Research - Analysis of "A Grounded Investigation of Game Immersion" (Brown & Cairns, 2004)

Summary and conclusions about "A Grounded Investigation of Game Immersion" (Brown & Cairns, 2004)

Brown & Cairns (2004) highlight that the term ‘immersion’ is used frequently to describe games throughout the gaming community but with little coherent explanation as to the general meaning of the term. Their study tries to define immersion within the context of games using ‘grounded theory’ (method of qualitative research developed by Strauss & Corbin (1998)) by analysing interviews with seven gamers about their experiences when playing. Much like Taylor (2002) their results define immersion as a process of stages of involvement with the game which “moves along the path of time and is controlled by barriers.” (Brown & Cairns. 2004, p.2), only this time three stages are suggested.

The three stages of immersion described by Brown & Cairns are ‘Engagement’, ‘Engrossment’ and ‘Total Immersion’. The barriers describe gateways to each of the stages and by opening these the player can move forward through the stages of immersion. For example the first stage is ‘Engagement’, this is where the player must first engage with the game, so a potential barrier might be that the player does not like the genre or style of the game, thus creating a barrier for further immersion to take place. As stated by Brown & Cairns “To lower the barriers to enter this level, the gamer needs to invest time, effort, and attention” (2004, p.2). This will be an important point to follow when selecting a pool of gamers for testing immersive audio qualities within this project. If the selected gamers’ had no interest in the genre or style of the game then trying to guide them through these layers of immersion would be difficult.

The next stage of immersion ‘Engrossment’ is described by one interviewee as

“A Zen-like state where your hands just seem to know what to do, and your mind just carries on with the story.” (Brown & Cairns. 2004, p.3).

Brown & Cairns seem to link this stage to the games’ construction and the players’ emotional connection, as well as respect for the design work put into it. Again there is a barrier to this stage of investing time and effort to become emotionally involved with the game but also design flaws such as poor visual/aural feedback or even unrealistic gameplay. These factors could all contribute to the feeling of disengagement and bring up the barriers against progressing to the final stage of immersion described by Brown & Cairns.

Brown & Cairns describe the last stage of immersion ‘Total Immersion’ as ‘Presence’, this is where the gamers’ felt completely detached from the real world around them and were fully focused on the game. The barriers to ‘Presence’ that are suggested lay with empathy and atmosphere. In this sense empathy is defined not as the players’ empathetic feelings towards game characters or situations but as the “growth of attachment” to the game itself (Brown & Cairns. 2004, p.3). Interestingly the majority of games described by the gamers’ as ‘Totally Immersive’ were of a First person shooter model. Perhaps due to a direct visual illusion of seeing through the game characters eyes gives them a clearer feeling of ‘Presence’. The visual and audio elements combined with plot make up the game atmosphere and striking the right balance between these sensory interactions seems to be the key in reaching ‘Total Immersion’. Brown & Cairns give an example of how important the gamers’ attention factors into the ‘Total Immersion’ stage by stating

“If gamers need to attend to sound, as well as sight more effort is needed to be placed into the game. The more attention and effort invested, the more immersed a gamer can feel.” (Brown & Cairns. 2004, p.3).

They also describe three elements of player attention which are visual, auditory and mental. The above quotation would suggest that the more of these attention aspects are pulling on the players’ senses the greater involved with the game the player will become.

Conclusion

Although Brown & Cairns mention little about the role audio plays in the immersive process specifically in their paper at lot can still be taken from it. Identifying immersion as a process which happens over time is one point worth further investigation which could help define a timescale for each stage. This would be useful for testing as well as design of the projects gaming level with questions in mind such as, ‘how long should the experience take to complete’ or ‘how long should the test last’. A testing time too short or similarly a level that doesn’t take long to complete may not give enough time to see a balanced result.

The most important point to take is the idea that immersion is linked to attention and can be manufactured into the design of a game. By using game design to force players’ into relying on their senses in order to fulfil the games’ objectives, the resulting affect is drawing more of the gamers’ attention.

References

Brown, E. and Cairns, P. (2004). A Grounded Investigation of Game Immersion. University College London Interaction Centre (UCLIC). Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Vienna, Austria. [online]. Available from: http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~pcairns/papers/Immersion.pdf [Accessed 1st November 2014]

Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. 1998. Basics of Qualitative Research. 2^nd ed. Sage Publications, Inc. [online]. Available from: http://stiba-malang.ac.id/uploadbank/pustaka/RM/BASIC%20OF%20QUALITATIVE%20RESEARCH.pdf [Accessed 1^st November 2014]

Taylor, L. 2002. VIDEO GAMES: PERSPECTIVE, POINT-OF-VIEW, AND IMMERSION. [online]. Available from: http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE1000166/taylor_l.pdf [Accessed 25 October 2014]