THE MAGIC CIRCLE AND THE LUSORY ATTITUDE

"Play is older then culture, for culture however inadequately defined always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing "(Salen, Zimmerman 2006, p.97)That is why J. Huizinga introduced term Homo ludens- man the player. In his opinion that is the real name for homo sapiens. As play was with us from the beginning and we didn't have to teach anyone how to play.

Play is crucial in our development, it helps us to learn the limits ,teaches social and physical restraints. In Japan kids are encourage to fight with each other while playing just to know the limits -when to stop fighting to avoid being hurt or hurting the other player and it works as Japan has got the lowest number in crime offences.
Digital games also help us in many ways.
They makes are relaxed, they train our memory and concentration, they make us think.

There are four characteristics of games.They are voluntary, outside ordinary life, they have got fixed boundaries and promote social groups.
The strongest point is that they all are outside ordinary life.When you are playing the game you entering so called magical circle. "One of the most important characteristic of play was its spatial separation from ordinary life. A closed space is marked out for it, either materially or ideally hedged off from the everyday surroundings"(Salen, Zimmerman 2006, p.113)
The magical circle in case of a digital game is psychological. It is a safe area where you can kill ,lead you team to a victory, build a house or discover a mystery.
In the circle you are doing things that are impossible in a real life. In Sims you are creating humans , controlling their lives. It is the player that decide whether they will go to work, whether they will have more friends or enemies. While playing the games you are beyond normal life you don't care about anything except the life on your computer screen.

Dutch anthropologist Huizinga came up with a concept of a Lusory Attitude. This is the attitude that you get when you are inside the magical circle.
While playing the Need for speed Underground you are coming out with a competitive attitude
because you have to win the race to get some money and make you car better and faster.So the player is putting all of his energy into the game, just to win. While playing a game called Qake your attitude is different.To save the world you need to kill a lot of creatures on your way and collect some keys to open the doors to go to the next level. So in the magical circle you are someone who have to save the world, it is obviously unreal, but the attitude can change and the player is likely to feel more angry while playing the game and killing everything on his way.
It is characteristic for the games that they are always unreal, beyond our lives and they can not be taken serious. As the we read Huizinga words in S. Pool book(2000, p.165 ) "Games are not serious(...)They are somehow intellectually degrading". In Doom 3 when you are becoming a marine on Mars and you need to complete the missions that you are given you are stuck in the magical circle but after you stop playing you are no more a marine based on Mars.Because games have got fixed boundaries and every game has to finish at one point or it is a football game on the pitch or you are video game.Play always begins and ends.