Play on the iPad: the Magic Circle and a marketplace

Justin Hall on the iPad's gaming possibilities and Apple's restrictions

Flash and Facebook have opened up a fantastic flood of new games -- there are amazing experiments coming from people with relatively unbrokered access to online audiences. Facebook aside, bringing rich games to mainstream audiences still requires working with some kind of gatekeeper: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and now Apple.

One charitable way to view these gatekeepers is as keepers of the magic circle. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman write about the magic circle in their book "Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals." The magic circle describes a space in which gaming takes place. Games suspend the rules of our shared reality to make a temporary alternate reality: a fantasy world with its own rules. By stepping into that fantasy world, bounded by the magic circle, we agree to compete without lasting antagonism. We agree to experiment with new identities without jeopardizing our real world credentials. The magic circle is a critical part of allowing players to enjoy shared play experiences.

The magic circle might explain a bit why Microsoft removes player names like "Frodo T. Baggins" from Xbox Live. When people sit on their couch and play social games with strangers, the gatekeeper is standing by to protect a civil level of social discourse. Sometimes those regulations go too far, and the gatekeepers are out of sync with their players. After years of protests, Microsoft reversed their policy on gay nicknames for Xbox players. Policing a platform is a delicate balancing act.

Perhaps Apple's app store helps create the magic circle. If I'm playing a game I downloaded from the app store, I'm somewhat shielded from abject ugliness, suffering, pain and humiliation. I'm also largely shielded from viruses, system updates and crashes!

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