DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory
Brunel University, September, 2009
Volume: 5
ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666
This paper explores an approach to understanding player experience and immersion through aesthetic theory. It should be noted that the paper limits itself to a consideration of singleplayer, avatarbased games with a narrative element. This paper will argue that the experience of immersion is intrinsically tied in with the body and its spatiotemporal positioning within a fictional or constructed space. Seeing immersion from the point of view of the body makes it possible to see a dichotomous relationship between textbased and audiovisual media. When a reader is immersed in fiction, the 'transportation' from one space to another is purely cognitive the readers body is still and the construction of the fictional world takes place in the readers mind. For a player of games to experience immersion, various technologies exist that act directly upon the player's perceptive systems in order to create an experience.