Deep Play comes from Jeremy Bentham’s analysis of play in the creation of law and the workings of government, and then explored in Geertz. The idea of Deep Play is not necessarily like transformative play where you go deeply into a state, but Deep Play, per the originators of the concept were looking at play in games that have consequences on entitlement and status — but not life threatening. In essence, they get close to real danger, but are not truly at risk– the stakes are not your life. I like Deep Play as being deep, meditative, flow, transformative activity, but it was already named and operationalized.

But transformative play builds upon the idea of flow and depth of experience rather than the risk and danger of higher stakes.