A couple weeks ago, one of the popular topics recirculating the blogosphere was immersion. “Immersion” ranks right up there with “hardcore” or “casual” where if you ask ten gamers what immersion means to them, you’ll get twenty answers. Two of my favorite articles on the subject were The Psychology of Immersion in Video Games and What is Immersion? From my own experiences observing and participating in discussions of immersion, it seems those two articles collectively hit the nail on the head: as gamers, we tend to use the term “immersion” to mean alternatively “spatial presence” (read the first link, or Wikipedia) — which is how I normally define immersion as well — or “flow” depending on the circumstances (and the player’s understanding of the terms).
Despite my love for video games, when I stack them up against books and movies, I find games to be the least immersing of the three. Books would be top of the list because the various descriptors used in writing can pull me into the story’s world (spatial presence) to various degrees, though I may only achieve a state of flow where I am really engaged or engrossed in the story but circumstances around me such as the fact I am reading on a plane, possibly elbow-to-elbow with other passengers, snoring fat guys in front of me and screaming demon-children behind me prevent me from reaching a state of immersion. Similarly, movies can be so engaging and entertaining that they pull the viewer into that world — James Cameron’s Avatar was a cinematic experiment in forcing a suspension of disbelief; remember the hoopla over “Post-Avatar Depression?” — or they may be very enjoyable, the 2 or 3 hours may seem to pass quickly, but we are still aware we’re in a theater, that there are other people around us (possibly talking or making other noises) and we still had to get up to visit the restroom. Athletes can enter a state of flow while playing (being “in the zone”) or I could get into a state of flow if I am successfully playing Tetris but Tetris is not immersing (spatial presence) because there is no “there” to Tetris, there is only the gameplay itself and the level of my focus upon it, which is flow. (Yes, I am calling upon my trademark ability to split hairs (/wave to SmakenDahead) and refute Elena Gorfinkel’s Tetris example quoted in the second article I linked.)
The above paragraph can sound like it is external stimuli that is “immersion breaking” or perhaps even “flow breaking,” but I believe there are three factors at work, that being only one. A second is, for lack of a better term, the media presentation. If I’m reading a book from a new author, that may show in her writing and if I deem the writing style amateurish it may have the effect of reducing my interest and therefore reducing flow and immersion. Also if the writing is either too complex, vague, or overly prosaic yet underdeveloped (Tolkien’s The Silmarillion comes to mind) and I find myself repeatedly re-reading paragraphs just to try to understand what the author is trying to convey, all levels of flow and immersion are nullified. Studies (and opinions) show that sometimes using a well-known actor in a movie can contribute to the audience’s engagement with the story. Other times, not so much. For instance, I tend to be skeptical of movies starring Jim Carrey and Robin Williams because all too often they don’t act. They may be playing a character with a different name, but they are being themselves and replaying their same old shtick again. But the few times they step outside themselves and into the role, I find myself able to get into the movie much easier. Another example is Inception, which I have not seen yet. I keep hearing how excellent the movie is, and what a fantastic job all the actors did, yet I watch the trailers and can’t help but think Joseph Gordon-Levitt was horribly miscast because all I think is “That kid from 3rd Rock From the Sun? Are you kidding me?” My suspension of disbelief is already broken before I’ve even arrived at the theater, and it will be left up to his acting and the overall story to bring them back up for a fully enjoyable, immersing, and hopefully thought-provoking experience.
That last sentence serves as a segue to what I see as the third factor: suspension of disbelief. More to the point, a willing suspension of disbelief, meaning the participant must bring that to the table themselves. I have to be willing to give John Papsidera the benefit of the doubt for casting Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Inception. World of Warcraft players have to be willing to believe in the cartoonish world of Azeroth. Immersion is not something left entirely unto the creators to supply, though they certainly have the bulk of that task. We, the audience and participants, must be willing to suspend our disbelief in order for the spatial presence immersion to work.
But is immersion required? Looking at our favorite genre, MMORPG’s, I am inclined to say no. Sure, some players take things all the way into full role-playing. Even then, there are different degrees and types of role-play. I have my own style and typically limit it to myself, since it my enjoyment of directing my characters development through the world that matters to me, and I do it my own way. However, when I do happen to include others in my little personal role-play sphere (usually in chat) some readers can be thrown off because I can often switch in and out of character within the same sentence and leave it for the reader to discern which is which. To put it more technically, I am readily able to switch from the Player form to the Character form at will, and sometimes to the Person form, as Gary Allen Fine would say in his Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds. Whether that is a result of so many years of tabletop RPG’s where I had to switch from myself to GM to various NPC’s, writing, and now various video games and MMORPG’s or simply my (lack of) attention span, I will leave you to decide. 
Other players don’t seem inclined to immerse themselves in the game or its world but are perfectly content to play for the entertainment and social value. I always remember an Age of Conan player who said in Global chat “I know that I am sitting at my computer pushing a cartoon character through a cartoon world, and I don’t care to take it any further than that.”
How can media creators, or specifically game designers, work to improve our suspension of disbelief and therefore our sense of spatial presence? Small details and consistency. In order for us to believe in this virtual world, it needs to be true to itself to pull us in. I said above that the WoW player must be willing to accept the cartoony world, but from there the task in on Blizzard’s shoulders to ensure the various aspects of that world appear or behave in a consistent manner. Turbine has all sorts of little Tolkien references hidden away in LOTRO awaiting players to discover, assuming they are recognized for what they are.
Yet, for myself, I find that it is often the act of playing the game itself that detracts from spatial presence. Our Diku-influenced MMORPG’s require so many hotbars, inventory slots and other UI frames that keep me in the Player form paying attention to the keyboard, mouse, and on-screen cursor or watching UI elements such as debuff icons or health bars. Those UI elements take up entirely too much real estate on my monitor as well and get in the way of putting myself fully in the role of directing my character or believing in that virtual world. I always appreciated WoW and LOTRO for including the ability to bind name text to a key, and I get highly agitated at all the games that make me go into the options and turn names off one by one. Unless I have a need for names to be displayed, I typically press the ‘N’ key to turn off all names over NPC’s, objects and other players, because the more I have to pay attention and mentally engage myself in my virtual surroundings the better my sense of flow and immersion will be as opposed to simply being told in large, brightly-colored text that there is an annoying Mirkwood Crow up ahead in the darkness or that the player ThunderN00b is hiding behind that bush hoping to gank me but his big name sticking out of the bush gave away his position.
While we hear the word “immersion” being used most within the MMORPG genre, and MMORPG’s are for the most part consistent with their world design and behavior within it, MMORPG designers are woefully behind the times and behind the power curve compared to other studios. Specifically I will give Rockstar the award for Best Virtual World Design, and that is mostly due to all the little details they put into their worlds, and also physics, which is something MMO’s haven’t adopted yet.
I recently finished the story mode to Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption, which also provoked me to get back playing their Grand Theft Auto 4, where I finally finished the story mode, and one of its expansions, The Lost and Damned, which I also completed. Without getting into the gameplay of any of those and just sticking to the topic of the virtual worlds they have created, they are hands-down the most immersing I have experienced. The environments are a huge part of it, from the massive, winding Liberty City to the open ranges of the Old West, it is always fun to explore. The citizens of those worlds are another huge factor. All the people walking or driving through Liberty City or riding their horses or coaches in Red Dead Redemption. Having conversations among themselves, reacting to your presence if you walk near (or into) them, skid your car around a corner, or shoot a gun. Sometimes I like to just stop and observe what they do because you never get the same thing twice. I might drive down a street and find an accident in the intersection. An NPC may have been mugged and the thief is running away. An NPC thief might be carjacking another driver — or me. The police might chase down and arrest the NPC. Helicopters and planes fly overhead. Boats and ships are in the river. If I get out of my car, it’s still there when I come back. In RDR, Rockstar ramped things up even more. My horse is not merely a “speed buff with graphics” like our MMORPG mounts. Like the car in GTA4, it is its own entity and if I get off the horse it still exists in the world. But the horse is also an animal, so has its own AI. Horses are skittish around noises like gunfire, and this is reflected in-game. My horse also knows if there’s a rattlesnake nearby even if I don’t see it. It also has a sense of self-preservation and will do everything in its power to prevent me from riding off a cliff. These are consistent behaviors I would expect and the AI interactions and behaviors contribute to my suspension of disbelief, even when it’s silly. At times it can be aggravating if I hop off the horse to gather a plant or skin an animal and it walks off to graze, but it is the behavior I would expect if I let a real horse go alone unhitched. Compare all that to our MMORPG worlds where most town citizens are mannequins or at best have a brief patrol pattern. There is never any sense that the NPC’s actually live in MMO villages or that they truly exist at all other than as static Pez dispensers for quests. Another example in RDR is when I gather a plant or skin an animal, I am shown a brief cinematic where Marston bends down and picks the plant or takes out his hunting knife and skins the animal. This is a brief perspective shift, which may potentially bother certain players (as discussed in my recent Dragon Age vs. Mass Effect article) but it does serve to keep me squarely planted in the virtual world. What are not immersing are progress bars. I don’t know what happened in recent years that caused developers to decide that nearly every possible action in an RPG needs to be accompanied by a progress bar, but it is an annoying practice. Being annoyed in both Person and Player forms is a sure-fire way to eliminate my spatial presence.
There are no names floating above NPC’s or objects in Rockstar’s worlds, I have to mentally engage myself, pay attention and *gasp* learn. This is especially apparent in RDR where, if my count is correct, there are 31 different animals (counting both domestic and wild) and I may have to hunt and skin various types. Not only do I have to learn what each type looks like (Is that a deer, an elk or a bighorn ram? Is that little critter a raccoon or an armadillo?) but also learn where they may be located, not only from a “zone” point of view but also what terrain do they prefer and sometimes take into account whether they are predominantly diurnal or nocturnal animals. The animals in RDR behave like the animals they mimic. Wolves are pack animals and hunt together, but with more realistic patterns than the hard-coded patrols we’d see in an MMORPG. Deer are easily spooked and will bolt in erratic patterns, which can be fun to watch if there is a herd of them. Buffalo and cattle can also be spooked if chased, will work themselves into a lemming-like frenzy and run themselves off a cliff to their deaths. All this leads to a more pure sense of “hunting” than what we have in an MMORPG where we know not only which zone a particular mob is located, but also where it has been placed and will always respawn. The crème de la crème of hunting in RDR is the grizzly bear. While it is only found in the North, specifically in the area around Tall Trees, it can often be an elusive beast depending how vigilant I am scanning the entire environment and the time of day. Unlike MMORPG’s where “night” is simply stars in the sky and the lighting turned down a couple notches, Rockstar’s nights are very dark and difficult to see in. In LOTRO or other MMORPG’s if we get into aggro range of a bear, it will stand up, make its bear roar sound then charge us. There is no aggro range in RDR. If a grizzly happens to see me, I can pretty much bet that it’s pissed off and will charge. I rarely see them ahead of time and when I do it’s too late. They don’t make a roar sound at all ahead of time, I have to rely on hearing it breath as it charges. In fact, there are already so many ambient sounds in RDR from other animals to other NPC people, to gunfire, to my horse making horse noises, to the sound of its hooves on the ground that I ended up turning off the music every time I enter Tall Trees just to give myself one avenue of advantage to attempt to hear a grizzly breathing. Grizzlies are also the most dangerous predator in the game. Two swipes from a bear and you’re dead. We can carry medicine in our pack which will heal us from one hit but depending on how the physics system reacted to the bear’s mauling, it’s possible the bear may be back for its death blow before we manage to stand and use the medicine. You’ve heard adrenaline-pumping stories of trying to avoid and evade enemies on a PvP server in an MMO? The grizzly in RDR is the closest I’ve ever come to that feeling in a PvE setting. I may be hunting, but I am also being hunted.
[Note to MMO developers: The previous paragraph is precisely what we speak of when we ask for better AI. We are not asking for impossibly difficult AI like you continue to believe. We are not asking for human-level deviousness, ingenuity and tactics. We are simply asking that things behave as we would expect them to, including cover or survival tactics for intelligent enemies (eg. humans or humanoids). The "Hulk Smash!" AI found in MMORPG's was perfectly acceptable in 1980's-era arcade games but it's time to join us in the 21st century.]
Rockstar also uses physics in GTA4 and RDR, specifically the Euphoria physics engine, which is specially crafted to provide realistic movement and behavior to models rather than having each animation sequence hard-coded like we see in MMORPG’s. If I jump off my horse while it’s still moving, I will lean back on my heels while I realistically skid to a stop. If I jump in the air, I see a normal jump animation but if I’m near a fence I climb or vault over it. I may even stumble over an object or a small ledge and fall to the ground then pick myself up and dust myself off. Running too fast down stairs may lead to stumbling or running into someone. Reactions to an explosion takes into account the distance from the center of the blast. Maybe I am simply knocked down or maybe I am blown off my feet and into a wall. By contrast, all “knockbacks” in an MMORPG have hard-coded arcs instead of actual physics modeling. Rockstar also gives more benign physics behavior such as walking or driving uphill tends to slow us down, and moving downhill speeds up. Age of Conan is the only MMORPG I have seen include that behavior. Horses in RDR ride faster on paths or roads than in wild terrain. If it rains in Liberty City your tires have less traction.
Speaking of weather, Rockstar even delivers in that department. Not content with simply “rain” their worlds might have anything from light showers to torrential downpours to raging thunderstorms. Sometimes the rains will be accompanied by mists. Wet surfaces actually appear wet and puddles form. Mornings may be foggy in Liberty City. Mountains in RDR may have mists or fog in the evenings. Dry dust blows through the weeds in the parched plains. I’ll give LOTRO the award for Best Weather in an MMORPG but Rockstar still takes the award home for Most Comprehensive Weather in a Video Game. Not to say it’s perfect; it isn’t but it’s the best out there at the moment.
I will leave you with this time-lapse of Red Dead Redemption created by Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry.
This is the YouTube version, fine for the embed here but I recommend viewing the one on the RDR: World in Motion article which describes how they made it. The best version is their 720p H.264 MP4 they link for download though.
For those interested, Digital Foundry also has time-lapse videos of GTA4, Assassin’s Creed 2, and others. Links should be found at the end of each time-lapse video article.
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Excellent post! I think your points on immersion were all very accurate at a technical level because as you stated, the idea of immersion is different for everyone.
I can get on board with your examples from RDR and GTA. I’m not normally a R* fan, but I enjoyed RDR as an experience because of the exact examples you mentioned.
I wonder if the deficiencies in MMOs is due to design decisions or technical limitations. RDR and GTA are single player titles, where everything that happens can happen because there’s only ever going to be one variable in the game. Take Fable for example; you can influence people through your deeds and interaction with them. Whether people like or dislike the the way Fable handles this doesn’t factor in at this time, but I don’t think you could have that kind of data memory with thousands upon thousands of players interacting with hundreds upon hundreds of NPCs, AND run enemy AI and track everything else that needs tracking. I’m sure it COULD be done, but not without significant cost.
RDR and GTA are more like a BioWare game then an MMO because they labor very hard to tell a story. They don’t just rely on narrative, or mission text; they tell the story through the environment, which is something that most games fail to do well, if at all. MMOs these days simply aren’t interested in telling a story, IMO. Devs know that players often don’t read quest text, and until SWTOR, full VOs were out of the question (except AoC’s tutorial zone). You don’t have cut scenes like in RDR, GTA or DA:O, so you don’t have that narrative time where you get to take your hands off the controls, sit back and just drink it all in. You’re always mashing buttons, running everywhere and bunny-hopping like a dork in MMOs.
Are you on vacation, you are suddenly so hyper-inspired. This was an excellent read, and it reminded me of two things:
1. Why are MMOs still so damn primitive.
2. Has RDR already been released for PC? Oh noes, still no confirmation it will be released at all!
I am somehow not in the mood for Inception’s theme, but I guess my friends will drag me in nevertheless.
Immersion is a difficult term. Are we really talking about immersion when we talk about the environment in RDR? Immersion is an ideal state, when I reach this stage a book or game sucked me in.
Interestingly, no game manages that nowadays -> maybe except Mount & Blade at times. I think you have trouble with the camera, what a pity!
Books do the trick much more often for me, Avatar did it somewhat, but 3D makes me always feel a little bit uncomfortable, which diminishes the great effect somewhat.
I think you named what makes LOTRO great, the outdoor environments are just awesome. I think this makes it possible to dive into the world, to help suspend disbelief. The running animations of females were a real stopper for me, and you know from Openedge how he hated them even more. But I play a male human Champion so I could avoid this issue. I guess the lack of jumping in GW was also a real disappointment for many players, though I am afraid it was more they could not cope with this different kind of game.
Speaking of Rockstar – which company does what they do for MMOs? Guild Wars 2 will feature a lush world, but I am not sure if it will have the nice detail of RDR.
@Scopique: I’m not always a fan of Rockstar the studio, or even the developers. RDR and to a much, much greater extent, GTA 4 each have some issues with game play and mechanics, but I feel those are totally separate from the point of the article. Although I can say that GTA 4 in particular has some of the worst vehicle handling I’ve ever seen, and was the cause of much frustration as well as the cause of why it took me over two years to finish the story mode. But when they build an open world free-roaming game (they don’t call them “sandbox” games from what I’ve seen) they go all-out with the little details that make their worlds feel alive, and put every MMO studio to shame. Also, just to give credit where credit is due, in the article I kept things specifically on Rockstar but I need to point to Realtime Worlds for Crackdown (haven’t seen if they improved for APB and won’t until the client price drops significantly), Ruffian for Crackdown 2 and Pandemic for The Saboteur and Mercenaries 2. Whether the gameplay or other issues made anyone like or dislike the games, their worlds were amazing and it was always fun to just sit back and see what the AI would do.
@Longasc: Why are they so primitive indeed? I honestly don’t feel I’m asking too much to have better AI behavior in an MMO. Rockstar has been doing this since 2001 when GTA 3 released and have been finessing it ever since. The problem is that every time I see a developer address the question of AI, they have no comprehension of what we mean and simply think we mean some super-difficult enemies that give us too much challenge, causing us to quit the game. It’s almost insulting to the term to call what MMO’s have “AI” at all. It’s quite funny when you sit back and just watch GTA 3 or 4, Red Dead Redemption or any of the others I mentioned above and sometimes you can see just how silly and uncomplicated the AI can be, so it’s really not some huge light-year advancement in technology at all. It’s our perception of the AI that matters; the AI behavior patterns are what can make or break our immersion and for players, perception is nine-tenths of the law!
Excellent post! Lengthy, but well thought out. Two things:
1) Man, thanks to Brick and Inception, I have a budding man crush on Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I will grant that he seems to age really slowly though.
2) In my mind, It is very hard to separate immersion from enjoyment. In STO, my Science Team ability wasn’t making its noise until I did a reinstall – was the power animation with no sound feedback breaking my immersion, or was it simply aggravating? I don’t know.