While in the circle, the players adopt a lusory attitude (Ibid, 97 see Suits 1978). While within the magic circle, a temporary world is created where meaning is handled differently and rules of the game have authority (Ibid, 96). The magic circle is entered as play begins, or it is generated with that initiation (Ibid, 95). In their formulation, the boundaries of play are fuzzy and permeable, but the borders of games are more formal (Ibid, 94-95). They describe the magic circle as shorthand for “the idea of a special place in time and space created by a game,” (Ibid, 95) and go on to explain why they feel that it is a fitting metaphor the circle is both finite and infinite, while the magic is in the transformation of meaning within the circle. However, for Salen & Zimmerman’s formulation the possible development of culture from play is not relevant, nor the alignment of play and ritual. These features it shares with Huizinga’s conception. Salen & Zimmerman’s (2004) magic circle of gameplay is entered voluntarily, it is self-sufficient, set apart from ordinary life in locality and duration, and it has rules that differ from ordinary life. The two terms are connected, but the formulations – and especially the ontological contexts of the formulations – are different. This is important, as there are critics who question Salen & Zimmerman based on what Huizinga wrote, and vice versa (e.g. Confusing the three (mindset, social contract and game space) leads to muddled conceptions of playfulness, play and games.
When playing an existing game the social negotiation often means accepting a predefined set of rules. In addition, residue of these two, as well as established forms of rule-structured playing create game spaces, sites and artefacts that are culturally recognized as arenas of play – even when they are empty and unused. The psychological border set up by adopting a playful mindset and the border set up socially through negotiation often coincide, but they are two different things. Though these psychological and sociological objects are interwoven, it makes sense to separate them for purposes of analysis (for example Montola et al. In order to come up with useful theoretical tools, the personal mindset of the participant and the socially negotiated and upheld contract that yields a site of play, need to be separated. However, it is only one of many formulations of a border that surrounds and envelopes play, a border that has numerous ethical, legal and practical implications, a border that functions as a design aid, and a border that is relevant for an understanding of what play is. The metaphor of magic circle stands for a border that delimits an instance of playing.
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