Even spectators of the game form their own magic circle. When we play a game - whether it is a sports game, board game, or video game - we enter or form a magic circle that is separate in time and space from work. This is one of concepts that lead Huizinga to conclude that play may be the primary formative element of human culture, and that “man is only completely a man when he plays.” As we leave the magic circle, those experiences transform into meanings. However, in the magic circle of play and ritual, we experience dreams, immersion, creativity, challenge, and catharsis. In the real world, where we work and toil, we experience questioning, responsibilities, uncertainties, and fears. In the magic circle of a soccer game, for example, the act of kicking a ball takes on the meaning of scoring a goal. This magic circle is a temporary world, set apart from the “real” world, where acts take on special meanings and participants agree to take on certain roles. (Huizinga made no distinction between play and ritual, so the magic circle is also a consecrated spot for ritual, such as the courthouse, the classroom, or the temple). The magic circle is an area, either physical or conceptual, set aside for play: the tennis court, the stage, the movie screen. Huizinga also coined the term “play theory”. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies SAGE The “magic circle” is a term coined by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, author of the book Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element. It sees new opportunities in the play of Zombie Media and the role of digital game artifacts in the presentation of the gamer persona, recasting Benjamin and Baudelaire’s flâneur as the ‘gameur’.
The article considers what the mobility of play indicates for the player in the creation and management of identity online in the light of game studies consolidation of the magic circle through Goffman’s Frame Analysis. It examines the metaphor of the ‘magic circle’ and analyses how play, as a mode of experience, is mobilized across dimensions of hardware and software, extending the functions of games beyond the imagining of designers and manufacturers.
This article draws together emerging theory from debates in game studies on the separation of the experience of gameplay from the everyday. The magic circle and the mobility of play The magic circle and the mobility of playĬonvergent media and communication technologies have changed what it means for games to be mobile, but play has a mobility of its own that often goes unacknowledged.