From Pong to 18 quintillion planets: The evolution of video game play spaces

Play functions as a cognitive form of magic that lets people temporarily leave ordinary reality and inhabit imaginative spaces. Johan Huizinga argues that play is a primary human ability and a foundational quality alongside society and culture. Play occurs within a “magic circle,” where the laws and customs of everyday life no longer apply. Within that circle, people become different and act differently, mentally suspending normal determinism and replacing it with chosen rules. Play can be placed in specific physical settings like playgrounds and stadiums, but it can also be conjured anywhere from many materials. Children transform natural spaces into fantasy lands, ancient board games used simple marks, and curling emerges from icy conditions and free time. Video games follow similar improvisational origins.

"Inside the circle of the game the laws and customs of ordinary life no longer count. Unbound by the “absolute determinism of the cosmos,” we can mentally carve out a space where the normal rules of reality are suspended and replaced with those of our choosing. Once there, “[w]e are different and do things differently.”"

"Huizinga contends that play isn't just a nicety; it is one of humanity's primary abilities and, alongside things like society and culture, a foundational quality of our lives. When we play, we enter a “magic circle,” Huizinga's name for the spaces where play happens, separate from ordinary life."

"While we can set aside specific areas for this play to happen - playgrounds, stadiums, and the like - importantly, we don't have to. We have the power to conjure Huizinga's magic circles anywhere and from most anything. Children can transform a copse of trees into a fantasy land for adventures. Archaeologists have unearthed board games devised with only a few pebbles and lines scratched into stone."

"It's little wonder then that video games, our newest way to play, have similarly improvised origins. In 1958, while working at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, the nuclear physicist William Higinbotham found a way to simulate tennis on a screen. He combined an oscilloscope with an analog computer and used the computer's operational amplifiers to generate the motion of a virtual ball."

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