Alison McMahan Reading-
This is McMahn's defention of immersion-
"Three conditions create a sense of immersion in a virtual reality or 3-D computer game: (1) the user's expectations of the game or environment must match the environment's conventions fairly closely; (2) the user's actions must have a non-trivial impact on the environment; and (3) the conventions of the world must be consistent, even if they don't match those of 'meatspace.'"
Now using McMahan's concept of immersion to look at the game Halo we can see that maybe the reason the game is such a success is the fact it meets all of these requirements to their fullest.
Fisrt the player goes into the game expecting a futuristic war set on an alien planet with a bunch of cool guns and big explosions and stuff of that nature. The game delivers as soon as you turn on thrusting you in the middle of a battle on a far off planet with lots of cool guns, explosions and creepy aliens to shoot.
Second the player can see the results of their actions right away. The player shoots down an alien trasport and it blows to bits right in front of them. The game also shows the impact of the player through cut scenes and explains how their progress is effecting the war.
Third the player knows the rules of the game and needs to succeed. The player needs to know how many times they can be shot, how many times each enemy needs to be shot and which weapons work the best against them. The player also needs to know how to drive the various vehicles in the game, and they all control fairly the same. These factors have no relation at all to real world physics but make perfect sense in the game since everything in the game is balanced around it's internal physics system.
Mark Wolf Reading-
Mark Wolf's ideas fit well with today's modern games. Right from the start he makes the distinction of how games have become like movies and while both use space in a similar way, the idea of space in a game is different. In a movie you can see everything but you can't walk around in the scenery and explore it.Continuing to use Halo as an example. Halo has a very movie like presentation with long cut scenes and character development and things of that nature, but what Halo does what a movie can't is create the idea your in the middle of an interplanetary war. If Halo were a movie all you be able to see is where the camera is, but in the game since you control where the camera goes, you also control the action. This is an important distinction all the other writings we have read for this class have seemed to miss. Games might be similar in story structure to a book or movie, but the way the story unfolds is way different and that is a big factor in understanding what a game as a text is trying to say.
This is McMahn's defention of immersion-
"Three conditions create a sense of immersion in a virtual reality or 3-D computer game: (1) the user's expectations of the game or environment must match the environment's conventions fairly closely; (2) the user's actions must have a non-trivial impact on the environment; and (3) the conventions of the world must be consistent, even if they don't match those of 'meatspace.'"
Now using McMahan's concept of immersion to look at the game Halo we can see that maybe the reason the game is such a success is the fact it meets all of these requirements to their fullest.
Fisrt the player goes into the game expecting a futuristic war set on an alien planet with a bunch of cool guns and big explosions and stuff of that nature. The game delivers as soon as you turn on thrusting you in the middle of a battle on a far off planet with lots of cool guns, explosions and creepy aliens to shoot.
Second the player can see the results of their actions right away. The player shoots down an alien trasport and it blows to bits right in front of them. The game also shows the impact of the player through cut scenes and explains how their progress is effecting the war.
Third the player knows the rules of the game and needs to succeed. The player needs to know how many times they can be shot, how many times each enemy needs to be shot and which weapons work the best against them. The player also needs to know how to drive the various vehicles in the game, and they all control fairly the same. These factors have no relation at all to real world physics but make perfect sense in the game since everything in the game is balanced around it's internal physics system.
Mark Wolf Reading-
Mark Wolf's ideas fit well with today's modern games. Right from the start he makes the distinction of how games have become like movies and while both use space in a similar way, the idea of space in a game is different. In a movie you can see everything but you can't walk around in the scenery and explore it.Continuing to use Halo as an example. Halo has a very movie like presentation with long cut scenes and character development and things of that nature, but what Halo does what a movie can't is create the idea your in the middle of an interplanetary war. If Halo were a movie all you be able to see is where the camera is, but in the game since you control where the camera goes, you also control the action. This is an important distinction all the other writings we have read for this class have seemed to miss. Games might be similar in story structure to a book or movie, but the way the story unfolds is way different and that is a big factor in understanding what a game as a text is trying to say.
posted by The Poison Ninja at 2:41 PM
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