Immersion and Reloading

Last lecture, one of the quotes that was brought up was a story about Alec Meer feeling a sense of loss when his character died. This emotive response was the main focus of the example, however, the more interesting part of this story to me was the brief mention of his other reaction: to reload his save game. I play mostly old RPGs, and this is something I'm guilty of. I reload a lot, whether to avoid a serious mistake, or merely to see what would happen if I did X instead of Y (even in circumstances when I know I won't change what I ultimately do). I'm aware that there are some people who think this is a bad way of playing, or cheating. But I much prefer to play this way. Perhaps it is because in real life I'm indecisive, so in-game I like exploring the various options. 

Meaningful decision-making has been discussed as one of the key factors affecting agency and thus immersion in the game environment. But what is there to be said about this meta-game aspect to decision-making? If your decisions in-game have in-game consequences, that increases the sense of agency and thus immersion, that's fine. But does being able to hit rewind when you make the wrong decision take away the meaningfulness of that decision? This would seem the logical conclusion, however I'm not so sure. If the player felt that the decision was meaningless, why would they bother to reload? Clearly, they care about the impact of their decisions, because they care about making the 'right' one (for them).

I also don't think that this reloading is just about winning, or having the most powerful character with the shiniest gear (although it sometimes is). I'm probably more interested in the story aspect of games than some people, who would happily skip past anything resembling text, preferring to get straight to killing the bad guys. So if part of the enjoyment of the game for me is seeing what this person would have said if I said something different (via reloading), does this mean I'm less immersed in the game? Perhaps the break in continuity which comes with reloading might be jarring to one's sense of immersion, since being able to skip about in time could be considered a form of structural incoherence. But it is part of game logic which players have come to expect in these types of games. If you could not reload, (because that would be more realistic), I'm sure that the player would be very immersed right up until the moment they died half-way through, and then quit playing altogether instead of starting from the very beginning. Games don't have to be 100% realistic to be enjoyable. Players accept and take for granted the ability to reload the same as they (eventually) accept the insurmountable waist-high fence.  It may not be part of the world, but it is part of the game, and as such I would suggest that the meta-game aspects of a game follow similar principles of consistency increasing immersion as the in-game world.