Games as Parallel Universes?
This blog is directed to a credit in a Msc in Digital Games which focuses of the theory behind the experiences of a player and the attentional resources a player allocates towards a game.
Many have used the word 'immersion' so broadly that it is not an academically viable term any more. It has been used in too many contexts to be a term which encompasses a specific experiential mode which the player is in.
It is difficult to analyse player experience. It may require an in-depth knowledge about psychology, but not even psychology may explain what connections happen in the brain of a player while playing a game.
Calleja (2011) has created the Player Involvement Model which pinpoints the different aspects of a game that the player allocates attention towards.Each of these different elements are competing, in a way, for the player's attention yet they are not mutually exclusive.
Calleja also coins a new term called 'incorporation' which attempts to let loose of all the previous terms that tried to identify player experience in a virtual world. Incorporation separates itself from the notion of diving into another world but rather the absorption of the avatar’s position in the game world as the player’s own. Calleja’s (2011) term of incorporation serves the purpose of recognising that the real world and the game world are in a co-existing state. When playing a game, the player perceives the game world as an extension of one’s conscious reality.
Future posts on this blog will have a more in-depth analysis of different aspects of player attention and experience.