Immersion and Involvement, Taylor and Calleja

In order to understand the relationship between player and game in a theoretical context, Taylor and Calleja individually created a model each to do just that. Taylor and Calleja’s models illustrate parallel evolution-coming to different points at the same time.

Taylor’s Model of Immersion:

Taylor model describes a players experience with a game can be explained by their degree of immersion to the game. Immersion refers to the sense, or degree to which the player feels integrated with the game space. Taylor argues there are two modes of immersion, diegetic immersion and situated immersion.

Diegetic immersion is where there player is immersed in the act of playing the video game. Situated immersion is where the player is playing the game and in the experience of the game space as a spatial and narrated space.  
Diegetic and situated immersion are not exclusive from each other but exist on something like an xy axis with some games differing blends and others favouring diegetic more exclusively (Taylor, 2002).

 Calleja’s Digital Game Involvement Model:

Calleja’s model describes a players experience with a game can be explained by six components of involvement.

1)      Tactical Involvement: engagement with all forms of decision making.

2)      Performative Involvement: relates to all modes of avatar through conscious attention (represents the actualization of established decisions).

3)      Affective Involvement: affectiveness of cognitive stimulation to reinforce player to sustain playing the game.

4)      Shared Involvement: aspects of communication between player and game environment (e.g. your avatar talks to a zombie).

5)      Narrative Involvement: the ‘designed narrative’ and ‘personal narrative’ of gaming involvement.

6)      Spatial Involvement: location of oneself within the game space.

 These six frames of involvement are structured on two temporal phases: macro-involvement (motivational attractors to games that influence sustained engagement through the long term) and micro-involvement (moment by moment involvement of the game-playing instance).

 Similarities

Taylor’s Model of Immersion and Calleja’s Digital Game Involvement Model both categorise their models into two core concepts (Taylor with diegetic and situated immersion, Calleja with macro and micro involvement).

Both models place emphasis on game space. Game space plays a crucial role in how the player engages with the game. Both models suggest game space has the ability to manipulate the players’ engagement with the game. For example, encoded boundaries within a game can influence what a player can do. In real life, most individuals can jump over a fence, whereas in some games you cannot do jump over certain fences. Both models argue that the game space or environment evidently shapes the gamers experience with the game.  Also, the player has the ability to manipulate the game space. For example, unplanned actions that can be carried out by the player in the game, that were not actions designed by the game designers. A player can figure out how to blow up a car by using materials that were designed initially to serve a completely unrelated purpose.

Both models frame immersion as an active conscious action. Taylor’s model argues immersion is consciously carried out through the players involvement within a space (diegetic immersion, the player is consciously absorbed into the game) and also the players involvement with space (situated immersion, the player is consciously aware of elements of hyper-mediacy and narration). Calleja’s model argues that immersion is actively and consciously carried out by the player on those six levels of involvement.

 Differences:

Although the models have some similarities, there is no doubt they are distinguished by their differences. Taylor and Calleja’s models have different priorities. They are two different approaches to understanding the same thing, which is what is going on in a game.

While Taylor’s model places emphasis on immersion between gamer and game, Calleja focuses on the incorporation of a spectrum of experiences (that is, the six components of involvement). Taylor’s model argues a player becomes immersed, or absorbed into the game on two possible levels (diegetic and situated immersion), whereas Calleja’s model avoids this concept of immersion. And argues the player becomes involved in the game on six possible levels.

Calleja argues that the word immersed, the word to which Taylor all importantly adopts, should be replaced by the word ‘incorporation’. Incorporation aims to avoid the binary notion of the player’s plunge into the virtual environment characteristic of ‘immersion’.
In saying that, both models appear to have a different idea of where the player is positioned when playing games. Although both models state there is a level of consciousness, to what degree the player is in control of their actions, as a result of their interaction with game space, is still in question.

                This blog aimed to briefly describe and compare Taylor’s Model of Immersion to Calleja’s Digital Game Involvement Model. While Taylor’s model describes a player and games interaction by diegetic and situated immersion, Calleja argues that interaction to be a result of six levels of involvement.

The two models are similar in that their core concepts are split into two categories (Taylor’s diegetic and situated immersion and Calleja’s macro and micro involvement). The two models both place emphasis on the role of game space. The game space interacts with the player and the player interacts with the game space, thus influencing the abilities of each other. Both models frame immersion as an active conscious action (Taylor as immersion, Calleja as involvement).

The two models differ in that they have different priorities and different approaches to understanding what is going on in player-game interaction. Taylor argues the player is absorbed and immersed with the game, and Calleja argues the player is involved with the game on six levels of conscious action.