Why Does Immersion Matter?

[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.

My bad. The bold part I replied to just sounded like it was referring to Dark Souls as hack n slash with empty gameplay. Trying to decipher some posters' personalities can be tough when text can be read the wrong way. It seems you're more of a left brain personality, which would explain your more logical approach to games and challenge with immersion. What threw me is the broad generalizations I bolded in the earlier reply.

 

[Saetha]

My bad. The bold part I replied to just sounded like it was referring to Dark Souls as hack n slash with empty gameplay. Trying to decipher some posters' personalities can be tough when text can be read the wrong way. It seems you're more of a left brain personality, which would explain your more logical approach to games and challenge with immersion. What threw me is the broad generalizations I bolded in the earlier reply.

(This is a touch ironic given that I'm having a debate about left-brains vs. right-brains on a different forum right now.)

Anyway, yeah, sorry for jumping the gun on my part then.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

I notice that my experience changes dramatically with immersion. As my go-to example; Fallout 3. My enjoyment of this is highly dependent on immersion.

When I'm immersed, I listen to all the sounds from the score to the radio to possible enemies lurking nearby. I gaze around at this vast world and drink it all in. I explore everything and I look everywhere. I do everything I can and evaluate every choice in my inventory and the story. The game is utterly fantastic when I'm in that mindset and I can keep going for hours on end.

When I'm not immersed, everything is just white noise as I'm going through the motions. I'm very prone to zoning out and turning off the game within 30 minutes in this state.

Apart from all that, I know how immersed I am based on how often I notice faults in the game. If I'm immersed, I keep trying and don't complain. If I'm not immersed, I stop trying and write off the game as not worth the time and effort.

 

[votemarvel]

I don't think anyone can really say why immersion is important. It's one of those things you can only really understand once you've experienced it for yourself.

Personally speaking I find it important because it pulls me into a degree that I start to feel for that world. It's why I shed a tear when Dobby was killed in The Deathly Hallows. It's why I hammer the button, or the screen, at the end of The Walking Dead in an effort to get Lee to stand up as hard as I possibly could.

If I hadn't been immersed in those stories then I wouldn't have given a damn in either situation.

 

[kilenem]

I enjoy the game more. Wearing Headphones for Resident Evil Revelations on the 3DS makes it more enjoyably because I can hear the sounds better as if I'm in the room.

My favorite Immersion story is when I was playing X-men Legends for 4 hours straight with my friend and we almost shit our selves as my mom walked in to the room because we were so tense.

 

[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?

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.

Interesting. I don't think you're as alien to immersion in games as you'd think OP. Game-wise, immersion and resonance go hand in hand and it's resonance that dictates what games we like and how deep into them we are. One of the reason's why I was sold on GTA IV the second I laid eyes on it was due to me being a New Yorker. The color schemes, ambient noise, and civil engineering were so close to what I experience every day that it shattered the barrier between game and real life. Suddenly I smelled the pee in the project stairwells, smog created by traffic, and the breezes that carried the elements of my city with it. The resonance was so strong that I was immersed from beginning to end.

Immersion and resonance don't just come from art direction though. You listed A Wolf Among Us as an example of a game you like. Gameplay-wise, Telltale's games couldn't be more bare but the emotional and narrative resonance they're able to generate create's an immersion all on it's own. The games quick time elements alone aren't engaging from a pure gameplay stand point but when you're feverishly engaging those button prompts with the motivation of ensuring Wolf doesn't catch that axe in the first episode, you're immersed.

Level of immersion has infinite variations of how it could hit different people due to their different tastes and life experiences. That's one of the prime reason's why some folks are obsessed with some games while others could be repulsed by the very same experience. Everyone has different elements that resonate with them in different ways.

 

[CaitSeith]

Immersion serves to focus you on making your fictional characters to shoot terrorists, win the World Cup, survive in the wild by their own means, escape from horrors, beat the odds, save the galaxy, etc; and to not realize that all this time you were just sitting there, gazing at the screen while pressing buttons with no real-life consequences and you end up thinking "I'm just pressing buttons and my life has no meaning".

 

[Xprimentyl]

Level of immersion has infinite variations of how it could hit different people due to their different tastes and life experiences. That's one of the prime reason's why some folks are obsessed with some games while others could be repulsed by the very same experience. Everyone has different elements that resonate with them in different ways.

I think you've gotten to the same crux of the issue to which a few others have eluded; immersion is largely and variably subjective whereas the industry at large (i.e.: box blurbs, review sites, critics, et al) would have us believe there's an objectively observable "immersion" aspect of games which simply isn?t accurate. The fact is one person's "10 hours straight spent in a first-person RPG with minimal HUD elements" could be subjectively just as immersive as another's "10 hours straight trying to beat a rhythm game on 'Expert' level." The simple fact that any of us spend any amount of time playing the games we enjoy is a testament to the existence of a personal level of immersion. The OP mentioned loving explorative games; there you go: they play those games because the drive to explore and discover draws them in, commands their focus, immerses them in a state of mind in which they desire to be when they desire to be there.

Immersion isn't necessarily/solely breaching the wall between reality and fantasy, empathizing with a protagonist or even caring about the environments we inhabit during gameplay; immersion is simply our unique personal investment of focus in the games we choose to play and our commitment to that focus; an immersive game is simply one that we personally feel merits that commitment.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Immersion really helps games form a connection with the player. It's the equivlant of developing a strong rapport with another human being, and what turns mere enjoyment into an experience. As Xprimentyl says above.......

immersion is simply our unique personal investment of focus in the games we choose to play and our commitment to that focus; an immersive game is simply one that we personally feel merits that commitment.

It helps takes the game beyond a distraction, and helps it become something more memorable instead.

 

[Droopie]

Immersion, to me, is being able to concentrate on a game closely enough that you forget about anything except getting to the next checkpoint, even if it takes hours. You're not convincing yourself that you are the character, or that you're not playing a game--not at all. But you aren't distracted by shoddy controls and you're constantly being wowed by the artwork, by the story, by the challenge of figuring out what to do next. It's being invested enough in that moment of play that you not only forget about the glare on your screen or the high-pitched buzz coming from the TV, but fail to notice them at all.

 

[JCRW]

Immersion, to me, is being able to concentrate on a game closely enough that you forget about anything except getting to the next checkpoint, even if it takes hours. You're not convincing yourself that you are the character, or that you're not playing a game--not at all. But you aren't distracted by shoddy controls and you're constantly being wowed by the artwork, by the story, by the challenge of figuring out what to do next. It's being invested enough in that moment of play that you not only forget about the glare on your screen or the high-pitched buzz coming from the TV, but fail to notice them at all.

I completely agree with you. My friend is developing a VR medieval open world sandbox called Yore VR right now and he talks a lot about how is working to stay true to the real world mechanics of all the weapons as much as possible, in such a way that the player gets lost in the little details of reloading that a crossbow or walking in the woods.