finally this thread is getting somewhere
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chugpunk
stutterwave
strobestep
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Framewave
Lo-Rate
EDF-Like
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this would be an awesome debuff to cast on a human opponent
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William Shatner suffers from this I think
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I always think people are talking about graphix and details when they talk about immersion. I think the matrix is still the dream for a lot of players, and that has enabled people to talk about the ramping visual fidelity and realism of games we’ve seen the past few generations as progress toward that. A lot of how VR is talked about is just this too.
Any of these ideas also assumes a kind of normative player and normative way they experience games, which is a bad premise. But it’s interesting to think about. Personally, I can get into that “flow” state with some games, but they have to be really responsive to my inputs for that to happen. It’s also most of the time with third-person games that I find myself “embodying” the character the best.
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Yeah I knew the discussion would go this way and should have forestalled it with a longer post, but :lazy:
I mean specifically the way it is used in mainstream games press, a kind of amalgam of “cutting edge realistic graphics & sound” plus “compelling story”, is a confusion born out of AAA games’ continuing cinematic aspirations (the source of a lot of problems, really). If immersion is the quality of leading one to forget oneself, a movie can achieve this by being so beautiful, aesthetically and narratively, that I forget I’m sitting in a theater; but when those same scenes happen in a game I have to keep pressing X to make Barry Lyndon talk or run him into shrubbery by accident because I fat fingered the tiny lollipop thumbstick. Meanwhile, the games that achieve immersion do so by inducing a flow-state, making you forget the controller entirely - and they do this almost always with simplistic, abstract visuals and next to no dramatic content. In fact the only way to immerse a game player is to take over his brain so completely with the task of control that he has no more attention left for cinematic and dramatic appreciation. Opposite!
By the way, I say this as a proponent of dramatic games that offer a lot of distance between avatar and player. I’m no real fan of flow-state genres like action puzzlers, fighters, or stgs, precisely because I come to games for critical experiences that immersion cannot offer. It bothers me when reviewers praise a work I like by using a term that encapsulates the opposite of what I like about it!
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Heres a terrible article that supports yalls points.
“First-person video games already have an innate immersion factor, but these games are the total package when it comes to being truly immersive.”
" What separates Halo 5: Guardians. from other first-person games is the fact that it’s heavily optimized for the Xbox One. Playing it on the Xbox One X is undoubtedly the best way to experience Halo 5: Guardians. Running at 4K resolution, you’ll be blown away by the difference in graphics.
The game’s constant 60 frames per second provide an unparalleled immersive experience. The resolution suffers on the Xbox One, but the game looks spectacular on the Xbox One X."
https://www.thegamer.com/first-person-video-games-best-most-immersive/
Man that ain’t videogames to me.
I guess the last call-a-duty I played immersed me in WW2, which is why I found paying it so deeply upsetting.
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alright to further split this, i think some people talk about immersion-as-flow i.e. forgetting the controller, but IMO there’s also immersion-by-sublimity, i.e. being so overwhelmed by something aesthetically that it overtakes your brain for short or long periods of time. my example for this is always No Man’s Sky, a game with such fussy controls that it’s impossible to forget them, and yet when I take off in my ship and wobble my way out of the atmosphere into this gorgeous sci-fi neon space, the awkward controls actually increase that immersion. because flying a ship should be kinda weird. and i’m overtaken with the beauty and the weird things i had to do to get here just add to that. the struggle becomes the aesthetic, the aesthetic is only worth seeing because of the struggle.
anyway
i think those are the two main kinds of immersion in games. pointedly neither of them rely on dramatic context. i have never, ever gotten involved in the drama of a game in the same way i have a good movie or television series. and yes, it’s because in the middle of the deep or funny or serious conversation someone was having at me, i walked straight into a doorframe because Dipshit McPlayercharacter controls like a boat with legs.
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All valid points and I don’t wanna be a definition nazi (too late 
). It’s just immersion comes up almost as much as realism in games discourse that it’s hard to know exactly what’s at stake.
I completely agree that dramatic/fictional immersion is generally thwarted by the fact that plastic resides in the hands. Film has a lot to teach games but the goal of the filmic experience is ludicrous for this reason. Multiplayer destroys this potential even further where it might enhance it in live theatre (unless you’re on a hardcore RP server).
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Loved that period in the late 2000s, early 2010s, where games started to have huge death-defying set pieces that placed your character in a very epic, but precarious situation, and you could just eat shit and die over and over again in a very unepic kinds of ways. Also love to position my character facing into a wall as someone’s having a very serious conversation with them.
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After any in-game cutscene I immediately try to jump off all available edges in Uncharted games.
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that part in the last of us 2 where Joel pushes ellie into the water, which is meant to reveal she can swim now, I just let her drown
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selectbutton in 2020 is still afraid to be caught taking a videogame seriously unless it has determined the game is unserious enough itself. cowards.
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anything can be immersive if you have enough weed
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yep, they’re gonna sacrifice 30 fps in most games so you can see fancy lightning reflected off the puddles and stained glass windows that will now be in every other room in every game
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I’m totally 100% down for this.
Its either taking the piss or Im putting the piss in myself.
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Fluid+Long-Frame enthusiasts rejoice as today’s hottest videogame release Deadly Premonition 2 generous, luxuriant single-digit pacing was developed for precisely your needs and interests.
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