Sunday 4 March 2007

We Are Homo Ludens

'Game play is its own reward and is clearly distinguished from ordinary life' Huizinga cited in Newman (2004, p. 22). This is one of Huizinga's four characterisitcs of play, that it is seperate from ordinary life and in terms of digital games this is true. Although there are asspects of his characteristics that could be argued against. Farley (2000) cited in Newman (2004, p. 23) suggests that play is not always volentary, what about a 'disgruntled recollection of a beaten player keen to improve'?. The addictive nature of games can sometimes mean that a player cannot bring themselves to admitt defeat and therefore play is not volentary, they are being driven on often by their ego.

Huizinga describes the place where we play games as the Magic Cirlce, which is 'essential in seperating the game from the real world' Newman (2004, p. 78). This is an enchanted area where new rules apply, often magical rules that dont apply in the real world.
Castronova described the magic circle as 'a membrane protecting the fantasy world' (2005). This membrane ensures that the players fantasy world is not subject to the laws of natural physics or culture. This can be applied to a number of digital games such as The Mario Bros. where gravity is defied and enemies can be destroyed simply by jumping on their heads. If the laws of the real world were allowed to interfere within the magic cirlce then Mario would not be able to jump over creatures the same height as himself or jump over gaps in the floor that lead to death.
Newman offers a clear way to explain how the magic circle works within a game itself, consider the 'Boss' puzzle of a Mario game. The Boss comes at the end of a level but it is not something you can see coming. The Boss is 'set in a seperate area with walls preventing escape - the puzzle is made discrete from the remainder of the game world creating an inner magic cirlce' Newman (2004, p. 23).

The Magic Circle also has its own attitude called the Lusory Attitude, Huizinga explained that this is the gaming state of mind that a player enters when playing a game within the Magic Circle. For example once a player has entered the cirlce while playing Super Mario Bros. their attitude will change. They are likely to become competitive and consumed in the game.

Word Count: 414
Bibliography:
Castronova, E., (2005). Synthetic Worlds, The Business and Cuture of Online Games. London; University of Chicago Press.
Newman, J., (20o4). Videogames. London; Routledge.

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