长文探讨：开发者谈通过沉浸分类来优化游戏开发

原作者： Mata HaggisBurridge 译者：Willow Wu

（作者简介：Mata Haggis-Burridge是一名游戏编剧顾问，也是一名游戏设计师，目前正和Techland的编剧团队合作开发《消逝的光芒2》。这家公司已经有20多年的历史了，3A和独立游戏项目兼有，并且对赛博朋克颇有研究。）

概述：

我们一直以来都在努力打造“能够令人沉浸其中”（immersive）的游戏，但这个词的含义并不明确，可以涉及到多个方面。如果能讲得更具体些，我们的目标也会更加明确，促使团队朝着一个方向共同努力。

与客户和小团队一起工作的过程中，我发现将沉浸进行分类能够让人们有效专注于他们试图达到的目标：

-系统沉浸（systems immersion）指的是玩家深深投入到游戏机制、挑战和规则中时，进入了“心流”（flow）的状态。

-空间沉浸（spatial immersion）是玩家存在于或被传送到虚拟世界中的感觉，它与游戏的具现化概念相关

-共情/社会沉浸（empathic/social immersion）指的是玩家可能与角色（AI或人类）和游戏社会环境产生的联系

-叙事/序列沉浸（narrative/sequential immersion）指的是玩家执着于了解一系列事件如何继续，通常是在叙事中，但这与任何形式的进阶都有关联，例如探索新空间或不断演变的游戏机制。

对于“沉浸”的含义，你有什么不同的看法吗？

《古墓丽影》系列的主创之一Toby Gard认为“能够让玩家感到身临其境是那些最伟大、最成功的游戏的共有特点。”他认为，虚拟世界中的叙事连贯性是决定游戏沉浸度的关键，例如，如果一个虚拟的寺庙没办法让朝圣者来参拜，游戏的身临其境感就会减少，因为它不符合玩家对寺庙的一贯印象。

在学术研究中，我们看到研究人员在报告中写道“具有沉浸感的游戏是通过虚拟角色（化身）的眼睛，通过探索观景，并根据自己的意愿操纵环境来进行游戏的。”从这份报告看来，沉浸感并非来自于背景剧情的连贯性，他们强调的是通过使用第一人称视角来控制角色。

游戏吸引力的形成来源于多方面的因素，有些研究则认为虚拟空间沉浸感是其中之一，他们认为“个人玩MMO游戏是为了获得成就感，感受沉浸在另一个世界中的感觉，为了社交，为了逃避，找到群体归属感，因为他们喜欢分析游戏机制，因为他们喜欢竞争”（基于Nick Yee之前的研究）。关于“沉浸”的运用，这些研究都更加强调虚拟世界中的存在感，不管玩家的视角是第几人称。

沉浸也不一定就是能带来积极影响的。虽然它确实能优化玩家的游戏体验，但也与某些负面的社会事件有所关联：一对沉浸于网络游戏的夫妇疏于照顾30个月大的女儿，导致孩子饿死。这一悲剧的缘由应该是“上瘾”而不是“沉浸”，但沉浸感可能是电子游戏成瘾的一个因素。作者们认定沉浸感就是罪恶的源头，而不是社会情况——如贫穷、不平等、教育、医疗保险&社会保险的建立健全或其它可能关联的、已知会促进成瘾从而造成忽视家人的因素。

“沉浸”这个词如果没有明确的语境，就会变成一个模棱两可的术语。我把沉浸分为了四类，这样当你想跟职业游戏开发者、研究人员、记者和玩家讨论这个话题时，就能产生更有意义、更明确的对话。这四类是系统沉浸、空间沉浸、共情/社会沉浸和叙事/序列沉浸。

1.系统沉浸

系统沉浸指的是玩家深深投入到游戏的决策制定、规则中。举个例子，《吃豆人》玩家是不会觉得自己就是一个在迷宫中吃点点的大嘴怪，但是他们的意识和身体还是会对闯关成功产生强烈的反应。虽然这是一个快节奏的游戏，但速度较慢，讲究战略游戏同样可以引起一些玩家的强烈反应，因为平衡问题完全占据了他们的脑袋。这种形式的沉浸跟Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi所提出的“心流”很相似，也就是说幸福感来自于游戏挑战带来的进阶与玩家行云流水的操作。

2.空间沉浸

空间沉浸指的是虚拟空间中玩家的存在感。玩家感觉他们身处于某个地方，或者感觉已经来过这个地方，这时候表现出的就是空间沉浸感。游戏的画面质量应该是刺激这种沉浸感的重要因素，但它不会是唯一的。玩家可能会从2D迷宫游戏中获得巨大的空间沉浸感，许多玩家也从很早期的3D游戏中体验到了真实的胃翻腾感，就比如《特技赛车手》，开发者只用基本的线条或色块来显示赛道。但与视觉效果相对较差的虚拟世界相比，具有高真实感或电影视觉效果的3D空间可能会让更多玩家产生空间传送感。随着时间的推移，这种对画面质量的品味可能会提升，因为玩家开始期望将更好的画质作为行业标准，导致细节较少、帧数较低的世界因此而显得更加“假”。

虚拟现实（VR）的头戴式界面给它带来了极大的好处，因为这可以直接产生空间沉浸感，不像标准的2D显示器（即电视屏幕、显示器、智能手机等)，玩家很可能要对界面很熟悉才能体验到虚拟世界的空间沉浸感。

当玩家有强烈的空间沉浸感时，他们通常会失去或者弱化对周围物理环境/身体的感知。这是所有沉浸类型的共同点，但似乎空间沉浸感的影响会更为强烈，这还需要进一步研究。

弱化玩家的物理空间意识可能会带来与放松、创伤性事件的情景重置、虚拟假期、缓解疼痛/压力等有关的好处，但同时也可能带来潜在的消极后果，特别是在移动或者/和在公共空间的情况下。对于那些因对物质环境缺乏认知而可能加剧现有社会问题的群体来说（如妇女和/或边缘社区群体），风险尤其大。

在这四种类型中，最能让玩家有化身感的应该也是空间沉浸。但化身感也与虚拟世界的效验相关——即玩家是否能影响游戏系统以获得他们渴望的结果、影响力有多大。这一点与系统沉浸更密切相关。与激发化身感相关的研究很可能会列出多个影响玩家身临其境感且彼此之间有所关联的因素，以及哪些类别的沉浸对讨论化身感是最有价值的。

3.共情/社会沉浸

共情/社会沉浸是玩家与游戏中角色和社会背景所产生的连接感。卫报记者Keith Stuart在讨论沉浸感时说道“出色的游戏可以利用隐秘的线索引发沉浸式的情感反应”。这些联系可能是由NPC或与参与游戏的其他玩家形成促成的。这可以通过实时触发，即当两个或所有玩家一起在游戏中，但是异步状态——当一个或多个玩家离开后，提醒剩下的人他们之前是在游戏中的。

个人与游戏中的NPC、人类角色和社会之间的联系可能是由游戏中的事件所促成的，比如一个角色在与玩家并肩作战很多次后死亡，但也可能来自于游戏内的社会联系，比如一个奇幻游戏中的玩家公会定期在虚拟空间中聚会，并基于他们在真实世界的性格和生活而进行社交。这种由社交系统和真实性格促成的游戏内联系可以形成一种社区集体感，刺激共情沉浸、社会沉浸，或者两者兼有。这种友谊和社区集体感可以成为玩家继续玩游戏的强大动力，但对现实生活的影响也是有好有坏。

4.叙事/序列沉浸

叙事/序列沉浸指的是玩家想要知道事件的后续如何发展。一般情况下，这是由传统的剧情事件所驱动——围绕物质和/或情感而产生的冲突，但玩家对角色能力逐步发展的好奇，或者在游戏的一个区域游走，希望找到下一个可探索的新区域，这样也能激发叙事/序列沉浸。

在后一种情况下，叙事是根据玩家所感知的事件顺序来建立的，而不一定是游戏开发者预先设定好的，但这仍然能够激发出相同程度的欲望和投入。虽然这类沉浸在叙事驱动的游戏中是最容易观察到的，但事实上它也是大多数电子游戏成功的原因之一——从动作冒险游戏到足球模拟再到农场游戏。

这四种沉浸类型彼此之间是紧密关联的。

需要强调的是，所有这些沉浸形式都存在交叠区域，但没有一个固定的比例。玩家完成了对游戏世界的探索，但仍有空间沉浸感，并不需要依靠探索好奇心引发的序列沉浸感带领他们继续游戏；游戏可以有一个一无所有的主角，但玩家仍可以获得很高的系统沉浸感，就比如《毁灭战士》等经典的第一人称射击游戏；或者是一个虚拟空间，将人们生活过的痕迹精心布置，就比如Gone Home，给玩家带来共情/社会沉浸感和强烈的空间沉浸感。即使没有其他角色在游戏中真正现身也能引发共情沉浸，因为情感纽带是通过玩家对线索的解读而表现出来的，但考虑到Gone Home是围绕美国社会展开的剧情，可能不同地方的玩家会有不同的感受。

很难想象一个游戏只具有一种类型的沉浸，特别是已经被视为成功的游戏。可能大多数成功的游戏和游戏机制是分阶段处理了不同类型的沉浸感，并且进行了平衡，为不计其数的玩家创造了令人愉悦的整体体验。

那么我们要如何运用呢？

在做游戏时，我们会对视觉逼真度、互动直观性，成本效益等因素做出调整，以达到一种平衡的状态。每个选择都会对不同类型的沉浸产生影响，思考如何平衡这四种类型或许能起到帮助作用。

例如，我们可以选择完全忽略刺激共情/社会沉浸，优先考虑系统沉浸，比如制作一个全抽象或者大部分都是抽象的游戏，或重复使用通用场景，没有定制。玩家仍可能会在我们的游戏中获得共情/社会沉浸，但这可能是更偏向私人化，不同于那些开发团队费了好大劲来刻意刺激共情/社会沉浸的游戏。

2016年，游戏开发公司“Sassybot”跟我合作发行了一款名为Fragments of Him的游戏。在开发过程中，我们专注于将游戏的共情/社会沉浸和叙事/序列沉浸最大化。因此，我们特意选择了尽量不会阻碍或分散玩家注意力的游戏机制，移除了游戏系统中的很多常见特色，如谜题、对战、分数、计时器或失败状态。最终做出来的游戏，对某些玩家来说是具有很强的沉浸感，叙事主题“应对悲伤”也有很强的冲击力。

尽管开发者可以优先考虑某一类沉浸，但不同的玩家会从同样的内容中体验到不同类型的沉浸。有些玩家可能觉得《侠盗猎车手5》中的射击和驾驶机制刺激了系统沉浸感，有些玩家最难忘的还是城市拟真度所带来的强烈空间沉浸感，有些玩家可能觉得故事情节非常吸引人，所以感觉叙事/序列沉浸感是最强烈的。有些玩家会享受游戏主角的陪伴，有些玩家会觉得反感，从而提高或降低共情/社会沉浸感。

在高预算游戏中，比如《侠盗猎车手5》，这种跨越多种沉浸形成的广泛吸引力几乎可以肯定是有意为之的，即使开发者在工作中使用的是不同的术语。单凭一个游戏就能吸引这么多不同类型的玩家，正是由于这一点《侠盗猎车手5》才成为了史上最畅销的游戏之一。开放世界游戏的本意就是涵盖多种类型的玩法，以保证玩家沉浸。因此，将活动分散在不同类别的沉浸中是许多大型娱乐公司商业战略的核心。

“沉浸”跟有害行为有关联吗？

对于一些人来说，“沉浸 ”是有可能会为生活招致负面后果，但你不能直接下结论说电子游戏“沉浸”就是会引发社会问题。《侠盗猎车手》系列因为有可能表现出的极端虚拟暴力行为，围绕它的电子游戏问题内容争议一直都存在，而沉浸感的分类给我们提供了一个很好的切入点，来讨论不同玩家是如何体验这些游戏内容的。

很多《侠盗猎车手5》玩家会把系统沉浸放优先。由此一来，他们会将游戏中出现的人视为虚构系统的组件，而不是真人。另外一些玩家或许会感受到强烈的社会沉浸感，从虚拟暴力行为中获得施虐的快乐。从外在来看，这两类玩家在游戏中的行为方式可能相同，但他们沉浸方式却存在着极为重要的根本性差异。对于第一类玩家（很可能是占比最大的）来说，游戏可能是一种健康的放松、发泄方式，不会伤害到现实世界中的任何人，包括他们自己。但对于后一类玩家来说，游戏有可能会加剧他们的反社会问题。同一款游戏，对一些人来说是亲社会的，而对另一些人来说是反社会的，这其中的微妙之处我们不会在这里深入讨论，但未来的研究可能会将沉浸分类作为一个工具，由此来探讨游戏、玩家和社会之间关系。作为游戏开发者，我们必须支持这样的研究——不仅仅是为了让我们自己安心，同时也是为了让工作更合乎道德，改善游戏对玩家的影响。

这类研究可能实施起来会有难度，但这并不意味着它不具有可行性或者无关紧要。就像书籍或电影的类型一样，在某些玩家看来，某些游戏类型的主题或玩法风格本身就是更具有吸引力的，这将影响他们的沉浸效果。一个喜欢沉浸于FPS游戏系统的玩家，如果游戏的叙事设定平淡无奇，即使游戏的机制符合他们的喜好，也可能没有多少沉浸感。同样，一个玩家体验宇宙设定相同的但玩法感受大相径庭两款游戏，TA所获得的叙事沉浸感也会有所差异。有些玩家会比较喜欢那些重点刺激某一类沉浸的游戏，它们会很大程度上忽略其它方面的沉浸。一个游戏类型或机制所造成的亲社会、反社会后果可能是跟复杂的个人喜好和社会背景有关。

我们还需要进一步的研究。

不同类别沉浸感所产生的吸引力可能因个人喜好而有所不同，但可能也与性别、年龄、身份、责任或其它文化和社会条件有关，这些都会从根本上影响更广泛群体的偏好。为了更清楚地了解这些因素，我们有必要进一步研究、理解沉浸感——无论是单独来看还是放在社会环境中。

虽然这四个沉浸类型任何一种都能对讨论起到正面作用，但它们共同协作时能刺激更全面化的沉浸效果，从而创造出身临其境感，玩家是否享受游戏跟这一点有非常密切的关系，甚至可以说，这种全面化沉浸是玩游戏的快乐之源。说某个东西是“沉浸式”的，是表示这种共同协作对玩家来说是有效的，但并不能说明是如何实现这个结果的，除非使用一组更细化的术语，比如这四类沉浸。

电子游戏领域存在着一些有趣的边界，讨论使用这四种沉浸类型不是那么简单的事。例如，增强现实 （AR） 游戏是否生来就具备空间沉浸感？因为这本质上就是在物理空间上叠加虚拟空间？我不这么认为，因为问题的关键是玩家是否有沉浸在游戏的空间中，如果游戏的AR世界没有吸引力或没有充分融合物理世界，那么玩家不太可能产生空间沉浸感。AR目前面临的硬件障碍问题可能会削弱所有类别的沉浸效果，但像《精灵宝可梦GO》这样需要到处跑的游戏就说明了AR已经可以在物理空间之上合理叠加具有一定空间沉浸感的玩法。未来的研究和游戏中可能会出现专门提高AR产品空间沉浸感的机制和视觉设计。

多个玩家在同一空间玩虚拟游戏的情况下，也会出现类似的难题。这个时候游戏的共情/社会沉浸感将会受到怎样的影响？可以说，游戏的“魔圈 ”已经延伸到了物理世界，会产生一种共情/社会沉浸感，但这又是另一个可以探讨的话题了，本文不再加以延伸。

除了鼓励时间方面的投入，你还可以在meta游戏空间上花些心思——即玩家在核心游戏玩法之外与游戏活动建立的联系，或者让游戏的影响延伸到了游戏时间之外，参与到了个人生活中，比如与朋友讨论或同人作品创作。可以说，这也是一种共情/社会沉浸的形式，但对于这个分类系统来说，这块内容太繁杂了，用其它术语可能能够更好地描述，比如 “拟社交关系”（parasocial relationships）。

结论

我们知道，电子游戏已经是娱乐、艺术和教育的重要媒介。对此我想说一个实例：世界卫生组织已经认识到游戏对社会的影响力，在2019年将“游戏障碍”归为一种健康威胁。然后在2020年又表示游戏在COVID-19病毒流行期间也是能起到积极作用的。鉴于游戏的重要性，我认为人们在“沉浸 ”等常见术语的含义上达成一致是有必要的，可以避免混淆——无论是在公共讨论中还是在政策制定方面。

在开发游戏的二十年中（也教了十年书），我归结出了这四类沉浸。对于游戏沉浸的讨论，以后可能还会有更多可用的术语，但是这四个术语为我的咨询、开发、研究、教育工作提供了一个很好的切入点。我希望它们能对游戏开发者、学者、记者、政策制定者和希望能够在讨论中更进一步地描述游戏内活动和体验丰富性的玩家有所帮助。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Author bio:

Mata Haggis-Burridge is a consultant games writer and designer, most recently writing for ‘Resident Evil Resistance’ and working in collaboration with Techland’s narrative team on mission writing/design for ‘Dying Light 2’. They have have worked on AAA and indie games for 20 years, and have a PhD in cyberpunk.

In short:

We aspire to create ‘immersive’ games, but this word is used to mean several different things. If we are more specific, we can be clearer in what we are trying to achieve, and help our teams work towards a common goal.

In my work with clients and small teams, I’ve found four categories of immersion allow us to really focus on what they’re trying to achieve:

-Systems immersion can be used to describe when players are deeply engaged with the mechanics, challenges, and rules of a game, and is similar to a state of ‘flow’
-Spatial immersion is the sense of a player being present in, or transported to, the virtual world, and is linked to the concept of embodiment
-Empathic/social immersion describes the connection that a player may develop towards the characters (AI or human) and the social context of a game
-Narrative/sequential immersion can be used to describe a player’s compulsion to see how a sequence of events continues, typically in a narrative, but this is related to any progression, such as exploring new spaces or evolving gameplay mechanics.

If you’re a conference goer, you may have heard me present some of these ideas at Develop:Brighton (https://www.developconference.com), Interactive Pasts 2 (http://interactivepasts.com/the-interactive-pasts-conference-2/), or at the academic conference GAME-ON®’2019 (https://www.eurosis.org/conf/gameon/2019/).

Is there disagreement about the meaning of ‘immersion’?

Toby Gard, one of the creators of the Tomb Raider franchise, argues that ‘the power to immerse the player […] is the common attribute of the greatest and most successful games.’ He believes that the narrative consistency of the virtual world is the main influence on how immersive a game is, e.g. if a virtual temple has no space for worshippers it would make the game less immersive because it does not meet players’ intuitive expectations of places for worship.

In academic studies, we see researchers report that ‘an immersive game [is] played through the eyes of a virtual character (an avatar), by travelling through a landscape and manipulating the environment at their discretion.’ For this team of researchers, the sense of immersion does not come from contextual-narrative consistency, but instead it is heightened by controlling an avatar using a first-person perspective.

Other studies list immersion in a game’s virtual space as a component of many other factors that make games compelling, arguing that ‘individuals play MMOs for a sense of achievement, a sense of immersion in another world, in order to socialize, in order to escape, to feel part of a group, because they like analyzing the game mechanics, and because they enjoy the competition’ (based on previous work by Nick Yee). In this use of ‘immersion’, there is greater emphasis on the sense of presence in the virtual world, regardless of the player’s perspective.

Immersion is also not unambiguously positive. While it does benefit the player’s experience of the game, it has also been associated with negative social outcomes: ‘a couple who were immersed in an on-line game ignored their 30 month old daughter to the point where she starved to death.’This tragic event is arguably due to ‘addiction’ rather than ‘immersion’, but immersion can be a factor in addiction to video games. The writers chose to frame immersion as the source of the behaviour rather than, for example, social conditions such as poverty, inequality, education, drug use, access to health and social care, or other elements that may have been involved and that are known to contribute to addiction and the resulting neglect.

‘Immersion’ has become an ambiguous term when used without further context. When attempting to discuss this subject with professional game developers, academics, journalists, and players, I have found four categories of immersion allow a more meaningful discussion to take place. The four categories are systems immersion, spatial immersion, empathic/social immersion, and narrative/sequential immersion.

Systems immersion

Systems immersion is when a player is highly engaged with the decision-making activities and rules of the game. For example, a Pac-Man player is unlikely to feel like they are a dot-eating-disc in a haunted maze, but their mind and body may nonetheless react strongly to the systemic progression of play. While this example focuses of fast-paced gameplay, slower and strategic games can be equally involving for some players, as the balance of rules wholly occupies their thoughts. This form of immersion is closely analogous to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of ‘flow’, where happiness is achieved from a pleasing progression of in-game challenge versus player-mastery.

Spatial immersion

Spatial immersion refers to a player’s sense of presence in a virtual space. If a player feels like they are in a location, or have experienced being there, then they are discussing spatial immersion. The visual quality of a game is likely to be important at stimulating this form of immersion, but it will not be the only factor: a player may gain a huge sense of spatial immersion from a 2D maze game, and many players experienced a real stomach-churning feeling from early 3D games such as Stunt Car Racer that only used basic lines or blocks of colour to show the racetrack, but 3D spaces with a high sense of realism or cinematic visuals are likely to stimulate a sense of transportation to the virtual space for more players than less visually impressive virtual worlds. This taste for visual excellence is likely to increase over time as players come to expect higher-fidelity graphics as standard, resulting in less-detailed and lower-framerate worlds consequently appearing more artificial.

Virtual Reality (VR) benefits greatly from its intuitive head-mounted interface because this can give an almost effortless sense of spatial immersion, unlike standard 2D displays (i.e. television screens, monitors, smartphones, etc.) where the player is likely to need a higher degree of familiarity with the interface to experience a sense of spatial immersion in the virtual world.

When a player feels strong spatial immersion, they will often lose or lower their awareness of their physical surroundings and/or body. This is a common aspect of all forms of immersion, but it appears likely that it will be stronger for spatial immersion, although further research is needed.

Lowering a player’s physical spatial awareness may have beneficial properties relating to relaxation, recontextualization of traumatic events, virtual holidays, pain/stress relief, etc. There are also potential negative consequences of lowering physical awareness, particularly while moving and/or in public spaces. These risks will in particular be greater for players from groups where existing social problems can be amplified by reduced awareness of their physical environment, such as for women and/or marginalised communities.

Spatial immersion also is most likely to stimulate a sense of embodiment in the virtual world, because the player feels like they are transported to that space, but embodiment could also be linked to efficacy in the world, i.e. the player’s ability to influence the game’s systems to get the result that they desire, which would be more closely related to systems immersion. Research into stimulating a sense of embodiment will likely reveal multiple entwined factors that influence how much a player feels like they are inside a game’s virtual world/system and which categories of immersion are most useful for discussing embodiment.

Empathic/social immersion

Empathic/social immersion is the player’s connection with the personal and social context of the game. Stuart, while discussing immersion, argues ‘the best games help us to build immersive emotional reactions through subtle human clues’. These bonds may be formed with a non-player character (‘NPC’) or with other players that participate in the game. This can be triggered live, i.e. while both or all players are in the game together, but also asynchronously, i.e. after one or more of the players have left but reminders of their former presence exist in the game.

Personal feelings of connection to the game’s NPCs, human characters, and general society may be stimulated by events that are in-character for the game, such as a character that dies after fighting alongside the player for many quests, but they can also be stimulated by a sense of social connection that is facilitated by the game, such as a guild of players in a fantasy game that regularly meet in the virtual space and bond based their physical-world personalities and lives rather than engaging with the game’s fictional setting. These in-game connections with personalities and social systems can build a sense of community that stimulates either empathic immersion, social immersion, or both. This sense of friendship and community can be a powerful driving force that compels players to continue playing a game, and can have both positive and negative physical life outcomes.

Narrative/sequential immersion

Narrative/sequential immersion comes from a player’s desire to see the next step in a sequence. Typically, this will be driven by traditional story-based events revolving around physical and/or emotional conflicts, but this can also be applied to seeing progressive ability upgrades for a character, or travelling through a region of a game and wishing to find the next area to explore.

In the latter case, there is a sense that the narrative is built through the ordering of events as they are perceived by the player, rather than necessarily through explicit pre-scripting by game developers, but the impact on the player can still be an identical compulsion and level of engagement. Although it is easiest to observe in narrative-driven games, this category of immersion is a factor in the success of most video game genres, from action-adventure through to football simulations and farming games.

The four forms of immersion are closely linked

It should be highlighted that all of these forms of engagement will overlap, but there is not a set ratio between them: a player could complete exploration of a game’s world and still feel spatial immersion without the need for exploration-derived sequential immersion; a game could have a blank-slate protagonist but still have very high sense of systems immersion, such as may be seen in classic first-person shooter games like Doom; or a virtual space that has a convincing and consistent sense of the people who live there, such as in the game Gone Home, will provide both a sense of empathic/social immersion and a strong sense of spatial immersion. In this last example, empathic immersion is felt even without other characters ever physically manifesting in the game because the emotional bond forms through a player’s reading of social cues, but these US-centric cues may make its appeal vary globally.

It is hard to imagine a game, particularly if it has been successful, having only one type of immersion as a part of its appeal. It is likely that the majority of successful games and individual gameplay mechanics address different types of immersion at different times, and that they balance their types of immersion to create a pleasing overall effect for a large number of players.

Using this to improve our games

When we make a game, we balance factors such as visual fidelity, intuitiveness of interactions, cost efficiency, and more. Each choice will impact on the different categories of immersion, and it may be useful to consider how we balance the categories, or indeed if we wish to.

For example, we might choose to entirely ignore deliberate stimulation of empathic/social immersion and prioritise the systems immersion (such as by making a wholly or largely abstract game, or reusing generic scenarios without customisation). Players may still find their own empathic/social link to our game, but this will likely be more individual per player than for a game where the development team made significant efforts to stimulate empathic/social immersion.

In 2016, the game development company ‘Sassybot’ and I released a game called Fragments of Him. While making this, we focused entirely on maximising the empathic/social and narrative/sequential immersion of the game. Due to this, we deliberately chose to minimise gameplay mechanics that would block or distract the player, so we removed many of the systems that would typically feature in games such as puzzles, combat, high scores, timers, or fail-states. This resulted in a game that, for some players, was highly immersive in the desired categories and as a result also very impactful regarding the narrative’s topic of coping with grief.

Although developers can prioritise specific categories of immersion, different players can experience different forms of immersion from the same content. Some players may find the shooting mechanics and driving in Grand Theft Auto V stimulates systems immersion, others find the physical believability of the city stimulates spatial immersion most strongly for them, and others may find the storyline is highly engaging and so feel narrative/sequential immersion most strongly. Some players may either enjoy the company of the game’s lead characters or find them repulsive, correspondingly raising or lowering their empathic/social immersion.

In a high-budget game, such as Grand Theft Auto V, this broad appeal across multiple forms of immersion was almost certainly intentional, even if the developers used different terminology while making it. As a single game, it can appeal to many different types of players and has had enormous success due to this. Games with open-world settings are deliberately targeting multiple types of gameplay to keep players engaged with their world and, as a result, the spreading of activities across multiple categories of immersion is a core part of the business strategy of many large entertainment companies.

Is ‘immersion’ linked to harmful behaviours?

For some, it is possible that ‘immersion’ may result in negative life consequences, but it cannot be simply stated that ‘immersion’ in video games is generically a contributor to social problems. The Grand Theft Auto series of games have been a focus of controversy regarding problematic content in video games due to their potential for showing extreme acts of virtual violence, and the categories of immersion give us a useful way to discuss how different players may experience these gameplay events.

Many players will play Grand Theft Auto V with an approach that prioritises systems immersion. This allows them to see in-game representations of humans as components of fictional systems rather than as real people. Other players may feel a strong sense of social immersion in the game and take sadistic pleasure from the virtual violence. From an external perspective both sets of players may appear to be behaving in the same way in the game, but there is a radical and important difference in how they are engaging with the actions they are taking. For the first group of players (and likely the largest by a very significant margin), the game may be a healthy way to relax and blow off steam without harming anyone in the real world, including themselves, but for the latter group it could potentially aggravate or heighten an unhealthy sociopathy. The nuances of how the same game may be pro-social for some and anti-social for others is beyond the scope of this article, but future research may involve categorising forms of immersion as a tool for exploring and discussing the relationship between games, players, and society. As game developers, we need to support this research – for our own peace of mind, but also so that we can work ethically to improve the impact of our games on players.

Research into this is likely to be difficult, but that does not mean it is impossible or irrelevant. Like genres of books or films, some game genres will possess more intrinsically appealing themes or gameplay styles for different players, and this will impact on their ability to feel immersed in the game. A player that enjoys systems immersion in first-person shooters may not feel engaged if the narrative setting of the game is unappealing, even if the mechanics of the game match their preference. Likewise, two games set in the same fictional universe will not result in equal narrative immersion for a player if the gameplay mechanics of the games are radically different in their level of appeal to that person. Some players will have a preference for games that prioritise one category of immersion, almost regardless of other aspects of the game. Pro- and anti-social outcomes of a genre or mechanic are likely to be linked to a complex set of personal preferences and social contexts.

Further research is needed

The appeal of different categories of immersion is likely to vary between individuals based on personal tastes, but there may also be gender, age, identity, responsibility, or other cultural and social conditions that underpin wider group-based preferences. Further research on how to study and understand immersion individually and in a social context would be necessary to understand these factors more clearly.

While these four categories are individually useful for discussion, they operate together to form a network of immersive effects. This network creates what a player experiences as immersion and plays a significant role in relation to their enjoyment of the game; it could even be argued that this network of immersion is the primary source of pleasure derived from playing video games. To say something is ‘immersive’ is to say that the network is operating successfully for the player, but it does not clarify how the network is achieving that result unless a more granular set of terms, such as these four categories, is used.

There are interesting borders in video games where the discussion of immersion using these categories becomes difficult. For example, do Augmented Reality (AR) games automatically have spatial immersion because the player is experiencing a virtual overlay on their physical space? I do not think so, because the question is whether the player is immersed in the space of the game, and if the game’s AR world is not compelling or does not adequately integrate with the physical world then it is unlikely to be spatially immersive. AR currently has barriers from the hardware that may lower all categories of immersion, but games such as ‘Pokémon Go’ show that AR can already place a pervasive layer of somewhat spatially immersive gameplay over physical environments. Future studies and games may reveal mechanics and viewing methods for AR that specifically heighten spatial immersion.

A similar difficult topic can also be found when considering virtual games played with participants in the same room. If the player is physically in the same space, how does this impact on the empathic/social immersion with the game? Arguably the ‘magic circle’ of the game has extended into the physical world and a form of empathic/social immersion will be present, but this is another subject that could be debated beyond the scope of this article.

Beyond the time spent in-game, there can be consideration of the meta-game space, i.e. the way that the player relates to the game’s activities outside of core gameplay, or when its influence extends beyond the time spent playing and into other parts of a person’s life, such as discussing it with friends or making fan art. Arguably this is also a form of empathic/social immersion, but this may be too large a stretch for this categorisation system and other terms will be better at describing this, such as ‘parasocial relationships’.

Conclusion

We know that video games have become a significant medium for entertainment, art, and education. As an example of this, the World Health Organisation has recognised their impact on society by categorising ‘gaming disorder’ as a health threat during 2019 and then stating that games can also beneficial during the COVID-19 epidemic of 2020.Given this importance, it is useful to agree on the meaning of common terms such as ‘immersion’ to avoid confusion, both in public discussions and at the level of policy makers.

I formulated these four categories of immersion during a decade of teaching and two decades of game development. There will likely be other useful terms for discussing immersion, but these four have provided a meaningful lens for my own professional work as a consultant, game developer, researcher, and educator. I hope they will be of use to game developers, academics, journalists, policy makers, and players who wish to discuss video games in a way that reflects the diversity of actions and experiences that games can offer.

(source:gamasutra.com)