Immersion in videogames

Immersion in videogames

After today’s lecture on immersion and hearing Kevin’s own experiences with his cat etc.. I got to thinking, how serious can immersion in a game become? I have heard stories and read about people who become so immersed in a game that they have neglected to eat and died, as well as staying awake for too long and perishing that way. But these all seem like very unlikely and rare cases, and are probably to do with addiction rather than immersion.

I used to live in a flat with a pretty hard core gamer, and his love for immersing himself in his games was border line crazy. He would shut himself in his room locking the door, shut the blinds, turn off the lights, start his super computer, turn the sound way up and be almost impossible to contact. He had noise control called on him at 2 in the morning when he was “immersing” himself in Counter Strike. He would be so immersed in his gaming that smashing on his door, ringing his cell phone any normal means to make contact with him was virtually impossible. Once resorted to blowing smoke under the crack in his door, didn’t work.. Eventually we learnt that all we had to do was unplug the internet to get his attention but it was pretty worrying that it was so hard to get his attention when he was gaming, if the world ended he would only notice if the internet stopped.  

James Brewer