Immersion

The lecture on immersion really interested me – in particular, Poole’s idea of structural incoherence. From my understanding, this idea basically asserts that game players will find the world of the game to be a more legitimate one if they are able to complete actions which they would be capable of doing in the real world (For example, climbing a chain-link fence).

I do find it a little difficult to comprehend, though. I mean, do game players or “hard core gamers” actually find the world within a game more real? And to what extent? I mean, how far can we push this theory? Because yes, it could be argued that to some degree people do become fairly immersed within a game, but surely for the most part they would still be pretty aware they are simply playing a game – or not? I guess it would depend on each individual too. And how long the person has been playing the game. And a whole range of other factors.

I remember playing PlayStation1 games when I was younger and being pretty addicted to them. Since then, I haven’t played a lot of games. But when I did, I do remember being fairly immersed – yet, not immersed enough to feel as though the world within the game was almost real. Perhaps it was the games I played, or how much I played them. But from my limited experience I do find it quite difficult to comprehend that some people can become so heavily immersed – what Taylor would describe as “situated immersion.”

I guess it’s something worth looking into – how immersed do people really become?