Designing a persistent online strategy game - Department of ...

36 Chapter 4. Models & methods for evaluating games
or skiing. The more experienced you are the more choices you have to engage in greater
challenges.
4.6 Immersion
Both players and researchers agree that immersion is an important quality when playing
a game. Immersion is often used to refer to the degree of involvement or engagement one
experiences with a game [25], but the exact definition varies between researchers and
disciplines. Many players also have their own definition of immersion, so Brown & Cairns
interviewed seven gamers in an attempt to define immersion [5]. They identified the
three levels of immersion; engagement, engrossment and total immersion. Each
level has a number of barriers associated with it. A player can not reach a particular
level until all barriers for that level has been breached. Removing these barriers does
not, however, guarantee that the player becomes immersed at that level; they are only
preconditions for the experience. Below follow a description of the three levels and the
barriers associated:
Engagement. This is the first stage of immersion and must occur before any other
stage. The barriers here are access and investment of time, effort and attention. Access
relates to that the player must feel that she can control the game and know the actions
and consequences. For a player to invest in a game she must first of all like the type of
game, if not she would not even try to engage in it. When these two barriers are down
the player can feel engagement in a game, she is interested and wants to keep playing,
but she is not yet emotionally involved in the game.
Engrossment. Engagement can evolve into engrossment. The barrier here is game
construction. A good constructed game combines (among other) visuals, interesting
tasks and plot in a way that the player’s emotions are directly affected by the game.
The emotional involvement can make the player feel “emotionally drained” when they
stop playing.
Total immersion. In this level the player devotes all attention to the game and it
feels as if she “is there”. What happens in the game is the only thing that occupies
the player’s thoughts. The only problem is that this is only a fleeting experience. The
barriers for total immersion are empathy and atmosphere. The player must be attached
o the main character or team and must empathise with their situation. Atmosphere is
created by the sound, plot and graphics of the game. These parts require attention, and
the more attention a player invests, the more immersed she can feel. In the case of total
immersion, these aspects also have to feel relevant to the player.
One problem with this classification is that it excludes certain types of games. To be
totally immersed the game needs to have a story and characters that the player can
sympathize with. Many games do not have either a story or characters, or offer them
only as a background that do not affect gameplay, but the player can still feel totally
immersed in the game [1]. Ermi & Mäyrä suggests that immersion is a multidimensional
phenomena [17]. They have identified three different types of immersion; sensory,
challenge-based and imaginative immersion.
Sensory immersion relates to the audiovisual experience of a game. Good graphics
and sound and a big screen easily overtakes impressions from the real world and the