  Formalism has been criticised as an inadequate normative theory of sport on account of its failure to recognise non-rule based norms in sport. As formalists do not recognise normative reasons internal to sport other than the rules themselves, they lack criteria to evaluate existing or proposed rules as well as criteria to evaluate actions not contemplated in the rulebook. Kretchmar attempts to salvage formalism from this criticism by drawing on both Suits and Searle. In Kretchmar’s view, critics of formalism overlook the fact that games and, a fortiori, constitutive rules are created to serve a function: to provide engaging, artificial problems. Games are made by humans for humans. Human biological nature is, in Searle’s terms, a ‘brute fact’ that gamewrights consider when creating the rules. They craft games that fit human capacities to present a ‘just right’ challenge (Kretchmar, 2015a). Otherwise, games would fail to perform their function. Kretchmar argues that Suits’ account already contains the resources necessary to discharge this evaluative function of an adequate normative theory of sport. Suits argues that when games set an extremely difficult or extremely easy obstacle, individuals lose interest in playing them (Kretchmar, 1975). Such games, then, fail to fulfil their goal of providing players with a worthy set of obstacles to overcome.