at the same time from the same point, and the rule which requires that they do not cut across any part of the infield. Now, through a series of uncanny coincidences, Smith finds himself observing both of these rules. But his reason for doing so is quite different from the reason that the other contestants have for observing the rules. If Smith had arrived at the starting line earlier he would have begun running earlier, and if the infield had not been barred by a tiger-filled enclosure he would have cut straight across the infield. But the other runners, who could have started running before the starting gun was fired, did not do so, and if the infield had been neither fenced nor tiger-infested, they still would have remained on the track. That is, they accepted the rules just because they wanted to participate in a competitive game. But Smith acted within the constraints because that was the only way he could get speedily to the bomb. Clearly his attitude towards the rules was not that they made possible a foot race, for if he had found his voice or if the infield had been safe and clear, he would not have been running around the track at all.

This might seem purely academic, but consider that some game designers need to deal with situations in which there are people engaging with their game that's externally indistinguishable from playing but actually isn't. For example, “griefers” are people who participate in games not for the purpose of enjoying the game the way the game is intended but merely for the perverse joy of causing distress in others. They may genuinely find this to be fun, but if they're playing a game they're playing a different game. This doesn't mean they should be ignored (since they tend to ruin other people's fun it's probably not wise to ignore them), but it does mean you can ignore this approach to the game when looking at it from a game-design or analytical perspective. Having the right ideas operating in your head is a component (perhaps the most important component) of playing a game, and if you don't you're not playing that game, or at least not playing in good faith.

Indeed, it's worth pondering whether the Lusory Attitude alone is sufficient to do a lot of work. It reminds me of Bogost's position in Play Anything where he suggests that merely manipulating systems for their own sake is what produces the sensation of “fun”.

Overall conclusion

Despite not being completely convinced by Suits' argument I found this to be a valuable and thought-provoking book. The concept of Lusory Attitude is a useful and important one, and I find his thought experiments around it to be very useful. I think it's an important work for people like myself who are interesting in the philosophy of games. I found it much more enjoyable to read than the average academic paper, although the casual reader would likely find it too dense and steeped in “philosophy talk” to be enjoyable if they're not already interested in the topic.