Immersion

Does immersion really exist? I have yet to experience a video game where I feel like I am a part of the world. Maybe I am a bit biased with this, and it's unfair to ask if it exists.
What is the closest you have felt to immersion while playing a game? I want to know whether it depends on the game or the player themselves.

Immersion doesn't mean you literally feel like your inside the world, faggot.
Just that you can forget sometimes you're playing a game because of how "convincing" (read: immersive) it is.
If you can't lose yourself in a video game, you may have some sort of mental illness that prevents you from experiencing fun.
I would say autistic, but then I realized that autistic people are literally the most likely people to become immersed in a video game they like.

I don't know OP. Maybe go see a non-Jewish psychiatrist?

Immersion happens on those moments you lose track of time. When you stop playing, look at the clock and realize holy shit, it's 5 AM

immersion is a marketing buzzword and nobody playing a game forgets that they are playing a game unless they are trying to sell you a product or are actually functionally impaired in some way.

Hype helps a lot with immersion.
These dumbs kids getting hyped by current year trash can really get immerssed into those shitty games, thats why they cant see how awful they are.

This. Immersion basically means being deeply involved in something. Being so into a game that you lose track of time is an excellent example. I guess it's possible to get "immersed" in shitty games, for those that easily fall for hype, but basically anyone that says "This game is totally immersive, it's like you're really living in the game world!" is just using marketing Todd-speak to hype people up for an otherwise mediocre game.

morrowind/gothic i guess
if wow had more in depth quests, it might have done as well in the immersion department

stalker soc. after two hours of gameplay you're just there and i credit the sound design for this 100%. you'll be walking and hear a far-off gunfight or dogs barking or something, and it has nothing to do with you. it just gives you the idea that the world is turning with our without your input and really adds to the immersion factor

WoW certainly satisfies this definition

Like others have said, immersion is when you lose touch with reality while you're playing a game. It's actually incredibly common, from my own experience. Much like when I'm reading a book. My complete attention is focused on the game or book, to the complete exclusion of pretty much everything else.


It's totally reasonable to become completely immersed in pretty much any MMORPG. I think it's far far more difficult for me to find games that I CAN'T become immersed in, than to comment on the ones that I do.

Like a game has to be complete and utter shit for me not to become immersed in it for at least a little while.

So you've never, in your entire life, been reading a book or playing a game and completely lost track of time?
The phrase "time flies when you're having fun" is an alien nonsense phrase to you?

Faggot.

This is the better term. Immersive games are good at passing time, I guess atmosphere is what you're thinking of OP. GTA IV is pretty atmospheric.

He certainly sounds like a fucking jew.

Are you sure you don't just mean "absorbing"? I would spend solid 7-8 hour sessions on games I don't remotely consider to be immersive.

It's not about the total amount of time you play. It's about some substantial amount of time passing without you realizing it, because you are so enthralled by the game. But that's still only one aspect of the concept of immersion.

Actually very recently with Spintires, I think it's the only game where I truly felt like I had responsibilities and I had to be careful not to fuck my whole game on the map.

:^)

Come the fuck on again, these threads are terrible. You must be retarded if you think you haven't experienced "immersion". Its not a 0% only or 100% maximum LSD dude I'm in a different zone effect.

The word immersion is not fucking either or. Since you can't grasp the simplest form of abstraction, I'm going to assume you are 8-15 years old and or non-white.
Did you move a character across something with your will? Congrats you immersed yourself in a different world, now fuck off.

that's not what immersion means

This is entirely possible, and really should be the gold standard for what's considered immersive: feeling so connected with a game's universe and events that it feels less like an on-screen simulation and more like a proper experience.

Personally I've only ever really experienced this through the STALKER series as referenced by These games have an uncanny habit of sucking me in and making me feeling like I'm actually trekking around Chernobyl rather than watching a video of it. A lesser example is Half Life 2 which tends to make me feel more "there" than other games, though the effect isn't as marked as STALKER and I'm not sure why.

Therein lies the ultimate problem: immersion is incredibly subjective and hard to replicate. Though STALKER seems to rate highly for this, there are many reasons why it shouldn't, from the buggy AI and dialogue to the at-times atrocious character models. Yet I find it more immersive than HL2 even though the latter has an all-around more polished look. I've even heard of people getting seriously immersed in the original DOOM by virtue of its excellent pacing and level flow, even though the visuals are grainy as fuck by today's standards.

So while feeling so immersed into a game as to blur the line between simulation and reality is well-known, claiming that this shit has a 100% success rate with any game is clear buzzword baiting. People want that kind of experience and as a subjective standard it costs marketers nothing to say you'll get it with your purchase.

Maybe the reason as to why you get immersed by STALKER is that rather than having a set of defined paths, the player is consciously aware that every decision is his own?

It's a question of what you're expecting OP

If you need a photo-real 360 environment holodeck and touch/smell sensors before you feel immersed then have fun waiting. Hell you can get immersed in shit like Fallout 4 if you're mad enough to want to make it your own thing. Anything where you're building up a place, a stash, or exploiting an economy for a long stretch while pouring over in-game lore can do it (Morrowind). Something that pulls you in, forces you to think in the games terms and then working out how to turn the screw to your advantage, granted not many games offer that depth.

Ultimately 'immersion' as a concept is subjective, what works for one person clearly doesn't work for another if you're in here asking this, either that or your definition of immersion is only going to be satisfied by a DMT-style mind flattening experience for which a PC or whathaveyou isn't the tool, yet.

Sure if you invent some retarded standard like "you run away screaming when you see a monster ingame and go call the cops" then no game is immersive.
The proper solution in that case would be suicide.

Isn't that first gen walkman or some shit?

GTA Vice City is immersive.
It transports you back to the 80s.

Main contributor being the music.

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