Immersion: Is it a Concept?
By SuicidalSnowman 2 Comments
Today, I participated in this forum discussion on the concept Immersion. Basically, the forum is asking if perhaps the topic should be deleted.
Let me start off by saying that no, so far I do not believe that it should be deleted. So I set about attempting to write a full article.
@LordAndrew has weighed in, and although I have only been active here at GB a short time (despite following these guys from way back in their Gamespot, and even Arrow Pointing Down, days), he seems to have some idea of what is going on around here. Plus, a mod has spoken.
Therefore, I will be taking this suggestion, and doing a series of blog posts about Immersion, as it relates to games.
While this is not my personal crusade to have this topic approved, I think it is a very important gaming concept, and therefore would like to share my knowledge with the community and receive community feedback.
Contributions HIGHLY encouraged, these days I am too busy to stay up on all the games.
This will be post one.
Immersion: Is it a concept?
The short answer is yes. But maybe more importantly, does it belong in the GB wiki?
So far, it seems not. Criticism is that it is too nebulous, difficult to define, and all games, to some extent, strive for some immersion.
However, it is true that there are some measurable and definable qualities. Also, there are established techniques that can be used to increase immersion, and a whole vocabulary for discussing it. I think a lot of our concepts are, too some extent, strived for by most games, and many of our concepts are not fully defined.
Additionally, I found the "Tie-in game" page. It has over 900 games attached to it, but the entire article was three sentences. "Sometimes someone decides a game needs better notoriety, so it is a tie in game. Sometimes tie-in games are terrible, but the Chronicles of Riddick and X-Men Origins are two games that are considered better than the movie they are based on." Seriously? That's it?
I hate to take this approach, but why are we so quick to delete a full article when we have so many awful "stubs" sitting around that people gleefully attach games to?
Next post in series: History of Immersion