The Magic Circle and Lusory Attitude – A Barrier between Reality and Play

 The magic circle is a concept of a border between the real world and the space of play, where the rules of reality are accepted as being different. The name comes from how some games, such as marbles, involves drawing a circle on the ground, which acts as the field of play.

In the game of hide and seek, a player given the role of seeker must look away from the players acting as hiders so they have enough time to hide, the seeker must then explore and find all the hiders. The seeker wins if they discover all the hiders. The hiders win if at least one remains hidden until the seeker admits defeat or a certain amount of time passes. One may step back and observe the game’s rules as arbitrary, especially when compared to instances in nature of predators hunting hiding prey. These hunters don’t stop and close their eyes to give their quarry a chance to find a good spot to hide nor would a discovered animal automatically submit to a predator; it may attempt to fight or flee if given the opportunity. Thus these arbitrary rules can only exist in socially-created situations: a game, which the magic circle surrounds.

To properly enter a magic circle, one must adopt a lusory attitude, which requires a person to consciously or unconsciously accept the rules of a game as sacred. This term was created and used by Bernard Suits in his book The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia (1978).

 

The lusory attitude is similar to the notion of suspension of disbelief, where one watches films or shows which feature fantastical elements such as magic or hyper-advanced technology. However, while a film merely require someone to be a passive observer, games by their very nature, require active participation on the part of the players.

Though the lusory attitude is applicable to all forms of games, it primarily applies to video games, since games can feature more factors that require extra acceptance from players. For games, like Tag and football, players are bound by the rules of reality; physical limits of the human body, gravity, and the irreversible progression of time.

However, in video games the laws of the world operate differently. For example, in Super Mario Bros. the main character can jump several times his own height, destroy floating stone blocks with his fist, crush creatures by jumping on them, gain powers by walking over items like mushrooms or flowers, and yet he – as well as every other character in the game – can only move along two dimensions.

Even narratively-grounded games will still deviate from baseline reality. An example would be Call of Duty, where the player character, a human soldier, can survive multiple gunshot wounds and completely recover with no lingering effects by avoiding further injury for several seconds.

Screenshot from a Call of Duty game.

 

Regardless of the game, analog or digital, it will always have arbitrary rules which create a magic circle, and all those who wish to be players must have a lusory attitude to cross into it.

 

References:

Suits, Bernard (2005), The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, Broadview Press, pp. 54–55