Magic Circle and Lusory Attitude

All games seem to have a zone that all gamers enter. This seems to come from the context in which the game is played. For example, all games have space, time and boundaries that players have to conform too to be a part of the game.

Dutch Anthropologist, Joham Huizinga created the idea of a magic circle to explain the physical and psychological barriers that players must go through to conform to the ideals that games create. The magic circle is about understanding that games are played outside the normal physical world and within an enchanted zone that players allow themselves to belong to. The in magic circle there is rules that apply to create the enchanted zone. Time, space and boundaries are either stretched or limited within a lot of games and with some games one rule will apply more than others. In a game such as Civilisation, the rule of space and boundaries apply more than time. Throughout this game a player is allowed to create their own civilisation using the space that they can acquire. Huizinga would say that players are gaining a Lusory Attitude when they can conform to these rules. A Lusory attitude is a player’s view of this magic circle and how they are taking a psychological view to take part in completing a games rule.

My own experiences of a Lusory attitude have been quite varied. A games console that tries to bend the rules of physical boundaries when playing a game is the Nintendo Wii. When playing a Wii, players are able to move anywhere within the room they are in to play a character. A good example of this would be Tennis (available on Wii Sports), where the player is able to move across a whole room to make their character move across the tennis court. When playing this a player must adapt a serious Lusory attitude to be able to take the game seriously when running around and swinging their arms around there living room. Before playing this game I would never thought a player had to create a Lusory attitude to playing, but after playing this I can understand that a player must create one to be able to play on a Nintendo Wii.

Word Count: 380

Bibliography:

Jarvinen, Aki. (Date Unknown) A Meaningful Read: Rules of Play Reviewed
Retrieved from World Wide Web on March 1st:http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/jarvinen/