Against "immersion"

With the recent VR swings, and sways, and ups and downs, I think we're trending in a direction where we are pursuing this idea of "immersion" as an ultimate goal. Now, I generally hate the term Immersion, because many people just use it as an adjective when they can't quite explain why the like or dislike something, especially games. If pressed, I get the impression that most players who are into First person and other experiences, would agree with the game designer François Dominic Laramée,

“All forms of entertainment strive to create suspension of disbelief, a state in which the player’s mind forgets that it is being subjected to entertainment and instead accepts what it perceives as reality.”

As we get closer to viable VR systems, it seems like this is what people want. They want this feeling of presence, like they are actually in this game. When people talk about games you hear about how the UI "Breaks Immersion" or the way a piece of bad AI "Broke immersion" as a negative. Thinking in this way is a mistake though, because the pursuit of immersion is a bad idea, that makes games worse.

In short, "immersion" is bullshit.

To start with, watch Frank Lantz's great rand from GDC 2005, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JzNt1bSk_U

So why is this, why is the strive for immersion harmful? Because it obscures what video games are and what they are capable of. Video games communicate in symbols, that gun in Halo? It's not so much the simulation of a gun, but it's a set of symbols we interpret to function like our understanding of a gun. That's a crucial difference, because in that difference we experience a huge part of the game. It comes from the guns having impossible properties, (ie: hitscan, zero recoil, etc), it comes from how we understand them (IE, learning how the spread pattern of the AR works, or the burst of a BR pulls up).

That's not to say that I'm not interested or excited for VR (though less so since I actually tried an Occulus), the sensations created by 3D movement, and the fidelity of looking where you want are powerful design tools. But I don't expect it to "Put me there" I don't expect to believe I'm in this place. I'll always know that I put on this thing, and started this game, and agreed to this experience. That knowledge is part of games, and what it means to play.

There is one way to use the term that's valuable I think. Immersion as a term for pushing away all thought of the outside world is a valuable frame of thought. In that way, you don't need this idea of a world or a story that is believable, you don't need perfect visuals, you just need an engrossing rule set. Tetris can be immersive in this way, but never in the first way.

Bringing it around to Destiny, thinking this way helps me explain what looks right and wrong in the game. I think Bungie is doing some smart things with these third person shots, and the ability to see what you customized. I think it puts the idea of the story. If I want to remove other thoughts, why have this cutscene driven story at all? Why not leave it to the enviromental storytelling that we see in the old russia video?

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As we get closer to viable VR systems, it seems like this is what people want. They want this feeling of presence, like they are actually in this game. When people talk about games you hear about how the UI "Breaks Immersion" or the way a piece of bad AI "Broke immersion" as a negative. Thinking in this way is a mistake though, because the pursuit of immersion is a bad idea, that makes games worse.

In short, "immersion" is bullshit.

This is absolutely, 100% wrong in every way imaginable.

To start with, watch Frank Lantz's great rand from GDC 2005, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JzNt1bSk_U
So why is this, why is the strive for immersion harmful? Because it obscures what video games are and what they are capable of.

I listened to this, and this man is a hack and an idiot. What he doesn't realize is that every video game is a simulation. The better your simulation, the more immersive it is. However, this does not mean you have to be simulating reality. In fact, simulating reality is a pointless endeavor, since a perfect reality already exists and we are in it. Game simulations are fun precicely because they simulate something that is different than reality.

Video games communicate in symbols, that gun in Halo? It's not so much the simulation of a gun, but it's a set of symbols we interpret to function like our understanding of a gun. That's a crucial difference, because in that difference we experience a huge part of the game. It comes from the guns having impossible properties, (ie: hitscan, zero recoil, etc), it comes from how we understand them (IE, learning how the spread pattern of the AR works, or the burst of a BR pulls up).

Refuted above in three sentences. It is 100% a simulation of a gun, albeit a gun with no recoil and hitscan.

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I go away for a while, and when I come back the first thing I see is a post by Cody Miller I agree with!?

Anyway, this is basically exactly how I feel about it.

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To start with, watch Frank Lantz's great rand from GDC 2005, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JzNt1bSk_U
So why is this, why is the strive for immersion harmful? Because it obscures what video games are and what they are capable of.

I listened to this, and this man is a hack and an idiot. What he doesn't realize is that every video game is a simulation. The better your simulation, the more immersive it is. However, this does not mean you have to be simulating reality. In fact, simulating reality is a pointless endeavor, since a perfect reality already exists and we are in it. Game simulations are fun precicely because they simulate something that is different than reality.

I know Frank, He's far smarter, and understands games a deeper level than just about anyone around. Certainly more than you or I.

But pithy personal attacks aside, you are stretching the word simulation to mean something that it doesn't. Simulation is a specific thing, it's an attempt to create a model of some kind of existing (or very near to existing) process. IE, physics, or traffic flow through a city. Simply looking like something, or being a procedural representation of an idea isn't a simulation.

It sounds a little like you are mixing the concept of a formal logical system with that of a simulation. Chess is a logical system. Halo is a logical system containing a physics simulation. All games are logical systems, very few games are simulations.

Incidently, your post here, totally undercuts your argument about why multiplayer games are bad. Managed to get you to prove yourself wrong again. I'll take it.

Video games communicate in symbols, that gun in Halo? It's not so much the simulation of a gun, but it's a set of symbols we interpret to function like our understanding of a gun. That's a crucial difference, because in that difference we experience a huge part of the game. It comes from the guns having impossible properties, (ie: hitscan, zero recoil, etc), it comes from how we understand them (IE, learning how the spread pattern of the AR works, or the burst of a BR pulls up).

Refuted above in three sentences. It is 100% a simulation of a gun, albeit a gun with no recoil and hitscan.

If it's a simulation of a gun, then it's terrible. A gun in halo is basically just a fancy pointer, it's no different than marking a dude in battlefield, but we don't call that gun. Even if you say "But it doesn't have to be real" it's a terrible simulation, since all possible places where it's simulated are replaced by pieces of game logic. It's an object, which changes the state of a thing that it's over when you press a button. However, it's shaped like a gun, and it sounds like a gun, so we call it a gun, the definition of a symbol.

Here's a good test, "Is this thing trying to accurately represent some element of this beyond the visuals, and is that representation the overriding goal." In the case of a gun in Halo, no. The over-riding goal is to have a thing that works well within Halo's other systems. On the other hand, Halo's physics are designed to actually simulate how physics work, so they are a simulation.

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It sounds a little like you are mixing the concept of a formal logical system with that of a simulation. Chess is a logical system. Halo is a logical system containing a physics simulation. All games are logical systems, very few games are simulations.

All video games are simulations. Every single one. You are not correct when you say a simulation has to resemble or be similar to reality. I could create a simulation where none of the laws of physics applied, and make my own. Chess is not a simulation because you are playing with actual pieces. Video games are simulations because the only thing real about them is electrons, photons, and phosphors, yet we see vast worlds, aliens, cities, or even just falling blocks that disappear when you line them up.

Incidently, your post here, totally undercuts your argument about why multiplayer games are bad. Managed to get you to prove yourself wrong again. I'll take it.

Explain.

If it's a simulation of a gun, then it's terrible. A gun in halo is basically just a fancy pointer, it's no different than marking a dude in battlefield, but we don't call that gun. Even if you say "But it doesn't have to be real" it's a terrible simulation, since all possible places where it's simulated are replaced by pieces of game logic. It's an object, which changes the state of a thing that it's over when you press a button. However, it's shaped like a gun, and it sounds like a gun, so we call it a gun, the definition of a symbol.

You are taking the concept way to literally. It's a good simulation of a gun in the world of Halo. You're not comparing it to a real gun, you're comparing it to how it fits into the scope of the game. That is how you judge the 'quality' of the game's simulation.

Here's a good test, "Is this thing trying to accurately represent some element of this beyond the visuals, and is that representation the overriding goal." In the case of a gun in Halo, no. The over-riding goal is to have a thing that works well within Halo's other systems. On the other hand, Halo's physics are designed to actually simulate how physics work, so they are a simulation.

You don't have to simulate reality, I don't know why you keep thinking that 'simulation' is synonymous with 'close to reality'.

The fact that you and he both fail to grasp that all games are simulation, and that simulations can simulate unreal things, means you both have a flawed conception of the nature of video games. He speaks at conferences with authority, therefore he is a hack.

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I would say you can simulate something that doesn't exist. You can simulate a dragon attack, but that doesn't mean a dragon attack is real.

I would argue against immersion requiring an accurate simulation of events. Dungeons & Dragons games are terrible simulators of any actual events, and yet I can be immersed in them. I often am, and I don't even play the types of campaigns that are geared towards that. It isn't about realism, its about verisimilitude; it doesn't have to actually be like real life, but it has to be consistent with itself so that one can accept it as its own "reality" for lack of a better word.

And once again I have to agree with Cody, though I'm not calling anyone a hack. I just don't like to go there.

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As far as I can tell, the only major point of contention at the moment in the definition of "simulation." In terms of your ideas beyond what you think the correct usage of the English language is, your views don't seem all that divergent.

In the case of a gun in Halo, no. The over-riding goal is to have a thing that works well within Halo's other systems. On the other hand, Halo's physics are designed to actually simulate how physics work, so they are a simulation.

Eh, this is a pretty garbage example. If you ignore the effects of stuff like wind and gravity, and observe time at a low resolution, even hitscan weapons in Halo can be considered an approximation to real-world gun behaviour. Obviously that's a lot of caveats, but vehicles in any Halo game aren't exactly close approximations to real-world behaviour either (and in Halo 1's case, I might go as far as to argue that the guns are a significantly closer approximation to real-world behaviour in most meaningful senses than the vehicles are).

Really, neither the guns nor the vehicles are trying all that hard to be realistic.

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I don't use immersion in the sense that it means you can't tell the game from reality. For me immersion is 'being there', to be lost in the game, to have accepted its conventions, things behave as you expect given the premise of the game universe and not, necessarily, as you would expect for reality.

For example: in the Arkham games I am Batman, I'm stealthy, scary and can divebomb a baddy from 30 stories up, piledrive him into the ground and escape unscathed. That has nothing to do with reality. In reality, Batman can't work.

The things that break immersion for me are:

you can't run up to a door and run through it by pressing (A) as soon as the prompt appears. You have to stop running then press (A) and then walk through the door
I get stuck on corners when I press (A) to run
I stand up at the end of a silent takedown - even if this exposes me to snipers! (grrr)
I am forced out of batvision when I open a door

The first three break immersion because, in general, you are very capable as Batman, you move easily through the world and can do things that ordinary mortals can not (but I'm not talking Superman levels of power). Being unable to open doors on the run is not being capable - even ordinary people can run through doors.

Being forced out of batvision feels unnecessary and is inconvenient. It makes you think, "stupid game".

I suppose that all those examples are crimes against competence. And Batman's competence is one of the biggest selling points of the game for me. I feel: capable, dangerous, and scary when I play as batman.

I am batman.

PS - No Padraig, no you're not! ;-)

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[*]I get stuck on corners when I press (A) to run

This drives me crazy in video games. Moving through the world and getting stuck to a complete stop because there is a very small piece of geometry in your way is ridiculous.

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[*]I get stuck on corners when I press (A) to run

This drives me crazy in video games. Moving through the world and getting stuck to a complete stop because there is a very small piece of geometry in your way is ridiculous.

I was thinking of corner cover (or whatever it's called) when you become glued to a corner because you pressed (A) whilst near one. You initiate an animation that sucks you to the corner even if you are some distance from it. Many cover based shooters suffer from this. It usually kills me when I'm trying to avoid the auto-turret on Mars. I get stuck "sheltering" "behind" a console that gives no shelter. Truth be told - I find the corner cover in batman games rarely helpful. I think it hinders more than it helps. I wouldn't miss it if it was removed from the game. Corner covering when a guy is behind you and shooting you with a gun is not helpful and feels very inept ;-)

But batman has the normal run-of-the-mill stuck against geometry problems. He often grabs hold of ledges when you want to drop past them. That's a hard one to avoid. I wonder if there is a button you could hold to avoid it - could crouching whilst you fall be a signal not to grab? Crouching makes no sense when falling so it could double as a don't grab button.

Thing is - I often get caught out when doing a dive attack or a drop attack. I get too near a thing that is grab-able and Batman cancels the attack to grab it. This will even happen if I am holding the attack button down (X). That is inexcusable because the developer knows that I initiated an attack - it doesn't make sense to abort the attack if I am still holding down the attack key. At least only enable auto-grabs if the (X) button has been released and the game can assume that I'm not 100% committed to the attack.

Bad controls break immersion more than bad pixels do but that is because they are game-play crimes as opposed to real-world-simulation-violations. Anything that has you saying, "stupid game!" or "stupid developers" breaks immersion.

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I am batman.

PS - No Padraig, no you're not! ;-)

For reference:

ME:
[image]

YOU:
[image]

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This is a great example of what I'm talking about. All of those things aren't necessarily any different than the thousand other things that you suspend belief for, but all of those are just bad game design.

Immersion has become this general word we use to say good or bad in video games. It's lost most of it's effective meaning.

I don't use immersion in the sense that it means you can't tell the game from reality. For me immersion is 'being there', to be lost in the game, to have accepted its conventions, things behave as you expect given the premise of the game universe and not, necessarily, as you would expect for reality.

For example: in the Arkham games I am Batman, I'm stealthy, scary and can divebomb a baddy from 30 stories up, piledrive him into the ground and escape unscathed. That has nothing to do with reality. In reality, Batman can't work.

The things that break immersion for me are:

you can't run up to a door and run through it by pressing (A) as soon as the prompt appears. You have to stop running then press (A) and then walk through the door

I get stuck on corners when I press (A) to run

I stand up at the end of a silent takedown - even if this exposes me to snipers! (grrr)

I am forced out of batvision when I open a door
The first three break immersion because, in general, you are very capable as Batman, you move easily through the world and can do things that ordinary mortals can not (but I'm not talking Superman levels of power). Being unable to open doors on the run is not being capable - even ordinary people can run through doors.

Being forced out of batvision feels unnecessary and is inconvenient. It makes you think, "stupid game".

I suppose that all those examples are crimes against competence. And Batman's competence is one of the biggest selling points of the game for me. I feel: capable, dangerous, and scary when I play as batman.

I am batman.

PS - No Padraig, no you're not! ;-)

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I'm a big fan of immersion, but that does not equate to realism. Nor am I interested in 3D/VR of any kind. A good book still tends to be the most immersive experience I can find, and it's just black text on a white page.

I've found many video games in my time to be immersive as well, and what that usually implies is that its consistent in its design across the spectrum. So then the things that break the immersion are usually the poorly executed game elements. A clunky menu in a RPG is going to break my enjoyment and immersion because it is poor design and annoying, not because menus don't exist in the real world. Bad AI is breaking the immersion not because it isn't realistic, but because it's just not fun or challenging.

I find Bungie's Halo games extremely immersive for the most part, because there is a unified design sense gracing the art direction, UI, story, and gameplay. It's cohesive. That's what allows me to get sucked in. I'm never thinking about how I'm flying up ladders or magically rotating Warthogs without my hands moving, because the game design is so good, my imagination can extend it outward.

I guess that's what immersion means to me - the ability of something to inspire my imagination to create the world around me, whether I'm looking at a page in a book or a limited field of vision on a screen.

And I do think a lot of games pushing for extreme realism actually makes it harder to be immersed and imaginative, because they're doing all the work for our brains, instead of just giving us the seeds to make it much more wonderful in our heads. That's how a good comic works - it's not about depicting everything in photo realism, it's about being good and consistent enough that you forget you're reading bubbles or that your vision into the scene is bound to the panel's dimensions. You're just THERE, watching it happen. Similar explanations can be applied to paintings, theater, film, photography...

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I get the impression that most players who are into First person and other experiences, would agree with the game designer François Dominic Laramée,

“All forms of entertainment strive to create suspension of disbelief, a state in which the player’s mind forgets that it is being subjected to entertainment and instead accepts what it perceives as reality.”

As we get closer to viable VR systems, it seems like this is what people want. They want this feeling of presence, like they are actually in this game. When people talk about games you hear about how the UI "Breaks Immersion" or the way a piece of bad AI "Broke immersion" as a negative. Thinking in this way is a mistake though, because the pursuit of immersion is a bad idea, that makes games worse.

In short, "immersion" is bullshit.

Such a stifling observation! My word. It implys its own madness. I'm this || close to a facepalm over here!

Part of me wants to give the benefit of the doubt and presume that you weren't being careful with your words and the absolute nature of your post is not what you intended.

I am ignoring that part of me.

While you may be speaking of just the terms of video games, your subject is essentially an attack on all forms of media, by basically saying that immersion should not be the goal, when in reality its all it really is. The immersion is part of the understanding of..."whatever", be it the character, the location/world, the atmosphere, the interface... The story. That's part the fun.

In-fact such a thing goes beyond consuming the media, its true in creating it as well. Weather its method acting for films, world building for books, and all the facets games absorb to become created - it all has to do with immersion.

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Now you are being too extreme.

Some games "know" they're just games and don't hesitate to remind you of it in enjoyable ways. It breaks immersion, but that was both a goal and an enjoyable experience.

Not to mention games that simply don't even try to be immersive, but are enjoyable nonetheless.

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Some games "know" they're just games and don't hesitate to remind you of it in enjoyable ways. It breaks immersion

Unless you're immersed in the meta aspects of the experience, at which point it doesn't break immersion at all.

Yay generalization.

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Now you are being too extreme.

Some games "know" they're just games and don't hesitate to remind you of it in enjoyable ways. It breaks immersion, but that was both a goal and an enjoyable experience.

Not to mention games that simply don't even try to be immersive, but are enjoyable nonetheless.

That is called, as you no doubt are aware, "Breaking the Forth Wall". It is done with purpose - hence "a goal".

Also Interpretation on the internet. Warble Garble.

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That is called, as you no doubt are aware, "Breaking the Forth Wall". It is done with purpose - hence "a goal".

Exactly (I had forgotten the term :P).

Breaking the fourth wall, most of the time, breaks immersion, but that isn't a bad thing in itself.

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Some games "know" they're just games and don't hesitate to remind you of it in enjoyable ways. It breaks immersion, but that was both a goal and an enjoyable experience.

MGS2 wouldn't be the genius that is was if it didn't do this. In fact, the immersion, story and theme, are significantly strengthened as a result.

I want to gush about how and why it's so genius, but this isn't the place.

[image]

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Part of me wants to give the benefit of the doubt and presume that you weren't being careful with your words and the absolute nature of your post is not what you intended.

I am ignoring that part of me.

While you may be speaking of just the terms of video games, your subject is essentially an attack on all forms of media, by basically saying that immersion should not be the goal, when in reality its all it really is. The immersion is part of the understanding of..."whatever", be it the character, the location/world, the atmosphere, the interface... The story. That's part the fun.

In-fact such a thing goes beyond consuming the media, its true in creating it as well. Weather its method acting for films, world building for books, and all the facets games absorb to become created - it all has to do with immersion.

Obviously I wasn't totally clear enough, because I was trying to bring across that immersion as an act of understanding is a totally valid way to use the term, but in videogames we use it another way. One that is closer to how a method actor would use it.

In videogames we pursue immersion in an unnecessary and backwards way. We are erecting ever more complex realities, and investing hugely into things that sit over our faces in the attempt to actually believe we are there. Actually though, all of that is unnecessary, as this sense we seek is found simply through good design. When it comes to games, good design has the same effect of immersion in other media.

It's part of the compact we create with ourselves when we play. It's Huizinga's Magic Circle, the space we enter and agree to suspend the natural order. Play has this natural advantage in that we naturally immerse ourselves, yet we are investing hugely in boondoggles that don't actually further this stated goal.

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