The Magic Circle

Abstract

Compulsive gaming is a phenomenon seen with increasing frequency in recent years. In this article, the author develops insights gained through an intensive phenomenological analysis of his own relationship to games. Games offer individuals many things: a clear and explicit network of relationships, predetermined and inherently valuable goals, defined means to pursue said goals, space to creatively make use of these means, and an evaluative structure in the form of victory/loss conditions. The immediate connection between actions and outcomes found in games offers a sense of increased potency and agency. As such, games can seem superior to reality. The author argues that these qualities are especially powerful at the time of writing because of a marked cultural drift toward postmodern styles of thought, wherein traditional relationship structures and structures of value are challenged and deconstructed. This cultural drift is nested in the larger phenomenon of the Anthropocene, or the Age of Humanity; the author considers the Anthropocene in direct contrast to humanity’s longstanding dependence on, and opposition to, nature.