Submitted by Nikki_00 on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 15:10.
Immersion as Janet Murray puts it 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." I feel this definition of immersion truly captures what it means to be immersed in a game. It is for this reason I chose this definition to support my arguement that immersion and the fourth wall concepts are all subjective. As I mentioned in class the other day, text games such as Zork and Adventure depend on the user/player/interactor to have a previous experience with the content in the game. For example, [as we mentioned in class] in Adventure, we are exploring through a cave; if we didn't know what a cave was, then the game wouldn't be very immersive, rather it would be confusing. However, I don't think it is enough to know what something physically IS, to have a game be considered immersive. read more »
