Video Games and Immersion

Link:http://gamesronin.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/video-games-and-immersion.html

Do you remember the "Holodeck" from "Star Trek" or "Quest World" from the animated series "The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest" from 1996? Man those things kicked a**. Growing up I thought those things were something my grandchildren would use, how wrong i was.....

Video Games have always aimed to bee a highly immersible form of entertainment, but few ever succeeded. Early games lacked the tech power we have today to even think about this concept. It's not that developers didn't try it's just that most gamers didn't quite "feel" like 8 bit dots on a small screen.

Remember this? This was the first game i wish it were more immersive because i wanted to eviscerate that little b****.

The Early bytes.

During the years game tech evolved, graphics evolved from the basic 3d graphics of "Interstate 76" to the photo-realistic graphics of today. The sounds changed from those 8 bit midi sounds to high-definition audio. The visual and audio improvements brought realism to games that changed everything. It was no longer all about the game-play, now gamers needed eye-candy and fantastic sounds.

It's difficult to say which was the first truly immersive game in history as this fact depends a lot on the gamer and what connection that person shared with that particular game. We all remember one game we played as young pups in which we lost ourselves in so much that when we saw the sun rising outside we knew we were in trouble.

The first game we may all remember getting ourself's lost into was "Outast" a 1999 release developed by Appeal and published by Infogrames. It followed the story of an ex US Navy S.E.A.L named Cutter Slade on a on an alien world from a parallel universe (kicks "A long time ago in a galaxy far way"'s a**) called Adelpha. After the first minutes of the player is made to believe that he is free to do whatever he choses, an illusion well portrait by the developers. In truth you follow a well written narrative with the occasional conceded option. Although an open world game is more likely to be immersive, the "sand-box" approach does not necessarily make the game so. This game blew my mind, when i started playing it i was Slade riding my Twon-Ha trying to save the Talans. I played this 12 years ago but i would still be fascinated by it today. Until Mass Effect came a long it was my favorite video game of all time, and in some aspects it still is. If you haven't played this game until now i strongly recommend it, unfortunately because the game had a very particular engine it will not run very well on today's computers.

Other games that had a similar hold on me and other gamers soon followed. Games like "Gothic" by Piranha Bytes (2001), "Neverwinter Nights"(2002) and "Knights of the Old Republic"(2003) both by Bioware, Assassin's Creed"(2007) by Ubisoft and many others, culminating (at least for me) with the 2007 release of "Mass Effect" by Bioware, a studio that created the most immersive and numerous universes in which i forgot my fragile human condition, pick up a sword or rifle and felt like a demon hunting, alien killer, relationship guru, tough and handsome S.O.B. :)))).

Current Virtual Possibilities

On November 16, 2006 Nintendo unleashed upon the world the "Wii". Since it was released 84.64 million units were sold (as of December 2010). This consoled change in a radical fashion the way games are played. You wanna' swing a baseball bat, you don't need to know what button on your controller does that, just...do it. The advanced 3d motion controller was and still is the distinguishing characteristic of this, at the time of his launch, impressive tech.

Because of the "Wii"'s controls games suddenly became a easy thing to master and enjoy, and open the doors of the gaming universe to many people that had no previous contact with the medium. From a immersion point of view it narrowed the gap between user and video game. Virtual tennis was starting to make people sweat just like the real thing. Fishing on a virtual lake was boring like the real thing. Boxing matches made us look like monkeys on crack in front of the T.V, but we loved and still love every second of it. This piece of engineering is unique from an immersive point of view because the player's brain know's it's a game but he's body doesn't. It managed to do the opposite of what normal great immersive video games do. And it still does it well.

As expected Nintendo's market competitors, Sony and Microsoft, seeing the huge potential of this new approach, also jumped intro the race.

In 2010 Sony launched the "PlayStation Move", a accessory that improved on the original concept of the "Wii'"s controller. By using the "PlayStation Eye" camera, the "Move" as it's known enables the player to perform complex movements during games. A series of accessories for the "Move" ("Navigation Controller", "Sharpshooter" etc.) were launched to further close the gap between the player and the virtual world. To bad it looks like something from one of those stores that have painted windows. :)

Microsoft's approach was more extreme when in the same year as Sony's "Move" launched the "Kinect". An accessory for the "Xbox 360", it represented another important leap forward in immersion as this technology totally eliminated the need of a controller. The players body, more or less, is the controller. Seeing someone play a game with "Kinect" is a funny thing to see, and it can be quite dangerous if you're near them, but when you play it's a hell of a lot of fun. The "Kinect" is considered part of the future of video games, but for many hardcore gamers, including myself, the lack of a controller doesn't emerge me more in the game, in fact quite the opposite happens. Just like the "Wii" before it, this technology tricks only my body. Why it doesn't capture my mind? Well maybe it's because i don't see myself doing karate moves in my living room and thinking i'm in the "living forest" of "Mortal Kombat".

One concept that manages to fool the mind of the gamer (and i don't mean w**d......at least not now) is 3d imaging or Stereoscopy as it's also known. Every grade school brat know what 3d is today so i'm not going to bother you with technical information. All there is to know is that this imaging technology originally used in cinema, made it's way to the gaming scene. Still in it's early stages it does add an extra layer of immersion ("Killzone 3" on a 3d TV and a "Sharpshooter" is as immersive as it gets today on a console). What it basically does it give profoundity to a normal image, in such a way that people in cinemas feel the need to raise their hand and touch something they think it's there, it's not, so stop doing it please. As i said earlier this technology is young and countless improvements are being made in the field.

Perhaps the biggest immersion evolution in video games are not motion controllers or 3d, it's not just our bodies we have to fool, first we have to fool our brains and as equally important our current social being. In comes the MMO.

During the years many games of the genre came and went but only one of them takes the crown, and 12 million lives from the real world. Yes it's "WoW"

"World of Warcraft" was released in 2004 and was claimed as many awards as it did countless hours of many of our lives. We all heard the stories about the raids, quests, weddings of players, about the neglectful parents and even more neglectful kids. The worst part is, they're true. This game is the absolute grand daddy of immersion games. Not only it substitutes you as an individual, it substitutes your entire social life. This epic creation not only convinces you believe it's true, it can also make you believe all the rest is fake if you're not careful. "Blizzard Entertainment" also known as the true god by "WoW" players made a killing with this game, from a financial and critic point of view and showed everybody what immersion in a video game means. The good and the bad. It can be described as "Facebook" meats "A good RPG" and this combination is addictive as it's massive fan base can testify. The "WoW" formula is a key element in the future on immersion games because of it excellent integration of the social element into the formula.

Ye Old Crystal Ball

What of the future then, looking at the current generation of consoles it's clear that if we fool our brain, our a***s will follow. So where and what will we play on in the near future? And how immersive will it be?

Virtual reality it's been here for some time now but due to technical and physiologic limitations it did not made it into the mainstream. Sony made some progress with the "Headman" a futuristic looking 3d head mounted display that was showcased during this year's CES. It's implementation into video games is possible but it's not quite there it (unfortunately).

The visual aspect is getting closer to the goal but it does not suffice, what about the way we interact with the game? In 2007 Emotiv Systems launched "Project Epoc", a headset that looks much like a bicycle helmet that, instead of protecting your noggin, detects brainwaves. The concept is amazing and the device is somewhat precise from what was reported, but does not have the mass appeal the developers have hoped for. Maybe because a brain scanner is not something that we like having in our living rooms, at leas not now anyway.

So, it would seam that we're almost there, make a game like "Mass Effect" that you can play with your VR 3d headset and interact with it via the "Epoc" helmet, add the social element of a good MMO and you will probably never feel the need to log off. This reminds me of a joke i heard about a gamer that dies and God sends him to hell for his sins. After a few days the devil goes up to God and asks him, why did he do this to him? When God asks what's wrong the devil says that the gamer killed all his minions and now he running around hell yelling "where in hell is the entrance to Level 2" :D

That may be the level of immersion we all as gamers aspire to, it's not yet ready but soon will be so much so that in your next house you will buy or rent you'll probably ask "Does it comes with a Holodeck?"

Immersion in My Life

Immersion in My Life
by Foe_Jenkinson


Immersion is one of the most important factors that separates a video game from being mediocre or poor and being outstanding and addicting. It is a constant struggle to find the right formula of many elements that make a game environment truly immersive. There are a few games where I have been completely immersed, totally engaged, and felt my presence in the game. There is a lot of conflicting theories on what it means to be immersed, but I agree with Janet Murray’s definition cited by Alison McMahan:

Immersion is a metaphorical term derived from the physical experience of being submerged in water. We seek the same feeling from a psychologically immersive experience that we do from a plunge in the ocean or swimming pool: the sensation of being surrounded by a completely other reality, as different as water is from air, that takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus…in a participatory medium, immersion implies learning to swim, to do things that the new environment makes possible…the enjoyment of immersion as a participatory activity.

I think this definition definitely gives someone a good perspective or metaphor of what it means to be immersed, both diegetically and non-diegetically. When I feel I’m diegetically immersed, I forget everything that’s going on outside of the gaming environment. Whether its things that I need to do in real life, the temperature of the room, or my parents trying to talk to me, I block it all out. Even when I’m playing a game like Warcraft III with my brother on another computer sitting right next to me, I’ll type messages to him, forgetting that we’re in the same room and could easily just say it to him. I get lost in the video game world and forget reality. Even when I leave a game I’m still immersed non-diegetically with the game still on my mind and talking about it with friends.
One game that I felt really immersed in was Halo. Maybe not the campaign so much, but when my friends and I system-linked 4 Xboxes and got 16 people playing capture the flag. Every aspect of how we played felt like we were doing this in real-life. The separate rooms we were in felt like bases for each team, we would talk strategy and give jobs in between and during each game (a non-diegetic part of the immersion), and when we saw things happening we shouted them out to the entire team. Especially when the other team was escaping with our flag in a warthog on what they thought was a glory run, until they received a face full of rocket. Interaction with other players really helped me become attached to my character. In fact, in many games I play very cautiously so not to die, whereas many players constantly will run into on-coming fire in an attempt to take someone out before they die kamikaze style. In many of the games I die only a couple times, while many of the other players die a dozen times.
This communication with fellow players on both teams greatly increases the feeling of being immersed in games, such as Gears of War and Halo. McMahan touches on this key element of immersion, immediate social interaction. When all players are taking the game seriously and talking strategy I become even more immersed and wanting to reach our goal more than ever. If I really respect the people I’m playing with, then I’ll do anything to protect them and win the game. They feel like real people and I can’t let them down, resulting in the loss of the game, or even death. However, when I hear young children talking back to me and hearing random racial slurs thrown around, I don’t think there could be anything that further distances me from being immersed.
Another interesting point about McMahan’s essay is that she mentions the importance of realism or photo-real visuals. I agree that a sense of realism about the gaming environment is a necessity to feel immersed in the character, story, and world. Everything in the environment needs to work as it would if you were to actually visit this place in real life. An “intelligent environment,” as McMahan calls it, is very important to whether or not I feel the world is believable. In a game like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion where all of the objects are interactive, I really feel as if it is someplace I could actually go to in real life and do the same things. If there are any poor design elements, or “shocks,” such as the end of the environment, incomplete buildings, polygon leaks, etc. it wakes me from my hypnotic state of mind and reminds me that I’m playing a video game and that I should probably take out the trash now.
Granted in many occasions I’ve played games that don’t look photo-real or in any part resemble the real world, but these games can be almost as immersive. With great sounds, voice-acting, storyline, and controls I can become immersed as well. A couple games for instance are Mario Party 8 and Wii Sports. When I’m playing with my friends, we are always very competitive in the surreal game worlds. This also goes back to the essential element of immediate social interaction. If I’m playing against someone that I really want to beat and brag about it, it makes me even more focused on the game. I think at times the Wii can be even more immersive when I’m using the Wii-mote to act out the same motions that I would in the game, rather than just pressing buttons. Wii Sports really emphasizes this feeling that you’re actually bowling or swinging a baseball bat. However, when the motions that you make don’t match up on the screen, there can once again be a fall back to reality. There are even more games being released for the Wii that delve into the world of doing realistic actions in a game. One example is the game Trauma Center: New Blood. In this game the player must treat and patch up dying patients in an emergency room. The hectic game play paired with actions that imitate what real doctors would do make this game extremely immersive and lifelike. However, great game play and interactive movements are great, but I think that photo-real graphics still make the biggest difference in whether or not I feel immersed in a video game and leave my body behind in real life and enter the game’s world.
So in the end, many elements go into what makes a game immersive, whether it’s photo-real graphics, sounds, game play, storyline, etc. When it comes down to it, a solid mixture of all these elements helps to make a game immersive, because without one of these components a game leaves the player wanting something more and their money back.

The psychology of videogame "immersion" – it’s not just a buzzword

Link:http://www.gamesradar.com/the-psychology-of-videogame-immersion-its-not-just-a-buzzword/


Making a videogame is hard. Making a good videogame is harder. It takes teams of artists, writers, engineers, and testers to craft an experience that keeps the player coming back for more. But how do developers keep us coming back for more? Intuitive and addicting gameplay is certainly one aspect. A polished and bug-free experience is another. But the astute readers who read the headline would have already figured out that we’re talking about immersion.

Above: Mmmm… immersion…

The buzzword has become a game design cliche, but little time is taken to appreciate what it actually means. Quite simply, it is the suspension of disbelief – the impression that one believes and cares about the environment that has been crafted. But how do developers craft an experience of “immersion?” A recent Gamasutra article reveals a theory, championed by psychologist Jamie Madigan, which gives us a glimpse into exactly how we go from “playing there” to “being there.”

Above: This is very important. But don’t hurt yourself

So what does that incomprehensible jumble of big words mean? We have no idea. Luckily, the article goes into a bit more detail. First: players form a representation in their mind of the space or world with which the game is presenting them. Second: players begin to favor the media-based space (i.e. the game world) as their point of reference for where they "are" (or, in psycho-babble, their "primary ego reference frame").
This means that the players feel that they are in the game world because they think they are in the game world. But that doesn’t mean that the developers get to knock off for lunch, as the illusion is only maintained so long as the game world remains consistent with the player’s perception. Confused? Let’s put this into a practical example.

Above: So real, you can pick the flowers in the water

Let’s say someone is playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the first time. They’ve just escaped the sewers at dusk, and are exposed to a huge game world. Given that the player accepts that they are in a medieval environment plagued by bandits, highwaymen, and dangerous creatures (player formed representation), a new player might be uncomfortable traveling at night just yet. Fortunately for the player, there’s a massive walled city nearby where he can spend the night. After navigating the perimeter of the wall, the player finally enters the city. Being in a new place –particularly such a big place - can be overwhelming, but speaking with the city guards reveals everything the player needs to know to get started. After renting a bed from the local budget inn, he might enter his room to find a meal waiting on the table.

Yes, something as simple as finding a place to sleep can be integral to player immersion so long as the entire process is presented in an intuitive and realistic format. The guards are actually helpful, the inn prices vary from district to district, and even the meal in the room can be “eaten.”  All of this contributes to the “completeness of sensory information” that fills the gaps between player perception and actual user experience. So does this mean that Fallout New Vegas’ ‘Hardcore’ mode will be the most immersive experience yet? We’ll have to get back to you.

Check out the Gamasutra article for a more in-depth look at the science of immersion (or how developers are getting into your head).

And because we love to hear from you, tell us in the comments which game you’ve found the most “immersive.”

Why “Infographic Thinking” Is The Future, Not A Fad

Why “Infographic Thinking” Is The Future, Not A Fad

Link: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1668987/why-infographic-thinking-is-the-future-not-a-fad

We get a lot of infographic pitches. Almost all of them suck. Why? Because while they may well be "information plus graphics," they often lack what designer Francesco Franchi calls "infographic thinking." This isn’t just "how to make some numbers and vector graphics look clever together." It’s a narrative language--it’s "representation plus interpretation to develop an idea," to quote Franchi. He’s the art director of IL (Intelligence in Lifestyle), the monthly magazine of Il Sole 24 ORE, one of Italy’s top financial newspapers, and if you look at his work, you quickly get the sense that he knows what the #*(@ he’s talking about. He lays out his thoughts on "infographic thinking" in this video podcast from Gestalten:

Franchi issues a lot of wisdom we’ve heard before--"If we don’t have content, we can’t have design," "You have to be informative but also entertain the reader," etc.--but he also distills the essence of visual communication down into some brilliant insights that go beyond art direction. He talks about "the nonlinearity of reading" an infographic, which is something that can set a true example of the form apart from its faddish imitators. Infographics aren’t like Powerpoint presentations -- they don’t have to be one-dimensional. In the hands of a Fathom or a Felton, even a static infographic can feel immersive and interactive because of the way it offers multiple paths for discovering stories.

One of Francesco Franchi’s many amazing works. This one shows Chinese exports.

"Infographic thinking" doesn’t let designers to interpret a narrative visually; it lets them invite the viewer [to] join in the process of interpretation, too. It’s what makes infographic design a language, not a formula or a fad. And it’s what sets any superlative infographic apart--regardless of whether it’s hot on Twitter right now, or 200 years old.  

Is immersion a core game virtue?

Is immersion a core game virtue?

Link: http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/01/13/is-immersion-a-core-game-virtue/

“I feel a sense of loss over mystery… I feel a loss over immersion. I loved… playing long, intricate, complex, narrative-driven games, and I’ve drifted away from playing them, and the whole market has drifted away from playing them too,” Koster says. “I think the trend lines are away from that kind of thing.”

– Gamasutra interview of me by Leigh Alexander

Karateka

Games didn’t start out immersive. Nobody was getting sucked into the world of Mancala or the intricate world building of Go. Oh, people could be mesmerized, certainly, or in a state of flow whilst playing. But they were not immersed in the sense of being transported to another world. For that we had books.
Even most video games were not like worlds I was transported to. Oh, I wondered what else existed in the world of Joust and felt the paranoia in Berzerk, but I never felt like I was visiting.
Then something changed. For me it started with text adventures and with early Ultimas. I could explore what felt like a real place. I could interact with it. I could affect it. And with that came the first times where I felt like I was visiting another world. It came when I first played Jordan Mechner’s Karateka and for the first time ever, felt I was playing a game that felt like a movie.


I remember how we took that D&D Red Box Basic set and built a consensus world with it that ended up outweighing the rules to such a degree that we would often do role playing sessions for hours on end without any dice or books, just weaving our shared story together. We were sharing a dream.
For me, those dreams reached fruition with mud and then MMORPGs. Now other people were there too! And as a game designer, I focused pretty strongly on immersion as a core game virtue.
I wasn’t alone. For others it came with the adrenaline of DOOM or the narrative of Half-Life, the world of Elder Scrolls or Wizardry or Fallout or whatever else.
Once upon a time, people actually dying on the field of play was an expected and normal part of sports. Whether it was a game of Aztec tlachtli or plain old rugby, it happened, and was considered an inevitable part of the sport.
Things that we once considered essential to games drift in and out of fashion. And I think immersion is one of those.
Immersion does not make a lot of sense in a mobile, interruptible world. It comes from spending hours at something. An the fact is that as games go mainstream, they are played in small bites far more often than they are played in long solo sessions. The market adapts — this reaches more people, so the budgets divert, the publishers’ attention diverts, the developers’ creative attention diverts.
As I watch my son and daughter play games or participate in role play sessions, I find myself reluctantly admitting to myself that it is a personality type that ends up immersed in this way, and were it not in games it would be in something else. Immersion isn’t a mass market activity in that sense, because most people are comfortable being who they are and where they are. It’s us crazy dreamers who are unmoored, and who always seek out secondary worlds.
It’s just that games aren’t just for crazy dreamers anymore.
Today even my immersive worlds have little XBLA pop-up alerts telling me that hey, someone just logged on and they want you to stop being Heothgar the Bold in Skyrim and instead come blow up some aliens on a party line while they made crude jokes in their actual voices and talk about how work went that day.
Even those immersive virtual worlds that I held so dear are full of acronyms and practices that strip away every shred of magic. PUGs and soul bound items and DPS counters and queues and level ranges and unlocking companions and cost for mounts and all that crap have very little to do with whether I dare cross the swaying rope bridge over the river, fearing that the rope may give way and leave me stranded on the side where the savage trolls are; very little to do with the moment of awe and fear that came from reaching out to grasp the crystalline diadem and pull it from the dusty cackling bones of the dead queen; very little to do with the twin moons over my head and the constellations made of the last gasps of stars whose light was quenched ten million years ago, when the universe was new.
It becomes an instrumental world, where the fantasy cannot live because it is always rudely awakening you to the fact that you are just at play, just playing a game, just pretending… And when we know we are pretending, well… The moment you realize it’s all a dream is the moment you wake up.
I mourn. I mourn the gradual loss of deep immersion and the trappings of geekery that I love. I see the ways in which the worlds I once dove into headlong have become incredibly expensive endeavors, movies-with-button-presses far more invested in telling me their story, rather than letting me tell my own.
But stuff changes. Immersion is not a core game virtue. It was a style, one that has had an amazing run, and may continue to pop up from time to time the way that we still hear swing music in the occasional pop hit. It’ll be available for us, the dreamers, as a niche product, perhaps higher priced, or in specialty shops. We’ll understand how those crotchety old war gamers felt, finally.
The great opportunity ahead is to actually seize the moment at hand; to make games be the core entertainment medium of the century. We have always talked big about their potential.
Well, now we have the audience. We are starting to get the breadth of cultural reference, the emotional subtlety, the understanding of our craft, and the true diversity of core mechanics that opens up the broad audience, all of which enables us to fulfill that promise.

“Another way to think of it is, we always said games would be the art form of the 21st century: Gamers will all grow up and take over the world, and we’re at that moment now,” he continues. “It’s all come true — but the dragons and the robots didn’t come with us, they stayed behind.”

I know many of you are frowning as you read this. The word of consolation is that said world with twin moons and stampeding herds of alien beasts, with derring-do and mystery, with the hours spent dreaming of its nooks and crannies — that world was always in your head, and not the screen.
Fewer games may be set there. And annoying alerts may pop up, and there may be a toll booth on the way to the dragon’s peak.
But dreamers dream, and no one can take that away from us. Even if the light of the stars is quenched, that particular universe is always new.
Inspired by an interview given to Leigh Alexander at Gamasutra some time ago.