The schema Games as Cultural Environment explores the following aspects of games:
Blurring the spaces inside and outside the magic circle
Ambiguity between players and non-players
Overlap between game and real life
It is only within the magic circle that the authority of formal rules holds sway; at the same time, the implicit rules of games are based not in the magic circle, but within culture at large.
Etiquette, ethos, convention, and context are among the forms that implicit rules can take. As manifestations of cultural authority, they link the artificiality of games to the real-world contexts they inhabit.
The lusory attitude applies not just to the formal rules of a game, but to the implicit rules as well. When a player submits to the authority of a game, he or she is accepting its formal as well as its cultural authority. In this sense, the magic circle of a game extends to embrace larger cultural domains.
A.I., Seasons of Darkness, and Suspicion are all games that explicitly operate as cultural environments. In each case, meaningful play arises because careful game design maintains the magic circle in some way.
Considered as a cultural environment, a game plays with the possible erasure of the magic circle and therefore plays with the possibility of its own existence. However, some semblance of the magic circle always remains.
The premise that the boundaries of the magic circle can be blurred or erased calls into question whether or not games can be considered artificial. Games are always in some way artificial and capable of producing internal game meanings, even when they are framed as culture; games are artificial because they are designed.
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