Why Does Immersion Matter?

[chadachada123]

I don't know if there's just something wrong with my head, but I don't think I've felt "immersed" in a game, to the point where I magically forget it is, in fact, a game and I am, in fact, a pudgy twenty-something staring at a computer screen.

There aren't very many ways to describe the feeling I call "immersion" that don't sound very similar to this.

It's when a game is so engrossing that you, well, forget about the outside world, if only for a time. I've spent numerous nights staring at Minecraft screen without looking away for hours straight because I was just too damn focused on it.

The others who said "you only notice it when it's gone" are spot on. Even more spot on is Yatzhee's quote,

I'm going to quote Yahtzee on his Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion review, because that's the most reliable source I've got on this matter (for video games at least):
"[...] Let me tell you about immersion: Immersion is when you go for a midnight walk after a weekend marathon of Thief II and catch yourself looking for your visibility gem [an in-game meter that tells you if you're visible]. Immersion is when you're playing Condemned and your cat suddenly jumps onto your lap, only to be immediately launched off by a reflexive cannon-like blast of terrified piss.

It's pretty hard to describe, and really is a feeling that needs to be felt to be understood. Perhaps you just haven't found that perfect game yet, or perhaps you haven't been in the proper setting, since it isn't a feeling that can be properly had when surrounded by noise or light pollution.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

Immersion is when a game holds my interest enough that I lose track of time. It rarely happens, to be fair. But when it does, suddenly you notice you're a time traveller and holy shit, it's 3:45am and I have to work in a few hours.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

You know, I'm surprised no one posted this video yet. XD

 

[3asytarg3t]

This magic circle piece feels like complete babble in my view, sorry.

Also, since I consider games a really bad art form for narrative and character development I not surprisingly do not consider the genre of RPGs very good at immersion at all.

The only immersion I experience in games is due to emergent game-play. Where I find that varies but almost w/o exception it's not because the dev designed for it.

 

[Zombie Proof]

I'd like to engage you in this discussion OP but first I need greater context on where you're coming from gaming-wise.

Could you list your top 5 games and one sentence for why each makes the list?

 

[Drathnoxis]

Fill a bathtub with a couple inches of warm water and stand in it for 5 minutes, not very enjoyable right? Now put in a bit more and go down to your knees, it's a bit better isn't it? Okay, now fill it all the way up and lay down. See? Immersion improves the experience immeasurably!

 

[Saetha]

With some of these threads it's as simple as a trip to the dictionary.

What even is immersion?

IMMERSION (noun) im?mer?sion: complete involvement in some activity or interest.

Yeah that about sums it up. I think OP is reading into it a bit too literally. All the above posts have dissected the meaning to various degrees as well.

 

[MrFalconfly]

It's basically RP'ing your experience.

That's how I see it too.

It's basically how "real" the game is.

For example, just to make it simple, let's imagine a racing-game.

Now you've overcooked a corner, and are now careening into a wall. What do you do.

Are you completely cold, and don't react at all (except for annoyance)? Chances are you aren't very immersed if this is how you react.

Or do you flinch, and expect to be jostled around in your seat (completely counter-intuitive since you're in your office-chair)? If this is how you react, I'd say you're very immersed in the experience.

 

[Saetha]

I'd like to engage you in this discussion OP but first I need greater context on where you're coming from gaming-wise.

Could you list your top 5 games and one sentence for why each makes the list?

I can give a few examples of games that I like, sure. I loved Don't Starve and Terraria for the exploration (And DS for the art style.) to me it's fun to see everything a game world has to offer and discover new biomes, monsters, stories, etc. I like the Elder Scrolls games for the same reason. Some games I like for the stories and character - Mass Effect, Wolf Among Us, etc. I like game such as Cities: Skylines as time wasters (I generally don't find them tremendously engaging.) and stealth games like Dishonored because their gameplay, to me, is more stimulating than "Shoot this guy, chop that guy in half."

In contrast to that, while I can get behind hack-and-slash or FPS or turn-based games if they have a story/world that's sufficiently interesting, I tend to find the gameplay itself to be empty and sometimes verging on tedious. For that reason I generally don't care for games like Dark Souls or Call of Duty.

Fill a bathtub with a couple inches of warm water and stand in it for 5 minutes, not very enjoyable right? Now put in a bit more and go down to your knees, it's a bit better isn't it? Okay, now fill it all the way up and lay down. See? Immersion improves the experience immeasurably!

Th-... thanks. That, uh, really cleared things up.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Fill a bathtub with a couple inches of warm water and stand in it for 5 minutes, not very enjoyable right? Now put in a bit more and go down to your knees, it's a bit better isn't it? Okay, now fill it all the way up and lay down. See? Immersion improves the experience immeasurably!

Th-... thanks. That, uh, really cleared things up.

Of course! Everything always makes more sense after you've thought about it in a nice hot bath.

 

[Kyrian007]

I think the best definition of "immersion" in a game comes from a game I personally felt no immersion while playing, Doom 3. It came out while I was in college living in a residence hall. I went to visit a friend in his room. His door was open a little so I knocked, said "hi Jon" and walked in. He was playing Doom 3, and I walked over to see where he was. His character walks to the end of a hallway... and I notice he started canting his head to the right. He did it several times before actually peeking around the corner in the game. I realized... he was actually trying to see around the corner... on his monitor... by moving his actual head. Then I said "what are you doing?" He hadn't heard me come in and almost jumped out of his chair.

That's immersion. Forgetting that you actually can't look around a corner unless you move your character in the game. I never felt like that playing Doom 3, but he did. It is difficult to define, different players respond to different stimuli... in different ways. But there's one thing about it that is certain. It doesn't make a good game great or a bad game good... but if you get that feeling while playing a game you will most probably love that game. At least really like it.

 

[happyninja42]

Have you heard of the concept of suspension of disbelief? Immersion is basically that.

Eh, I disagree there. Suspension of disbelief is more, like, how much ridiculousness that can be allowed according in the story's rules. Harry turning Ron into a rat is impossible, but it's believable in the story because the story has established that wizards can turn people into animals. Harry revealing himself to have been a purple unicorn in an outfit all along is unbelievable, because there's nothing to suggest that was probable or even possible.

Immersion, at least from what I understand based on how people talk about it, seems to be less about how the story makes sense according to it's own rules and more about making the player feel like everything's actually happening. I think probably the biggest demonstration of the difference between the two is that suspension of disbelief is brought up in regards to almost all media, but I hardly see anyone talk about their immersion outside of gaming.

Suspension of Disbelief ties in very heavily to Immersion. As you stated in your original post, using the example of "I dislike X, because it broke my immersion". Immersion is the trait, of some forms of intertainment (not just gaming), that basically "draws you in" to the story. You stop thinking of it as something you are witnessing, and it becomes more something you are experiencing. You feel like you are in the moment with the protagonist. You feel like their pain is your pain. Etc. This is the way that horror movies operate. Without some immersion into the story, feeling the fear the characters are feeling, there is no fear for the audience. Games operate similarly, by the nature of you taking control of the characters. It's referring to that ephemeral barrier between you as the player, and you as the character. A good story, will suck me in so deeply, that I will feel like I am part of the cast of characters. Their problems become my problems. Their dilemmas and challenges become mine. I'm no longer a passive observer to what's going on, I am the person it's happening to. That's immersion. Not every game accomplishes it, and to be honest, many of them don't even try. Some games are just meant to be fun, and that's it. But others, usually story driven games, that rely heavily on the narrative tools of classic storytelling, will try and foster this reaction in their players. Some accomplish it, some don't.

And some people just don't have this reaction. Like I, don't really care for art, especially abstract art. I just don't see anything interesting or profound in it. But other people, might be driven to tears by the beauty and nuance of the piece. To me, it looks like 5 dots on a white background, scattered randomly.

Because it changes experience that you merely enjoy to one that you will fondly remember years after you've finished it.

But what IS it? Because I don't seem to get immersed in games, but there are plenty I adore regardless.

See my above for what it is. You just might be one of those people who don't get immersed in things/games. Which is fine, we're all different. As I said above, I don't really get anything out of visual art. Paintings, sculptures, architecture, etc. Those kinds of things just don't do it for me. Now you give me some music, or a powerful story/movie/game, and I can easily be brought to tears. Show me the Mona Lisa? Meh, don't give a shit.

So don't really sweat it if you just don't "get it".

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

I'm sure everything's been said already (only read most of page 1, but what the hey - the nebulous experience of immersion does mean a good deal to me.

Then why do people say that things like, for instance, HUD displays break immersion? How does a HUD display keep you from caring about the world?

Not being a PC gamer, Bethesda's been ruining/breaking my immersion in their games since Oblivion... To try to get my immersive kicks, I actually ended up sometimes placing a piece of card at the bottom of the screen on Oblivion, in order to block out the magi-compass. With Skyrim, I often disabled the entire HUD... meaning I could no longer tell whose damn horse I was about to mount/possibly steal, and picking up individual items without stealing something else became a fine art (it made me an obscenely good archer, given I had to actually practise with each bow and arrow combo in order to know just where the impact point would be).

And yet the sacrifice was worth it; with the HUD - and often the music - gone, 'I' and my first-person perspective was all alone in their created world. Effectively, the HUD in a Bethesda game does the work for you; why peek over that hill or around that corner, if you already know there's something/nothing over there? Why bother using your eyes and ears to react to threats, when music cues and a silly red blip can tip you off?

Why bother with an idea of freedom in a land, if all you have to do is follow a damned map marker?

With the HUD dealt with by mods, thankfully, in Fallout 4 (only ever fully shows when I'm under 50% health, and also in first-person using power armour), I'm back to the kind of experience Morrowind mostly gave; the land is navigated by landmarks and the map, and every threat or location discovered or missed is on me.

Immersion to me allows me to connect to the moment-to-moment experience in a far greater way. Give me a HUD in a first-person open-worlder, and all I see is just another game. Give me an empty screen save a drawn weapon when needed? And it becomes a world to explore. It seems a simple change, but the effect - for me, at least - is genuinely transformative. Fallout 4's a truly dumb game, but thanks to mods it's the best Bethesda experience I've had since Morrowind.

Metro 2033 would be another pretty great example of design emphasising player immersion; there are a few HUD elements on lower/normal diffs, but generally information is relayed to you using believable methods, i.e. you actually bring out a pad with a compass marker on it for a reminder of your heading, or you have to look at a gauge to see how much of a gas mask filter you have left.

HUD's and typically 'gamey' design tends to spoonfeed and molly-coddle the player. The less a game does that (though see the last bit for a caveat), the more I might be immersed (nu-Tomb Raider may've been third-person, but it had a pretty damn good approach to an often HUD-less aesthetic).

Back to Bethesda's games; almost anything that fleshes out the day-to-day existence of what life would actually be like helps, from camping, backpacks, dynamic lighting for torches/Pipboy, and even improved/more realistic blood effects (I'm not a gore hound at all, but Bethesda's weird pink puffs and splotches looked daft). In that respect, it becomes about verisimilitude relative to the world design (i.e. a lack of a HUD would not make, say, Lollipop Chainsaw more immersive - as its world doesn't seek to present any sense of grit or causal realism).

There are some pretty good replies in this thread (I've now given page 2 a once over), and they point to immersion's deeply subjective and broad nature. But I think it's a mistake and a bit foolish for anyone to seriously dismiss it as just a buzzword. There are certainly subjective thresholds, but going with general contextual usage it'd be pretty damn fair and reasonable to describe, say, Elite Dangerous or Metro 2033 as games more appealing to immersion junkies than, say, Mario Kart...

 

[Saetha]

Snip

Ah, see, there's my other problem with immersion - Morrowind was my favorite ES game, but in my opinion, the addition of an organized journal and "magi-compass" to the games isn't coddling, it's a godsend. I HATED running around in Morrowind with no clear idea of where I'm supposed to go. In Skyrim, I can follow a map marker, or I can tell it to fuck off and wonder at my leisure. That's one of the things I'd never want them to take out.

So maybe that's another reason I don't care for immersion. So many people seem to use it as a reason to take out features I appreciate and rely on. But then, games never become "not a game" to me. At no point, even when I'm really into a game and really enjoying it, have I ever forgotten that it's still just a game, or been upset by any reminder of that fact. The idea that HUDs can ruin an experience (Unless they're cluttered or poorly-designed, naturallY) is baffling to me.

 

[Saetha]

I'd like to engage you in this discussion OP but first I need greater context on where you're coming from gaming-wise.

Could you list your top 5 games and one sentence for why each makes the list?

I can give a few examples of games that I like, sure. I loved Don't Starve and Terraria for the exploration (And DS for the art style.) to me it's fun to see everything a game world has to offer and discover new biomes, monsters, stories, etc. I like the Elder Scrolls games for the same reason. Some games I like for the stories and character - Mass Effect, Wolf Among Us, etc. I like game such as Cities: Skylines as time wasters (I generally don't find them tremendously engaging.) and stealth games like Dishonored because their gameplay, to me, is more stimulating than "Shoot this guy, chop that guy in half."

In contrast to that, while I can get behind hack-and-slash or FPS or turn-based games if they have a story/world that's sufficiently interesting, I tend to find the gameplay itself to be empty and sometimes verging on tedious. For that reason I generally don't care for games like Dark Souls or Call of Duty.

Fill a bathtub with a couple inches of warm water and stand in it for 5 minutes, not very enjoyable right? Now put in a bit more and go down to your knees, it's a bit better isn't it? Okay, now fill it all the way up and lay down. See? Immersion improves the experience immeasurably!

Th-... thanks. That, uh, really cleared things up.

I can understand that while it may not be everyone's cup of tea, when someone likens a Souls game to mere hack n slash with empty gameplay it suggests they haven't acquired a sufficient frame of reference. Elder Scrolls for instance would actually fit that description far more aptly, along with the massive world having much less to offer in the way of significant discoveries and structure. Dante's Inferno for one would make a more suitable bed fellow with Call of Duty in the above example, but even then it's a bit degrading to the former.

These are of course still matters of personal taste, but in this case they also carry years of deliberate critical weight from both sides of the industry.

 

[Saetha]

I can understand that while it may not be everyone's cup of tea, when someone likens a Souls game to mere hack n slash with empty gameplay it suggests they haven't acquired a sufficient frame of reference. Elder Scrolls for instance would actually fit that description far more aptly, along with the massive world having much less to offer in the way of significant discoveries and structure. Dante's Inferno for one would make a more suitable bed fellow with Call of Duty in the above example, but even then it's a bit degrading to the former.

These are of course still matters of personal taste, but in this case they also carry years of deliberate critical weight from both sides of the industry.

Dude, I never said that Dark Souls and Call of Duty have the same quality of gameplay. All I said is that they're both games that fall under genres that I don't care for. That's all. Is Dark Souls miles better than Call of Duty? Hey, sure, if you insist. I don't care about either, so I don't really care how they rank against each other.

Like, this post comes off as if... if I had said "I don't like tea or coffee," and then you said "Okay but tea is great, don't lump it in with that gross coffee shit." That's great? You want me to admit tea's better than coffee? Sure, fine, whatever. Tea's better than coffee. But I would still rather have a coke, because it all tastes like shit to me.

So is Dark Souls better than Call of Duty? Sure, fine, whatever. But I'd still rather play Dishonored.

 

[Nazulu]

For me personally it is actually focusing on the wonders of the world, level, concept, narrative, whatever. When you just love being where you are and you can't help but want to find out what comes next.

Like me when I first played Super Metroid. It has real atmosphere, and it feels like there is so much hidden away in that world. I was searching around constantly, scared and excited to what I may encounter next.

Immersion is important when the game tries to be atmospheric and/or story based because the idea is to keep people interested all the way. You can't make a game like Shadow of the Colossus and have things constantly distract the player.

Making something either annoying or destroying the suspension of disbelief will make the players focus wander off or focus on something they shouldn't be. It's why I hate the Wii controllers, because it either didn't respond properly, asked me to do a really stupid action too often, or it runs out of battery's, bringing up that annoying icon to show me it was low. It made me focus on things outside the fucking game!

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Ah, see, there's my other problem with immersion - Morrowind was my favorite ES game, but in my opinion, the addition of an organized journal and "magi-compass" to the games isn't coddling, it's a godsend. I HATED running around in Morrowind with no clear idea of where I'm supposed to go. In Skyrim, I can follow a map marker, or I can tell it to fuck off and wonder at my leisure. That's one of the things I'd never want them to take out.

Heh, I loved that in one infamous/famous case, the player was pretty much given the wrong directions (or at least terrible ones). To me that made the gameworld feel more alive, more real, more prone to fallibility.

A search for Mehrune's Razor took me about two virtual weeks and most of an actual week, because the description of a possible location was pretty broad, and the onus was on me to be diligent about my surroundings. I built that whole stint out there into my RP, however, and so it came to help shape her story.

So maybe that's another reason I don't care for immersion. So many people seem to use it as a reason to take out features I appreciate and rely on.

Your use of the term "rely on" kinda contradicts your statement that these features aren't coddling; if you rely on something, you couldn't have done it without that, ergo isn't it pretty damn reasonable to see that as a subversion of the player's agency and sense of reward where basic exploration and discovery is concerned?

But then, games never become "not a game" to me. At no point, even when I'm really into a game and really enjoying it, have I ever forgotten that it's still just a game, or been upset by any reminder of that fact. The idea that HUDs can ruin an experience (Unless they're cluttered or poorly-designed, naturallY) is baffling to me.

I'm not sure what you're insinuating, if anything. Only people with profound cognitive disorders actually forget they're playing a game, or reading a book, or watching a film...

But we can be engaged and 'immersed' in all media; that's one of the main points/functions of art - to give us a different perspective, to show us a different world (be it psychologically internal, or something more literal), and to allow us to explore things we couldn't without that conduit.

As for the HUD: so you have no issue with having a world reduced to icons/'content' and filler? Because that's what Bethesda's HUD's have done since Oblivion on. What's the point in exploring if you already know what's over that hill?

I'll quote from Morrowind's manual, in the two page Introduction To Morrowind intro: "During your efforts to complete the main quest or rise to power in a faction, don't forget to leave the beaten path to see what's over the next ridge".

Two people look at the same ridge - one using a HUD and its magi-compass, and the other with no HUD elements whatsoever. The first sees no icons in that direction. There is no 'content' for them to consume, no fixed story for them to find. They move on.

The second person sees just a ridge in a world. The only way they'll truly be able to ascertain what's over there is by moving forward, and using their eyes. It could be nothing, it could be something. Whatever they find, however, will be their own discovery, their own story playing out within this other created world.

Icons on magi-compasses tell the player 'here's some content/here's bugger all', whilst a lack of a HUD or compass (or just markers) tells the player 'this is the world - you're on your own to discover or miss its locations and stories'. If I want to be spoonfed 'content' at every turn, I'll play a rigidly linear game.

If I read a [fiction] book, I want to be engrossed in its world. If I watch a film, I'd ideally prefer to forget wherever I'm sitting (home or cinema) for those two hours or so in order to truly appreciate what's on screen. If I'm playing a game--- well, it's no different. HUD's and many other design choices seen as overly 'gamey' don't help me to suspend disbelief and be engrossed in a causal world of another's making. And, as I've illustrated, they also go against the very essence of personal exploration and discovery. Unless I obscured or turned off the magi-compass/cheat-oh-vision in Oblivion or Skyrim, I never discovered a single damn thing if it had a 'here be content' icon to spoil the surprise.

'What's over that ridge?' *glances at the compass* 'Oh. A ruin/town/mine/nothing'.

Hence why I say Bethesda's design actively undermines its own open-world concept. I'm not saying all games should do away with concessions to what I see as rather lazy and/or impatient gamers - I'd just like choice, i.e. HUD tailoring options at the very least. Is that so hard to implement? Apparently not, given one such mod on Fallout 4 is 140.5Kb in size...

...whilst Bethesda have scores of people working over a few years, and can't be arsed to provide basic options to help fix their HUD-IP dissonance. Increasingly it really does seem like they have an 'Sod it, modders can fix/improve this' attitude.

 

[Snails]

I feel like immersion can have a lot of different meanings. A lot of it depends on the person. I agree with pretty much everything everyone has described about it so far. Being similar to you OP, I can't get "immersed" in the sense I forget I'm playing a game and am whisked off to the game world. However, I still feel that I get "immersed" into games when, like other have said, I lose track of time, and get into it to a point where I'd put other more important things aside to continue playing. Or being "immersed" to the point I think about the game while I'm at work, how the game waiting for me at home drives me to get through the day and come home and play. If a game has your attention, and holds it, to me that's immersion.

 

[Saetha]

Your use of the term "rely on" kinda contradicts your statement that these features aren't coddling; if you rely on something, you couldn't have done it without that, ergo isn't it pretty damn reasonable to see that as a subversion of the player's agency and sense of reward where basic exploration and discovery is concerned?

Not at all - coddling is something that is both unnecessary and usually unwanted. You don't want it, so it's coddling. I do, so its convenience instead. There's no objective definition. It all depends on who's playing.

And that statement there - "couldn't have done it without that" - that's the point. I probably couldn't have done it without that. Which is the exact opposite of coddling, since it's something I needed to enjoy the game as much as I did. If this were some high-stakes contest where my ability to explore without guidance mattered, you would have a point. But video games are a space where only the player's enjoyment matters, and if something enhances that enjoyment, then it's not coddling since it's better fulfilling the point of the product. Maybe future Bethesda games will give you the option to toggle off the compass and maps and such. That seems like a happy compromise. But if they were removed entirely, my enjoyment would be lessened. Does that undermine my agency and sense of reward? Fuck, maybe. But I don't care about those things, I care about getting the most out of the game I dropped sixty bucks on.

Snip

This whole speech, while pretty, only sums up your experience. It does not sum up mine, nor does it sum up the experiences of the millions of other people who played and presumably enjoyed Skyrim. You're selling your opinion as though it's objective fact, and as though everyone simply hounds icons and no one explores over that ridge regardless of whether or not it has a marker. I shouldn't have to point out the flaws in that, given the absolutely massive amount of people who played the game.

You can try to argue against that all you like. You can argue that I secretly hate having a HUD and have a much better experience without it. You can argue that I just ignore the ridge because Bethesda didn't stick on icon on it. But you'll ultimately be arguing my opinion and my own feelings, which is like - which is like if I said "My favorite color is blue" and you responded with "No it's purple because I like purple better and you're just lying about it being blue." No, I'm not. I enjoy the game better with the compass feature than without. Sometimes I explore over the ridge even if it doesn't have an icon. I'm sorry that you like purple better, but my favorite color truly is blue.

Now with that out of the way - Firstly, yes, Bethesda could and probably should allow you to turn off the HUD and music cues if you wish. Because some people, like yourself, obviously, truly do enjoy the game more without that, and they should be accommodated, especially since the accommodation cannot take that much effort or resources. It's bullshit that Bethesda doesn't do that.

Secondly, I don't appreciate the insinuation that I am a lazy and/or impatient gamer, but also, why does it matter if I am? Games are for the enjoyment of the player. Is the enjoyment of a lazy and/or impatient gamer somehow lesser than yours?

And thirdly,

I'd ideally prefer to forget wherever I'm sitting (home or cinema) for those two hours or so in order to truly appreciate what's on screen.

It's comments like these that lead to my confusion (And apparently, my overly-literal understanding) of what people mean when they say "immersion." How do you do that? How do you forget where you're sitting? How do you become engrossed in something to the point where your reality fades? That's not something that's ever really happened to me.