Play happens inside a bounded space where ordinary consequences are suspended and the game's rules hold instead.
Huizinga's Homo Ludens described play as occurring within temporary worlds with their own rules. Salen and Zimmerman named the boundary the magic circle. The concept explains why a tackle inside the match is not assault, and its limits are exactly where games meet money and identity.
In practice
- A bluff at the poker table is play and the same lie about the stakes is fraud.
- An abusive message inside a game is defended as part of the game, which is where the circle stops being a useful idea.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is convention: players agree to treat certain acts as meaning something different inside the game, which is what allows a tackle, a bluff or a betrayal to be played without ordinary consequence.
- In its favour
- It explains something real about play, and it remains useful in game design for thinking about what a rule set licenses.
- Against it
- Game studies contests the boundary, since money, reputation and harassment cross it freely, and treating the circle as sealed has been used to excuse behaviour that harms people outside the game.
- Standing
- Contested in game studies: the boundary is porous, since real money, reputation and harassment cross it freely, and treating it as sealed has been used to dismiss genuine harm inside games.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Play & Game Design
- Essay
- Small worlds with visible rules