Squaring the (Magic) Circle: A Brief Definition and History of Pervasive Games

Abstract

Pervasive games defy Johan Huizinga’s classic definition of play as being something “outside ‘ordinary life’” with their “own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and an orderly manner”. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman develop Huizinga’s concept of the magic circle and discuss its function as a boundary between the real world and the game world. However, pervasive games seem to form a distinct category of games or types of play that breach both the spatial and the temporal confines of the magic circle. Pervasive games are of particular interest for the way in which they make use of the natural or the built environment as a playspace in a distinct and sometimes alarming overlap with the real world. This chapter offers some definitions and examples of some popular pervasive games, briefly tracing the evolution of treasure hunts, assassination games, live action role-play and alternate reality games, all of which more-or-less confound the notion of the magic circle.