Week 4

What ‘play’ means is a big question involved with games. The idea called the magic circle and the lusory attitude are important to the question. The magic circle is made by Johan Huizinga. Huizinga (1955, p.9) suggests that “play is distinct from ordinary life both as to locality and duration”. The magic circle is the world which has fixed boundaries of time, space and rule. The boundaries can be both physical and psychological; for example, the pitch of football or arm wrestling. For Huizinga, play is to enter the magic circle. Another important notion is the lusory attitude. This idea is “what the magic circle represents from the player’s point of view” (Salen and Zimmerman, 2004, p.97). This attitude is what players need when they enter the magic circle meaning playing games. That is based on the idea that games are inefficient or a waste of energy. In games, unnecessary obstacles to the achievement or certain rules are needed though making games inefficient (Salen and Zimmerman, 2004, p.97). The lusory attitude is for players to accept these rules or inefficiency.

Here, I discuss how I adopt a lusory attitude and enter the magic circle. When I play Final Fantasy I accept rules which seem inefficient. First thing is that we can not save the data everywhere. We need to find save points where we can save the data or in any city. This makes the game inefficient because we can not stop the game when we want. However, this is needed for enjoyment as, when I am in danger meaning I am dying, it is so thrilling and exciting because I have to start again at the point where I saved if I die. Second is that I need to achieve many tasks which is not related to the final aim throughout the game. This is also important to make the game valuable to play. In the magic circle of Final Fantasy, what I get is completely things that I can not do like spelling or killing monsters. These can be seen only in the magic circle.