The Question of Immersion

For the most part, the common position on immersion between games and film are that games are more 'immersive' due to the element of control on the part of the player [Reference]. But after many hours of rising frustration playing FFX2, I am beginning to question this position. The fact that no matter how much attention I have tried to give to the game, the story, and graphics, I am always brought back to the thumb numbing pain of bashing my controller during a battle, pulling my concentration away from the screen in order to look at my hands to make sure I am pushing the right buttons.

F. Biocca defines immersion as being "the blocking out of the physical world". This makes sense,, and so ML Ryan writes to this definition that "it (immersion) cannot be experienced if the user remains aware of the physical generator of the data" [1994, p. 3].

Although the details of immersion are constantly being contested (what does it mean to be immersed? where is the 'beginning' of immersion? Partial immersion? Complete immersion?), I always come back to attaching the state of immersion to the 'surrendering of consciousness' [Gaut, 1999; Murray, 1997; Cohen, 2001]. Essentially, I would argue that immersion is the state that follows such surrendering, and that by being physically obliged to control the game with my hands, I am constantly being pushed out of potentially full immersion when playing a game.

Kline, Dyer-Rutherford and de Peuter make similar claims to Ryan's (and my) position on immersion in their book Digital Play, that players are constantly reminded of their earthly bodies through the physical contact with the controller, essentially discouraging full immersion in any game. If you think about it, I am not in control of Yuna directly, but she is mediated through a controller - in a third party control sort of way.

This all brings me to film, and its ability to create a deeper sense of immersion than a game on some levels. Although part of the argument for game play immersion is that we, as players are more invested in the outcome of the characters because we, in essence, control their destiny - but film has the ability to completely displace the viewer, through the use of empathy and sympathy (i might get into this in another post ...) - projecting emotions through human actors, instills a level of emotion in an individual that, not being reminded of their physical being (no controller in hand at the cinema) are able to 'imagine they are in the film' [Gaut, 1999], enabling a deeper sense of immersion.

But is it deeper or simply different? Perhaps I'll dig into this more if I have some extra time, but all this is to say, how does immersion play into the ability to learn to play FFX2? Does being immersed make me a better player? Does being aware of my physicality challenge the potentiality of immersion? And finally, does being immersed make the game better??