The Lusory Attitude
So far in the discussion of the magic circle we have outlined the ways that the interior space of a game relates to the real world spaces outside it, how the magic circle frames a distinct space of meaning that is separate from, but still references, the real world. What we have not yet considered is what the magic circle represents from the player's point of view. Because a game demands formalized interaction, it is often a real commitment to decide to play a game. If a player chooses to sit down and play Monopoly, for example, he cannot simply quit playing in the middle without disrupting the game and upsetting the other players. On the other hand, if he ignores this impulse and remains in the game to the bitter end, he might end up a sore loser. Yet, these kinds of obstacles obviously don't keep most people from playing games. What does it mean to decide to play a game? If the magic circle creates an alternate reality, what psychological attitude is required of a player entering into the play of a game? In Defining Games we looked at the definition of games Bernard Suits gives in his book Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia. One of the unique components of Suits' definition is that he sees games as inherently inefficient. He uses the example of a boxer to explain this concept. If the goal of a boxing match is to make the other fighter stay down for a count of 10, the easiest way to accomplish this goal would be to take a gun and shoot the other boxer in the head. This, of course, is not the way that the game of Boxing is played. Instead, as Suits points out, boxers put on padded gloves and only strike their opponents in very limited and stylized ways. Similarly, Suits discusses the game of Golf: Suppose I make it my purpose to get a small round object into a hole in the ground as efficiently as possible. Placing it in the hole with my hand would be a natural means to adopt. But surely I would not take a stick with a piece of metal on one end of it, walk three or four hundred yards away from the hole, and then attempt to propel the ball into the hole with the stick. That would not be technically intelligent. But such an undertaking is an extremely popular game, and the foregoing way of describing it evidently shows how games differ from technical activities. [7]
What the boxer and the golfer have in common, according to Suits, is a shared attitude toward the act of game-playing, an openness to the possibility of taking such indirect means to accomplish a goal. "In anything but a game the gratuitous introduction of unnecessary obstacles to the achievement of an end is regarded as a decidedly irrational thing to do, whereas in games it appears to be an absolutely essential thing to do." [8]Suits calls this state of mind the lusory attitude,a term we introduced under his definition of a game.The lusory attitude allows players to "adopt rules which require one to employ worse rather than better means for reaching an end." [9]Trying to propel a miniature ball with a metal stick into a tiny hole across great distances certainly requires something by way of attitude!
The word "ludo" means play in Latin, and the root of "lusory" is the same root as "ludens" in "Homo Ludens."The lusory attitude is an extremely useful concept as it describes the attitude that is required of game players for them to enter into a game. To play a game is in many ways an act of "faith" that invests the game with its special meaning-without willing players, the game is a formal system waiting to be inhabited, like a piece of sheet music waiting to be played. This notion can be extended to say that a game is a kind of social contract. To decide to play a game is to create-out of thin air-an arbitrary authority that serves to guide and direct the play of the game. The moment of that decision can be quite magical. Picture a cluster of boys meeting on the street to show each other their marble collections. There is joking, some eye rolling, and then a challenge rings out. One of the boys chalks a circle on the sidewalk and each one of them puts a marble inside. They are suddenly playing a game, a game that guides and directs their actions, that serves as the arbiter of what they can and cannot do. The boys take the game very seriously, as they are playing for keeps. Their goal is to win the game and take marbles from their opponents. If that is all they wanted to do, they could just grab each other's marble collections and run. Instead, they play a game. Through a long and dramatic process, they end up either losing their marbles or winning some from others. If all that the boys wanted to do was increase the number of marbles in their collection, the game might seem absurd. But the lusory attitude implies more than a mere acceptance of the limitations prescribed by the rules of the game-it also means accepting the rules because the play of the game is an end in itself. In effect, the lusory attitude ensures that the player accepts the game rules "just so that the activity made possible by such an acceptance can occur." [10]Our marble players would take their game seriously even if they weren't playing for keeps. There is a pleasure in this inefficiency. When you fire a missile in Missile Command, it doesn't simply zap to the spot underneath the crosshairs. Instead, it slowly climbs up from the bottom of the screen. To knock down a set of bowling pins, you don't carry the bowling ball down the lane; instead you stand a good distance away and let it roll. From somewhere in the gap between action and outcome, in the friction between frustrated desire and the seductive goal of a game, bubbles up the unique enjoyment of game play. Players take on the lusory attitude for the pleasure of play itself. The magic circle can define a powerful space, investing its authority in the actions of players and creating new and complex meanings that are only possible in the space of play. But it is also remarkably fragile as well, requiring constant maintenance to keep it intact. Over the course of the following chapters we explore the design structures that serve to create and support the magic circle, as well as qualities of a game's design that affect the lusory attitude and the possibility of meaningful play. Having now passed through definitions of design, systems, interactivity, and games, the way has been paved for our entrance into the magic circle. Passing through its open and closed boundaries, we find ourselves in its center. What we find there, at the very heart of games, is RULES, the space of games framed as formal systems. [7]Bernard Suits, Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia (Boston: David R. Godine,1990), p. 23.[8]Ibid. p. 38-9.[9]Ibid. p. 38-9.[10]Ibid. p. 40.