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.