Aesthetic Illusion in Digital Games

Diplomarbeit

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Magisters der Philosophie

an der Karl‐Franzens‐Universität Graz

vorgelegt von Andreas SCHUCH

am Institut für Anglistik Begutachter: O.Univ.‐Prof. Mag.art. Dr.phil. Werner Wolf

Graz, 2016

0

Contents

1 Introduction ...... 2 2 The Transmedial Nature of Aesthetic Illusion ...... 3 3 Types of Absorption in Digital Games ...... 10 3.1 An Overview of Existing Research on Immersion and Related Terms in the Field of Game Studies ...... 12 3.2 Type 1: Ludic Absorption ...... 20 3.3 Type 2: Social Absorption ...... 24 3.4 Type 3: Perceptual Delusion ...... 26 3.5 Type 4: Aesthetic Illusion ...... 29 3.6 Comparing and Contrasting Existing Models of Absorption ...... 30 4 Aesthetic Illusion in Digital Games ...... 34 4.1 Prerequisites and Characteristics of Aesthetic Illusion in Digital Games ...... 34 4.1.1 Prerequisites of Aesthetic Illusion ...... 34 4.1.2 Characteristics of Aesthetic Illusion in Digital Games ...... 38 4.2 The Game and Related Technology, the Player, and the Context as Essential Factors of Aesthetic Illusion ...... 40 4.2.1 The Player and Context as Important Factors of Aesthetic Illusion ...... 40 4.2.2 The Game and Related Technology as Another Factor Affecting Aesthetic Illusion ...... 47 4.3 Interactivity, its Facets and Consequences as Potential Intensifiers of Aesthetic Illusion ...... 59 4.3.1 Agency ...... 59 4.3.2 Uncertainty ...... 63 4.3.3 Adaptivity ...... 68 4.3.4 Interruptions ...... 71 4.3.5 Emergence ...... 76 5 Conclusion and Further Research Perspectives ...... 78 6 Ludography ...... 80 7 Bibliography ...... 82

1

1 Introduction

There exists much disagreement in the field of game studies as to how to define the phenomenon of being imaginatively drawn into the represented world of a digital game. This phenomenon was once famously defined by Samuel Coleridge as “the willing suspension of disbelief” (1817/1965, 169)—of course, he did not have digital games in mind then. The majority of existing game studies research prefers to use the term ‘immersion’ to discuss different aspects of mental absorption. But scholars are in disagreement with regard to its definition. Interpretations of the term range from the metaphor of immersion as physical transportation to immersion as mental absorption of any kind to immersion as a purely technology‐driven phenomenon. Other studies instead adapt terms from related fields such as ‘flow’ from the field of positive psychology or ‘presence’ from the field of telerobotics. This state of affairs is frustrating to anybody who wishes to contribute to this field and it unnecessarily interferes with efforts to study this phenomenon. A universally accepted and solid theoretical framework of immersion in games1 is needed to reduce definitional ambiguities and contradictions.

In the present thesis, I aim to provide the groundwork of such a theoretical framework. I do this by drawing on Wolf’s transmedial theory of aesthetic illusion (Wolf 2013) and proposing a modified and extended version of his theory to accommodate the unique characteristics of digital games—particularly with regard to the ‘illusory quality’ of interactivity. In addition, existing game studies research on immersion and related terms is incorporated in this model of aesthetic illusion where possible. Furthermore, a general model of fundamental types of absorption in digital games is proposed so as to reduce terminological inconsistencies and ambiguities.

While this thesis may introduce yet another term—aesthetic illusion—to an already long list of terms meant to describe different types of mental absorption, the long history of the term itself, which dates back to the 19th century, and the valuable work various scholars have since put into the concept of ‘aesthetic illusion’, cannot simply be ignored2. In fact, I argue that Wolf’s model of aesthetic illusion provides by far the most

1 If not noted otherwise, ‘games’ is used in this thesis as an alternative spelling of ‘digital games’. 2 This thesis proposes other new terms, too, such as ‘perceptual delusion’, but aesthetic illusion is by and large the most important and relevant term in the context of the topic at hand. 2

comprehensive theory of predominantly artefact‐induced imaginative experiences and should, as such, serve as the starting point for further investigation in this regard.

The structure of the thesis is as follows: the ensuing chapter will briefly discuss Wolf’s (2013) transmedial theory of aesthetic illusion. Chapter 3 examines different definitions of absorption in digital games as proposed by several game studies scholars. Following this, a general model of absorption consisting of four distinct types of absorption is proposed: ludic absorption, social absorption, perceptual delusion, and aesthetic illusion. Chapter 3 concludes by comparing and contrasting the terms proposed by other scholars with the ones proposed in this thesis. Chapter 4 finally discusses aesthetic illusion in digital games in detail. First, the prerequisites, general characteristics, and illusion‐affecting factors are discussed. Then, interactivity, its facets, and its relation to and potential impact on illusory responses is investigated thoroughly. The discussion on interactivity comprises on the five concepts of agency, uncertainty, adaptivity, interruptions, and emergence.

2 The Transmedial Nature of Aesthetic Illusion

While the goal of this text is to investigate aesthetic illusion in digital games specifically, the term must be considered in a larger context first. What is aesthetic illusion? How can it be defined? Wolf (2013) provides a transmedial, transgeneric, and transmodal definition that serves as the basis for this thesis:

Aesthetic illusion is a basically pleasurable mental state frequently emerging during the reception of representations (texts, artefacts or performances) which may be fictional or factual, narratives or descriptions, and can be transmitted by various media and genres. It is thus a transgeneric as well as a transmedial phenomenon. Like all reception effects, aesthetic illusion is elicited by the conjunction of factors that are located (a) in the representations themselves, which tend to show certain characteristic features and follow certain illusion‐ generating principles, (b) in the reception process and the recipients, as well as (c) in framing contexts, e.g. cultural‐historical, situational or generic ones. Aesthetic illusion consists predominantly of a feeling, of variable intensity, of being imaginatively and emotionally immersed in a way similar (but not identical) to real life. (Wolf 2013, 51f.)

It should be noted that the term ‘aesthetic illusion’ is predominantly, though also not consistently, used in the fields of literature and the visual arts. Academic literature in other fields, such as film studies, game studies, or psychology, tend to use different terms when investigating the same or a similar phenomenon, such as ‘immersion’,

3

‘participation’, ‘performance’, or just ‘illusion’ (see (Wolf 2013, 19f.) for an extensive list of synonyms and related terms; see also chapter 3.1). This text chooses the term ‘aesthetic illusion’ over the others because, as Wolf convincingly demonstrates and argues, it is arguably the most etymologically and historically accurate term that currently exists (cf. Wolf 2013, 16), and it provides the most comprehensive definition of the phenomenon under discussion (cf. Wolf 2013, 19–23).

Before moving on to discussing aesthetic illusion in digital games, Wolf’s transmedial definition of the term requires further exploration and explanation. The term ‘aesthetic illusion’ itself warrants examination as to its meaning and etymological roots. ‘Aesthetic’ is not to be understood as referring to a specific (high) aesthetic quality but rather to an aesthetic effect, i.e. to a specific imaginative reaction of the recipients (cf. Wolf 2013, 2; Baiter 1999, 1296)3. The term ‘illusion’ comes from ‘in‐lusio’ (Latin ‘ludere’, to play) and alludes to a certain playfulness and the willing participation in a game on the part of the recipient (cf. Wolf 2013, 23). Walton (1990) speaks in this context of illusion as a game of make‐believe. Aesthetic illusion can thus be understood as eliciting quasi‐experiences.

Wolf’s definition distinguishes between three main aspects which are involved in the formation of aesthetic illusion: the representation, the recipient, and the context. The fictional representation is a more or less fixed text, a specific instance of a performance, or an artefact4 which significantly influences and guides the imagination processes of the recipient. As a rule, the recipient is unable to make alterations to the representation; the artefact tends to create concrete and similar mental representations across different recipients5. Aesthetic illusion is predominantly artefact‐induced and can, as such, be expected to elicit and guide similar imaginative experiences among different recipients. If, on the other hand, the illusionary experience was primarily recipient‐induced, we would not speak of aesthetic illusion but instead of other imaginative states of mind

3 “The aesthetic illusion may occur in ‘high’ art—where the beholder is to some degree transformed through greater awareness of himself, the world, or humanity, or through a new ‘synthesis’ of his own inner life. It may also occur in ‘low’ art—in ‘soap opera,’ comic strip, pornography, pin‐up, pop‐art or agitprop.[…] In all of these, the ‘life of the imagination’ is engaged; and so the aesthetic illusion may occur.” (Baiter 1999, 1296) 4 The term artefacts here refers, for instance, to sculptures, paintings, photographs, films, TV series, digital games, and alternate reality games. 5 Some fictional representations may, however, allow some (limited) forms of alterations as part of their set‐up or design, e.g. participatory theater and—as will be shown in more depth—digital games. 4

such as delusion, hallucination, or (day)dreaming 6 . Thus, the world presented by illusionist artefacts always remains separate from the real world for the recipient7.

Next to the representation, contextual factors also play an important role in the creation of aesthetic illusion, which profoundly influence both the representation and the recipient. This includes, of course, the physicality of the illusionist reception situation, that is, the place at which recipients engage their imagination, such as the cinema, the living room, as well as the current social environment because imaginary worlds are proto‐typically experienced alone8. An overlap in cultural‐historical contexts between representation and recipient proves another important variable to maintain a high degree of verisimilitude, which, for Wolf, is a “prime condition of aesthetic illusion” (2013, 25). For instance, it is likely that recipients with a predominantly Western culture background would find it more difficult to immerse themselves in an illusionist work rooted in an Asian cultural background or that recipients of the twenty‐first century cannot immerse themselves in eighteenth‐century literature the same way people could then. Culturally wide‐spread beliefs and ‘truths’ such as the belief in certain myths, the existence of ghosts, the Christian God, and so on can affect verisimilitude and the life‐ likeness of a representation positively or negatively. In addition, other contextual factors such as ‘state of the art’ production of a medium (e.g. the most advanced special effects) as well as generic conventions also influence immersive experiences.

The third main aspect related to aesthetic illusion is the recipient (along with the reception process). This may be the most elusive of the three aspects in terms of difficulty of meaningful study. Illusionist responses are dependent to a high degree on a wide variety of factors, including age and experience, gender, cultural aspects, a person’s ability to ‘read’ a given artefact correctly, and their willingness to participate in this ‘game’ in the first place. Some (more sensitive) recipients may even experience various degrees of dizziness, nausea, and other negative effects caused by conflicting mental and

6 Some scholars claim that illusionist experiences run contrary to this idea. For instance, Baiter argues that daydreaming is essential to aesthetic illusion: “the essential mental process involved in [aesthetic illusion] is daydreaming” (Baiter 1999, 1296). Similarly, Murray speaks of the immersive experiences of a MUD (multi‐user dungeon) as “consensual hallucination” (1997a, 116). This view is clearly rejected in this paper. 7 It follows from the previous point that Baiter, again, takes on a different stance: to him, aesthetic illusion “may at times be so intense that it is practically indistinguishable from the experience of the immediate and the concrete” (Baiter 1999, 1297). 8 See Wolf (2013, 14): “When recentred in the imaginary worlds of aesthetic illusion we are, as it were, off‐line: except for the rare and limited case of the recent interactive worlds of some computer games”. 5

physical experiences9. These factors severely complicate the investigation of recipient responses to a specific artefact due to numerous variables involved which differ with each individual recipient10.

While the study of contextual factors and especially recipient responses to aesthetic illusion proves challenging, Wolf (2013, 31) suggests that aesthetic illusion can still be meaningfully investigated by defining an ‘average contemporary recipient’ and analyzing their imaginative experience. This person consents to being re‐centered in a fictional world provided by an artefact and, in addition, is capable of ‘reading’ this artefact appropriately. At the same time, the average recipient takes no overly analytical (scholarly) interest in aspects concerning the composition processes, design, or the transmission level so as to avoid being exposed to (unwanted) distancing effects. In addition, it can be assumed that this recipient has been raised in and is accustomed to contemporary time and culture. Although this person is merely a theoretical construct— no such person exists in the real world—it is still possible to draw meaningful conclusions from observing the interaction and imaginative responses of this average recipient with regard to an artefact. Such a construct naturally presents a ‘workable’ rather than ‘ideal’ solution to the methodological problems discussed above. It is meant to describe prototypical and expected behavioral patterns and general assumptions as to their cultural‐historical background.

9 Aesthetic illusion can be described as a certain state of mind hovering between reality and a quasi‐ reality. As Liptay (2015) remarks, recipients are ‘caught’ in a constantly fluctuating ‘in‐between’ state where they, paradoxically, share two bodies—an imaginatively created (‘virtual’) body and a physical (‘real’) body. This may lead more sensitive recipients to experience motion sickness or other feelings of dizziness and nausea because of miscommunication taking place between two bodies which are embodied at the same time. For instance, motion sickness can occur when the visual information received is in conflict with the vestibular system, e.g. in a film scene with fast‐moving objects or in a digital game where the controlled avatar moves and turns but the viewer or player is sitting still respectively. Other techniques or technologies such as stereoscopy or virtual reality may produce the same or a similar uneasy experience for some recipients. The rise of new technology in the 20th and 21st century may arguably have exacerbated feelings of dizziness and nausea, but Liptay (2015, 90f.) notes that this phenomenon is not limited to exposure to technology as “[s]imilar side effects can already be experienced by looking at works of art in high concentration”, referring to Stendhal syndrome, which is a psychosomatic disorder causing feelings of dizziness, confusion, a sense of being overwhelmed, hallucinations and other psychosomatic states. Some people may experience some of these symptoms after intense and rapid exposure to a large number of works of (high) cultural or artistic value (cf. footnote 8 in Liptay 2015, 91). 10 As Wolf (2013, 30) notes, recipients form “the most precarious variable in every theory of illusion”, calling them “decisive, albeit theoretically illusive factors in the emergence of aesthetic illusion” (Wolf 2013, 27). He questions the efficacy of ‘traditional’ approaches of literary studies and film studies such as textual and structural analysis, as well as cultural and historical approaches to analysis with regard to studying recipient responses (ibid.). Instead, he sees a potential solution to the methodological problems of investigating recipient responses in empirical and psychological approaches. Yet these approaches show certain limitations as well. For instance, they cannot be applied to historical reception situations. 6

Artefacts can trigger imaginative, emotional, and intellectual responses in recipients. Emotional involvement tends to take on a key role in the experience of imaginative worlds (cf. Baiter 1999, 1297; cf. Wolf 2013). Aesthetic illusion makes recipients (re‐)experience the represented world as if it happened to them in real life in the here and now—a ‘virtual’ effect which can and does sometimes manifest itself in a physical way (see also footnote 8). As Wolf attests,

signs of emotional involvement are often the predominant 'outer' bodily manifestation of aesthetic illusion and thus appear as indications of mental processes which are surprisingly similar to real‐life reactions and also traceable from a (neuro‐)psychological point of view: recipients may sigh, cry, laugh and show symptoms of pity, sexual arousal, stress or suspense while in the grip of aesthetic illusion[…]. (Wolf 2013, 7)

This does not mean that emotional involvement is identical with aesthetic illusion. Intellectual involvement is also possible, although it is more of a liminal case. For taking a pronounced interest in the design or technical aspects of a fictional work generally requires a detached, more distanced reception process instead of drawing one more into an imaginative world. However, in some instances rational reflections can indeed contribute to creating further immersive effects. This can occur, for instance, when digital games force players to choose from one of several possible options, the decision of which has a lasting impact on the further play progress (e.g. weighing the benefits and drawbacks of choosing one fictional character over another), or when readers engage with and attempt to unravel the plot of a whodunit (cf. Wolf 2013, 7). Crucially, rational reflection must occur as if the recipient was present in the represented world and not in the sense of reflecting about the structure and design of the actual representation.

Wolf (2013) describes aesthetic illusion as a double‐layered, gradable, and unstable reception effect. It is double‐layered because it operates on and fluctuates between two levels: 1) the level of immersion, which seeks to ‘draw in’ recipients by recentering (cf. Ryan 1991, 18) them in a represented world imaginatively, emotionally, and (partially) intellectually, and 2) the level of distance, in which recipients take on the role of an external, detached, rational observer (cf. also the concept of the shared two bodies in Liptay 2015). Aesthetic illusion is gradable in the sense that immersion and distance can occur at varying degrees of intensity: the more immersion is emphasized, the more distancing effects must be suppressed and vice versa. A higher degree of immersion necessitates a stronger distancing from the real life. Finally, it is unstable because the

7

illusory experience can willingly or unwillingly be interrupted or suspended, intensify or decrease at any given moment.

In principle, illusionist representations may either be fictional or factual, aesthetic or non‐aesthetic, narrative or non‐narrative. The most commonly studied artefacts are, however, of the fictional, aesthetic, narrative type, according to Wolf (2013, 32ff.)—a statement which is easily confirmed when leafing through e.g. literary, cultural, film, and game journals. However, he convincingly argues that factual representations can also generate aesthetic illusion (e.g. historiographic narratives, travelogues), as is the case with non‐aesthetic works (e.g. historical accounts that do not claim to be works of art) and even some non‐narrative works (e.g. landscape paintings, still lifes). With aesthetic illusion remaining, in general, a “somewhat under‐researched” (Wolf 2013, 4) phenomenon as of now, it is especially these more inconspicuous artefact types that are the most affected.

Furthermore, illusionist works possess a four characteristic features (cf. Wolf 2013, 37–42). While illusionist works typically 1) highlight the content level, 2) the transmission level tends to fade into the background11. This has to do with the goal of most illusionist representations to immerse recipients. Their worlds tend to have a certain temporal and spatial extension (e.g. movie runtimes typically range from 90 to 120 minutes, many digital games offer players large game worlds to explore)12, as well as some degree of complexity. These worlds prototypically show relatively high degrees of (internal and external) consistency and verisimilitude (or life‐likeness), which contributes to the overall accessibility of illusory worlds and thus facilitates immersion. Furthermore, 3) highly immersive worlds show a tendency towards seriousness, for the comic would (in general) necessitate a certain distance towards the presented fiction of the artefact. Finally, 4) illusory representations typically emphasize heteroreferentiality so as to draw attention away from their inherently fictional make‐up. The inclusion of metareferential aspects cannot always be avoided—i.e. magic and monsters in the fantasy genre or futuristic technology such as traveling above the speed of light in science fiction—but “‘minimal departures’ are possible and can even remain compatible

11 Though this does not necessarily mean the transmission level must be kept simple by design to increase immersion. It can still take on complex forms, but must remain ‘hidden’ so as not to distract recipients from being engaged in an illusory world. 12 See Wolf (2013, 38): “illusionism encounters difficulties at the minimalist end of the scale (this is, among other reasons, why short lyric poetry would frequently not [have] been regarded as eliciting an illusionist effect”. 8

with illusion, provided they are explained, have become an object of habituation within the given work or are linked to, e. g., generic conventions, thus obtaining a secondary kind of plausibility” (Wolf 2013, 45f.; see also the principle of minimal departure in Ryan 1991, 51).

Wolf postulates six principles of illusion‐making which, together, “regulate the predominant immersive effect of illusionist work” (2013, 44). The principle of access‐ facilitating, detailed world‐making provides recipients with an imaginatively more or less concretized, ‘fleshed‐out’ imaginative world. The principle of consistency of the represented world ensures the overall integrity of the presented world. The principle of life‐like perspectivity adjusts the narrative situation of the fictional situation towards an everyday perspectivity as experienced in real life. The principle of respecting and exploiting macro‐frames, media and genres ensures that representations stay within and adhere to the relevant existing frames, conventions, and (genre) boundaries. The principle of generating interest in the represented world employs “various devices of persuasio […] to render representations attractive, to draw recipients into the represented worlds” (Wolf 2013, 50). The principle of ‘celare artem’ (Lat. ‘conceal art’) sees towards making the level of transmission as inconspicuous as possible. A more elaborate discussion on these principles can be found in Wolf (2013, 44–51).

Aesthetic illusion serves a number of important functions. One of its major (and most obvious) purposes is to provide the recipient with an opportunity to “pleasurabl[y] surrender […] the mind to an imaginative world” (Murray 1997, 110), or, in other words, entertainment. It additionally serves as a means to fulfil desires or wishes (e.g. the wish of being transported to a sunny, tropical island) and can “satisfy our thirst for experience” (Wolf 2013, 52; see also Murray 1997, 110). Similarly, illusory experiences enable us to escape from real‐life circumstances, thus they often provide a cathartic function. Illusory works furthermore offer safe test spaces to explore and experiment with manifold ideas, situations, and ‘what‐if’ scenarios. Aesthetic illusion can also take on a more persuasive, didactic, critical function with the goal to transport to the recipient a specific concept, idea, view, or value system. For more discussion on the functions of aesthetic illusion, see, again, Wolf (2004, 342f.; Wolf 2013, 52f.).

Further investigation and adaptation will, of course, see this general definition modified where necessary to fit the purposes of digital games research. Wolf anticipated this need for modification himself, stating that “the description of aesthetic illusion in

9

different media would, at least in part, require media‐specific theories” (Wolf 2013, 35). Adjustments will be made according to current theories and research taken from the field of games studies as well as my own observations and argumentations. By the end, the transmedial theory described above will have ‘transformed’ into a more focused, game studies‐specific theory of aesthetic illusion.

3 Types of Absorption in Digital Games

Existing literature uses different terminology and different definitions to talk about different types of absorption. There exists no universally accepted theory of absorption in digital games. This sometimes leads to existing terms being reinterpreted and associated with multiple—sometimes contradictory—meanings, which ultimately dilutes the usefulness of these terms and can add further unnecessary complexity to already complex meanings. ‘Immersion’ is one such example. It is often used interchangeably with the term ‘absorption’ in game studies literature, which therefore often creates the rather unhelpful impression that these two concepts mean the same thing 13 . However, the original meaning of ‘immersion’ is more akin to a specific imaginative type of absorption, namely aesthetic illusion (cf. Wolf 2013, chap. 2.4). One could say the current meaning of the term ‘immersion’ is in a state of disarray which points to the need for a common theory of the term. Other terms such as ‘absorption’ and ‘presence’ would also benefit from being classified and defined within a clear hierarchy so as to be clearly distinguishable from one another. While the focus of this thesis is obviously on aesthetic illusion, I deemed it necessary and important to also define and discuss these other types of absorption to some extent because these other phenomena can also influence illusory responses. This chapter, then, is an attempt to ‘tidy up’ the currently existing terminological hodgepodge of different terms on absorption in digital games.

It is obvious that digital games—like many other art forms—harbor the potential to induce among players a state of mental absorption. In fact, games can provide at least four fundamentally different types of absorption. Players can become completely absorbed in 1) interacting with a game’s rules and interlocking systems, 2) they can feel

13 Cf. immersion as “a sense of being absorbed in a game to the exclusion of all else” (Cox et al. 2012, 80). See also Calleja (2011, 167): “researchers in game studies have used the term immersion interchangeably to mean absorption or transportation”. 10

a sense of being with other living, thinking people in a virtual community, 3) they can feel a sense of being there in a virtual environment, and 4) they can be imaginatively captivated by the presented game world, story, characters, or other elements. An absorbing play experience usually consists of a combination of these four types, whereas each type can be more or less pronounced in any given situation14. It is mainly the fourth type of absorption that contributes to the imaginative experiences that this thesis calls ‘aesthetic illusion’. However, that is not to diminish the importance of the other three types of absorption in digital games. Oftentimes, it is these other types of absorption which are primarily responsible for the ‘pulling in’ effect of a game. The highly abstract ‘world’ and rules of Tetris (Pajitnov and Pokhilko 1984), for instance, do not capture players’ imagination so much as that they become absorbed in the ludic structure of the game. Similarly, players may grow to feel a sense of belonging to a virtual community they joined in a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) such as World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment 2005), and become deeply involved with and absorbed in its social structures as a result. These are examples of types of absorption which deserve their own terms as they are distinctly different from the phenomenon of aesthetic illusion.

Responses to aesthetic illusion and other types of absorption in digital games can each be emotional or rational. For example, players can react deeply emotionally towards the beauty of the presented game world or feel empathy for certain characters (see also parasocial relationships with virtual characters as discussed in Hartmann, Klimmt, and Vorderer 2001). Emotional responses are the predominant type of response to illusory experiences in games. Players can, however, also maintain a state of immersion while engaging in rational thought processes as long as such responses stay within the provided frame of the game world15. Regarding the ludic elements of the game, players more often engage rationally with such structures when compared to imaginative experiences. This is the case, for instance, whenever players try to solve a puzzle or are required to decide how to best distribute a limited number of skill points across various character traits in a role playing game. But emotional responses to ludic elements are perhaps still the most common, as any person can attest who at first

14 See, for example, Thon’s statement on absorption (his immersion): “it has to be emphasized that the fascinating experience of playing a computer game results from the combination of the four kinds of immersion” (2008, 35). See also Calleja (2011, 4): “incorporation emerges from the combination of several dimensions of the player involvement model.” 15 This observation with regard to emotional and rational responses to imaginative experiences in games is in line with Wolf’s (2013) transmedial theory of aesthetic illusion. 11

became increasingly distressed with every failed attempt to master a difficult stage only to then finally, narrowly succeed and be overwhelmed by a feeling of euphoria. Similarly, players can react with joy, surprise, anger, or a host of other emotions to the presence or behavior of other player agents in a game, or they can engage with social agents on a rational level, e.g. when taking tactical measures as a team to beat the opponents or predict their movements in a competition. Only the dimension of perceptual delusion, i.e. the sense of being located in a virtual environment, seems to clearly favor emotional reactions. See figure 1 for a graphic on the four types of absorption.

Emotional Responses Rational Responses Ludic Absorption Social Absorption Perceptual Mimetic World Types of

Absorption Delusion Immersion Aesthetic Character Illusion Immersion Story Immersion

Figure 1 Types of absorption that are possible in digital games. Each type or subtype can elicit emotional responses. Rational responses are also possible as long as any rational engagement keeps to the frame that the respective game provides (e.g. players stay within the frame if they try to find the solution to an in-game puzzle but step outside the frame and thus increase distance when analyzing the design intentions of the puzzle creator).

3.1 An Overview of Existing Research on Immersion and Related Terms in the Field of Game Studies

Similarly to how Wolf (2013) identifies and discusses a number of texts which use a number of different terms to study and describe similar artefact‐induced imaginative experiences (cf. 2013, 19–22), the field of game studies has over the years introduced a number of more or less loosely defined terms with the goal to describe the player’s state of absorption in digital games. Compiling an exhaustive list of all proposed terms and

12

comparing and contrasting them with one another and with Wolf’s transmedial definition of aesthetic illusion probably constitutes a large enough body of work to warrant its own diploma thesis. The goal here is not to provide such a list, but to adapt the transmedial concept of aesthetic illusion to the field of game studies. Yet, to reach this goal, one must have a basic understanding of existing scholarly models and theories of absorption. I will limit my analysis to the more frequently‐used terms as well as some other terms which I also deem relevant, that is, the concepts of ‘immersion’, ‘presence’, ‘(Game)Flow’, ‘(cognitive) absorption’, and ‘incorporation’.

When reading journals and publications dedicated to the study of digital games, it quickly becomes clear that game scholars do not use the term ‘aesthetic illusion’ at all. In fact, there exists no universally acknowledged term on imaginative experiences in game worlds. Probably the most widely accepted term is ‘immersion’, but a variety of other terms such as ‘presence’, ‘flow’ and the related concept of ‘GameFlow’, ‘(cognitive) absorption’, and ‘player involvement’ are also employed to (broadly) refer to different types of absorption. At first glance, the prevalence of the term ‘immersion’ over ‘aesthetic illusion’ and other terms within the field of game studies may point towards it being the closest contender to having widespread acknowledgment. Unfortunately, after closer examination, the meaning of the term ‘immersion’ (as well as some other terms such as ‘presence’) is not as clear‐cut as it may at first appear. There are a number of different views on the meaning of ‘immersion’, and thus ‘immersion’ has come to connote many—in part vastly different—concepts. From the metaphor of immersion as physical transportation to the colloquial ‘being lost in a world’ to ‘mental absorption of any kind’ to immersion as a technology‐related, objectively quantifiable concept, the meaning of ‘immersion’ has become diluted by recurring attempts to interpret and define the term.

The current definitional state of ‘immersion’ is as frustrating to work with as it is confusing and counter‐productive towards any efforts that aim to investigate aspects of aesthetic illusion more closely. If scholars engage in research without a common or mutual understanding of basic concepts, the value of the produced work can diminish significantly as a result. Fortunately, I am confident that existing theories of immersion and related concepts in the field of game studies and Wolf’s (2013) transmedial theory of aesthetic illusion can serve as a solid basis for formulating a unified theory of absorption experiences as elicited by games—imaginative ones in particular—so as to put an end to the existing terminological hodgepodge and definitional jumbles.

13

Immersion16 is a term that Janet H. Murray’s book Hamlet on the Holodeck helped popularize in digital games research (cf. Juul 2005, 190). In her book, she argues that humans seek “the sensation of being surrounded by a completely other reality[…] that takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus” (Murray 1997, 98). Immersion in its ideal form would, according to her, thus culminate in a holodeck‐like experience (as depicted by the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation). This is a problematic—because incomplete—view of immersion17. Perception can and often does play an important role in the creation of imaginative responses. For example, it can contribute to the sense of verisimilitude and life‐likeness, which, as Wolf (2013) attests, is a typical feature of highly immersive artefacts (see also the discussion on perceptual delusion in chapter 3.4). But if immersion is equated to the stimulation of the senses (as suggested by the holodeck reference), highly immersive experiences elicited by, for instance, literary works (which typically do not stimulate perception) cannot be explained. The holodeck metaphor also neglects to highlight the potential illusory quality of stories and characters. For Murray and a number of other scholars (as demonstrated below), the terms ‘immersion’ and ‘absorption’ can be used interchangeably as they mean the same thing to them.

In addition to 1) the senses, Ermi and Märyä (2005) argue that immersion in digital games may also occur through 2) the stimulation of the ‘inward eye’ (the imagination) and the stirring of our capacity for meaning‐making, and 3) through challenge and ‘active’ participation. They developed a model in which they sought to define “qualitative differences between different modes of involvement” (2005, 5), presenting three types of immersion: 1) sensory immersion (e.g. through large displays, surround sound)—this describes the holodeck‐like experience Murray (1997a) had in mind—, 2) imaginative immersion (e.g. being absorbed in a narrative), and 3) challenge‐based immersion (e.g. being absorbed in puzzles). Ermi and Märyä call this the SCI‐model (from sensory, challenge‐based, and imaginative) and argue that it is especially challenge‐based immersion that is essential to digital games.

Not only did several scholars after Murray argue that the idea of perception being the only factor which influences immersion is faulty. They also challenged the

16 ‘Immersion’ as discussed in the field of game studies, which may conflict with the concept of immersion that Wolf (2013) has in mind in his transmedial theory of aesthetic illusion. 17 For criticism on this view, see, for instance, Ermi and Märyä (2005), Salen and Zimmerman (2004, 450–55), and Juul (2005, 190). 14

assumption that the more real‐world sensations are replaced by artificial sensations the more immersive a (media) artefact becomes. Salen and Zimmerman term this faulty assumption the immersive fallacy:

[T]he very thing that makes [a player’s] activity play is that they also know they are participating within a constructed reality, and are consciously taking on the artificial meanings of the magic circle. It is possible to say that the players of a game are “immersed”— immersed in meaning. To play a game is to take part in a complex interplay of meaning. But this kind of immersion is quite different from the sensory transport promised by the immersive fallacy. (2004, 452)

In a similar observation, Juul notes that “[f]ocusing exclusively on coherent worlds and well formed storytelling is a misunderstanding of what games are about” (2005, 190). These factors certainly contribute to an increased absorption experience, but a number of other aspects must also be taken into consideration (see the different types of absorption from chapter 3.2 through 3.5).

A number of other scholars provide definitions of ‘immersion’ (in the sense of absorption) that go beyond the colloquial meaning of ‘being lost in a world’ and clearly distinguish it from related terms such as ‘presence’ or ‘flow’. They often describe the term ‘immersion’—at least in part—by contrasting it to what it is not; that is, by pointing out how it differs from related concepts.

One such related term is ‘flow’. Flow (cf. Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi 2014) is a subjective state of mind in which a challenge is perceived to be neither too difficult nor too undemanding (i.e. ‘just right’), and in which one perceives making progress towards a clear goal. They note that while certain activities tend to create flow experiences more readily (such as doing sports or playing games), “[a] given individual can find flow in almost any activity […] working a cash register, ironing clothes, driving a car” (2014, 242). Prototypical characteristics of flow are, among others, intense concentration, the loss of reflective consciousness, a sense of being in control, and the distortion of time (2014, 240). Several scholars note that while immersion (in the sense of absorption) and flow partly overlap in meaning (e.g. increased concentration, distortion of time), they are— while related—distinct phenomena. For instance, some digital games fail to provide flow experiences because they offer no clear goals or repeatedly frustrate the player because of their high difficulty; yet these same games can still elicit intensely absorbing experiences (cf. Seah and Cairns 2008, 56). The view that players ‘forget’ everything around them when immersed in a game is also questioned by Salen and Zimmerman (2004, 451): “play is a process of metacommunication, a double‐conscious‐ness in which

15

the player is well aware of the artificiality of the play situation.” Brown and Cairn (2004) found in their study that immersion is a fleeting and gradable phenomenon—unlike flow, which can be viewed as an “optimal psychological experience” (Cairns, Cox, and Nordin 2014, 343). For this reason, Jennett et al (2008) refer to immersion as a precursor to flow. According to them, immersion (i.e. absorption) and flow are only equal when it is experienced in its most ‘extreme’ form18, which is what Brown and Cairn (2004) call ‘total immersion’. Their argument is that players can spend much of their play time immersed (absorbed) in a digital game while not in a flow‐like state (cf. Jennett et al. 2008, 642; cf. Brown and Cairns 2004)19.

Sweetser and Wyeth (2005) devised a game‐specific version of the general concept of flow which they termed ‘GameFlow’ (this is a similar effort to what I am doing in this thesis, i.e. devising a game‐specific theory out of a more general theory). In their ‘repurposed’ definition of flow, they define immersion as “deep but effortless involvement in a game” (2005, 10) which often results in a sense of loss of time and increased emotional investment. But GameFlow was devised as a general model of game enjoyment of which immersion is but one of many aspects. Not only is the model’s view of immersion rather vague and it overlaps with the general notion of absorption, but other factors of the GameFlow model such as ‘setting clear goals’, ‘providing appropriate feedback’, and ‘supporting social interaction’ also often have little to do with eliciting immersive or absorbing experiences (cf. Sweetser and Wyeth 2005, 5f.; cf. Seah and Cairns 2008, 56). Cairns, Cox, and Nordin furthermore argue that—just as the more general notion of flow—GameFlow also relates to optimal experiences and thus is not meant to describe gradable experiences, whereas immersion (they mean absorption), in fact, is a gradable phenomenon. They add that GameFlow is concerned with the properties of the game while immersion is concerned about distinct player experiences (cf. 2014, 348).

Indeed, enjoyment models and models of absorption experiences describe two distinct phenomena. It is possible for a player to vigorously enjoy a digital game while

18 Cf. Jennett et al (2008, 642): “Indeed, immersion is evidently a precursor for flow because that sense of being so involved that nothing else matters is practically a colloquial definition of immersion. However, flow is a particular sort of experience, specifically an optimal and therefore extreme experience. Immersion is not always so extreme.” 19 Cf. Jennett et al (2008, 642): “A person can be highly engaged in playing a videogame but still be aware of things like needing to leave the game soon in order to catch a bus or go to a lecture. The player is still immersed in the game to some extent but they are not immersed to the exclusion of all else and therefore not in flow.” 16

not being particularly absorbed in the experience and vice versa. Brown and Cairns found in a qualitative study that “[i]mmersion [i.e. absorption] was not a necessary feature for enjoyment and gamers choose games to play depending on mood” (2004, 1300). This makes sense as it is easy to picture reasons other than absorption for which games are enjoyed such as nostalgia, cooperative and competitive play, mood, or social interaction. Similarly, games can be absorbing yet fail to incite enjoyment in some players, for instance, due to their high difficulty or in stressful situations (e.g. escaping a place under time pressure). Of course, absorption is still often a crucial component of game enjoyment and the two concepts often influence one another.

Another relevant concept is ‘cognitive absorption’, which is defined by Argawal and Karahanna as “a state of deep involvement with software” (2000, 673). This term is similar to the definition of ‘immersion’ in the model of GameFlow above. And while the description of its characteristics is similar to those of flow, namely temporal dissociation, focused immersion, heightened enjoyment, control, and curiosity, the term is specifically designed to describe absorption in information technology. Seah and Cairns note in this regard that while “immersion overlaps with a notional state of being cognitively absorbed” (2008, 57), cognitive absorption in the sense that Argawal and Karahanna propose is more interested in the general disposition of people towards information technology rather than artefacts. This focus on software in general rather than on digital games in particular is the most salient difference between the two terms for Jennett et al (cf. 2008, 643). Of course, digital games are software, and thus cognitive absorption should—by its own definition—also be fit to describe them. In order to be useful to game studies, however, the model would need to provide a more detailed delineation of different types of absorption in games, such as the one I propose in this chapter. Cognitive absorption does not, for example, distinguish between absorption in the ludic structure and absorption in the mimetic world representation of a game as two fundamentally different types of absorption. In light of these considerations, the model of cognitive absorption remains an impractical term for the study of absorption experiences in digital games.

Another popular term used to describe absorption experiences is ‘presence’. The term is commonly defined along the lines of feeling a sense of being present in a virtual

17

world20. Calleja (2011) notes that presence evolved from the term ‘telepresence’, which was coined by Marvin Minsky in his eponymous paper published in 1980:

In the paper, Minsky describes how operating machinery remotely can lead to a sense of inhabiting the distant space. This sense of presence is created through a combination of the operator’s actions and the subsequent video, audio, and haptic feedback. A term was needed to account for the awareness of the potential to act within two spaces: the physically proximal and the physically remote. (Calleja 2011, 18)

Over time, telepresence dropped its suffix ‘tele’ and an additional meaning was added: rather than merely referring to a physical phenomenon, presence also came to describe the metaphor of mentally being transported to a virtual place. Presence proved to be an especially popular term to describe experiences in virtual reality by putting on a head‐mounted display and being ‘re‐situated’ in a computer‐generated world with panoramic view. A model developed by Brown and Cairns (2004) subdivides immersion (i.e. absorption) into three parts: engagement, engrossment, and total immersion (from least to most absorbing experience), in which the third and most pronounced form— total immersion—equals presence. However, Calleja identifies a problem with this definition of immersion, for whereas the first two stages (engagement, engrossment) take on a (mental) kind of meaning of absorption, the ‘total immersion’ stage switches to the (physical) metaphor of immersion as transportation, thus “exacerbat[ing] the definitional confusion surrounding immersion that the authors had set out to resolve” (2011, 30).

Scholars studying virtual reality and the phenomenon of (spatial) presence often argue in favor of a technological definition of immersion and distinguish between immersion as a technology‐related, objectively quantifiable concept and (spatial) presence as a psychological, perceptual, cognitive phenomenon. Biocca and Delaney define immersion as follows:

Immersive is a term that refers to the degree to which a virtual environment submerges the perceptual system of the user in computer‐generated stimuli. The more the system captivates the senses and blocks out stimuli from the physical world, the more the system is considered immersive. (1995, 57, original highlighting)

Mestre (2006) similarly notes that the term ‘immersion’ relates to technical features such as extensive display sizes, surround sound, the field of view of a virtual reality device, or the feature of stereoscopic view, which can all help facilitate more ‘immersive’ virtual environments. Lombard and Ditton (1997) note that next to this

20 See, for instance, Calleja (2011, chap. 2), Cox et al (2012, 79), and Seah (2008, 2f.). 18

conceptualization of spatial presence, other scholars define it as a sense of realism or as a sense of transportation. What these scholars call presence often shares many similarities to what is described in other fields—especially in psychology and game studies—as immersion: the psychological impression of being present in an artificially created (virtual) environment. McMahan (2003) distinguishes between a perceptual kind of immersion (≈spatial presence) and a psychological kind of immersion (≈immersion). There seems to be a partial overlap in existing literature between the meanings of the two concepts of ‘immersion’ and ‘presence’, which contributes to further confusion and convolution of the terms and points to the need for a uniform theory that clearly defines and differentiates between these concepts.

While scholars such as Mestre and Jennett et al hold that presence is distinct from absorption 21 , Ermi and Märyä (2005) note that—similarly to ‘immersion’ and ‘absorption’—the two terms are often used synonymously in digital games literature. They argue that because presence “was originally developed in the context of teleoperations […], it […] relies heavily on the metaphor of transportation” (2005, 4) and that for this reason the term ‘immersion’ is preferable “because it more clearly connotes the mental processes involved in gameplay” (ibid.). Calleja observes that depending on the field of study, either ‘presence’ or ‘immersion’ is the preferred term: “[t]echnologists, media psychologists, and human‐computer interaction researchers, among others, refer to this experience as presence, while humanists and, later, social scientists adopted the metaphor of immersion” (Calleja 2011, 33). For further illuminating discussions on the terms ‘immersion’, ‘presence’, and ‘absorption’, please refer to Calleja (2011).

Calleja (2011) not only examined existing terms on absorption experiences elicited by digital games and traced their history, but he also developed his own model. He calls it the ‘player involvement model’ and argues that immersion is not a single form of experience, but instead it “aris[es] from the internalized blending of six broad facets of the game experience” (2011, 173):

It is a synthesis of movement (kinesthetic involvement) within a habitable domain (spatial involvement) along with other agents (shared involvement), personal and designed narratives (narrative involvement), aesthetic effects (affective involvement), and the various rules and goals of the game itself (ludic involvement). (Calleja 2011, 169f., original highlighting)

21 Cf. Jennett et al (2008, 643): “one could imagine a person feeling present in a virtual environment but not experience a lost sense of time (e.g. carrying out a boring task in a virtual simulation).” 19

The result of this process of blending various combinations of various types of involvement is ‘incorporation’. Incorporation always refers to a double consciousness: “the player incorporates (in the sense of internalizing or assimilating) the game environment into consciousness while simultaneously being incorporated through the avatar into that environment” (Calleja 2011, 169, original highlighting). In this model, kinesthetic and spatial involvement take on a special role because they are always a prerequisite for any experience of incorporation. Cairns, Cox, and Nordin (2014) argue that this model is incomplete because when studying the phenomenon of immersion (i.e. absorption), the physical surroundings of the player must also be taken into account. They provide an example by referring to a previous study of theirs which found that the degree to which the room was lit influenced the degree of immersion (absorption)22. Furthermore, incorporation does not purely describe immersion but it appears to be more a model of general player experience (cf. Cairns et al 2014).

This hodgepodge of convoluted meanings calls for a process of segregation and classification. I thus propose ‘absorption’ as an umbrella term of four distinct subtypes of absorption. While the focus of this thesis obviously lies on the fourth type of absorption, aesthetic illusion, the other three types will also be discussed briefly because each type can (and often does) also influence aesthetic illusion to some extent. Similarly to Calleja’s (2011) player involvement model, which is an amalgamation of different types of involvement, the four types of absorption are only to be understood as theoretical constructs. Absorbing play experiences usually consist of a mix of these types and some experiences cannot always be clearly separated into different types of absorption.

3.2 Type 1: Ludic Absorption

One type of absorption can be referred to as ludic absorption. It describes any state of mental absorption which emerges from players engaging with a game’s internal rules and interweaving systems. Ludic absorption operates in the mode of simulation and is not unique to digital games. One must look no further than to card games or board

22 Cf. Cairns, Cox, and Nordin (2014, 347f.): “but the level of lighting in the room where the player was sitting was varied. We found that the brighter the lighting, the lower the immersion as we had anticipated. […] many players take control of their environment before playing by arranging themselves and their room to be ready for playing, for example by setting a suitable lighting level, getting their seat comfortable and getting snacks and drinks to hand.” For the related passage in the previous study, see Brown and Cairns (2004, 1299): “Some gamers purposefully construct a distraction free environment turning out lights and turning up the volume. Essentially gamers are involved with more than just the physical aspects of the game and have, in a sense, suspended their disbelief of the game world.” 20

games to see the same type of absorption, which is essentially about understanding multiple systems and their relationship and interdependence with one another, as well as striving to become more efficient at navigating these systems. Stimulation comes from simulating and interacting with rules and systems rather than from imaginatively responding to a game world, characters, and/or stories. Ryan further suggests that ludic absorption—she calls it ludic immersion23—“presupposes a physically active participant” (2015, 246), as do Ermi and Märyä (2005) with their term ‘challenge‐based immersion’.

Challenge is often an intrinsic part of ludic absorption in digital games. Ermi and Märyä (2005) even speak of ‘challenge‐based immersion’ instead of ‘ludic immersion’ or ‘ludic absorption’ in this regard. Challenge can be further subdivided into motoric challenges and mental challenges. Motoric skills refer to the ability of a player to perform actions such as making precise jumps, handling a virtual car, swinging a Wiimote controller (the standard input device for the Nintendo Wii console which resembles a remote control) to mimic swinging a tennis racket, or fast reaction skills in general. The emphasis here is more on making split‐second decisions at the motor‐sensory level. Mental skills, on the other hand, have to do with “strategic thinking or logical problem solving” (Ermi and Märyä 2005, 8). Here the emphasis is on creative and logical thinking, and engaging with the game mentally. Yet, motoric and mental aspects of challenges cannot be completely divorced from one another. Challenges merely place an emphasis on one aspect or the other, for basic motoric skills are always needed to implement mental thought processes (even if the only motoric input needed to solve a puzzle is simply pressing a button), and conversely motor‐sensory input is always still filtered through the brain. Moment‐to‐moment decision‐making (tactical thinking) in games tends to be more reliant on motor skills while planning for the overall outcome or the ‘big picture’ (strategical thinking) depends more on mental capacities.

Frustration is connected to the concept of challenge. Interestingly, while frustrating the player usually impacts enjoyment of the game negatively, it can at the same time lead to an increase in ludic absorption. This is because a presently frustrating play experience (e.g. inability to solve a puzzle or finish a level) can be connected to an

23 Existing literature often uses the term ‘immersion’ interchangeably with any kind of absorption. In this thesis, however, immersion is understood as an illusory response to a mimetic world (see chapter 2). In other words, immersion is a particular type of absorption and in light of this, the phrase ‘ludic immersion’ appears nonsensical as it denotes a different type of absorption to immersion. This is why in this thesis, the term ‘ludic absorption’ is used to essentially describe the same phenomenon other scholars refer to as ludic immersion (Ryan 2015; Thon 2008), challenge‐based immersion (Ermi and Märyä 2005), or similar kinds of ‘immersion’. 21

anticipated reward for eventually overcoming this obstacle, which in turn can significantly influence a player’s drive to keep playing until they succeed. In other words, recurrent failure may instigate in players a ‘now more than ever’ attitude and reinforce the determination to beat the odds. In this context, Klimmt notes that “experiences of frustration may cause a stronger motivation to master the episode in the next run or to a withdraw from the gaming session. […] negative outcomes of episodes are not accompanied by feelings of enjoyment, even if they increase the playing motivation” (2003, 252). This directly contradicts the statement from Cairns, Cox, and Nordin that frustration is an “aspect[…] of the gaming experience entirely outside of immersive [absorbing] experiences” (2014, 346). Frustration—and especially the anticipation of potential frustration—can obviously lead to an intense state of focus and absorption. For instance, digital games such as Uplink (Introversion Software 2001), FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games 2012) and DayZ (Bohemia Interactive 2013b) are designed around permanent death. Permanent death refers to the concept that each play‐through is connected to a single ‘life’. If a player reaches a fail state, the whole play progress is lost (the avatar dies), and the player must start all over again. The further players progress, the more they have to lose if they fail and, consequently, the tenser and more absorbed players potentially become because of the threat of failure (see also chapter 4.3.4).

A certain degree of mastery of control is also often essential to experiencing ludic absorption. The game industry regularly attempts to create intuitive controls that do away with the necessity of having to teach players the often arbitrary relationship between certain button presses and the resulting actions performed on the screen24. Because of the usually abstract nature of this relationship, players often need to relearn how to control a new game (though genre conventions, for instance, in form of standardized control schemes, help to reduce the need to do so in many cases). While digital games have become more skilled over the years in subtly teaching players the ins and outs of the controls without overexerting them (so as not to negatively affect ludic absorption), players will often still face situations in which they lack the necessary

24 Nintendo, for example, often played an important role in popularizing technologies in the home game console sector. They frequently experimented with—at the time—non‐traditional control schemas. This includes, for instance, the joystick that was included on the Nintendo 64 controller and the mechanical triggers on the Nintendo GameCube controller, which both allowed for more fine‐grained input than the binary on/off state of more traditional button input could. Two more examples are the inclusion of the touch screen on the Nintendo DS, which allowed players to use their fingers to directly drag and move objects on the screen, and the Wiimote on the Nintendo Wii, which introduced a new type of motion control. 22

understanding or skills to use the controls of a game effectively, which decreases ludic absorption. This is particularly the case for beginners.

For some games, such as the games in the Super Mario series, mastery of controls predominantly revolves around mastering more and more complex motoric challenges such as performing wall jumps, jumping on moving platforms, or evading a dangerous clone version of the avatar that mimics every move of the avatar with a delay of two seconds. Other games instead emphasize mental challenges over motoric ones, as is the case, for example, in point and click adventures, which usually demand only basic motoric skills such as moving the mouse and clicking at characters, items, or different dialogue options. Instead, the challenge in point and click adventures usually is in overcoming obstacles by engaging with the game on a mental level, e.g. by finding solutions to puzzles. In order to fully engage with the mental challenges a game provides, it is important for players that they first gain a certain degree of mastery over the controls. This is a necessary step to become able to engage in mental challenges. In the case of point and click adventures, the needed motoric skills can be mastered relatively quickly (moving the mouse and clicking), but in other games or game genres such as the multiplayer online battle arena DOTA 2 (Valve Corp. 2013), players can usually only engage meaningfully in advanced strategies and in the ‘metagame’ (e.g. using the knowledge of recent game updates and changes to gain a strategic advantage) if they have internalized the motoric aspects to a large degree25. The more the controls become intuitive to the player, that is, the more a player masters the controls, the more motoric challenges tend to yield to mental challenges (see also the discussion on automatization in chapter 4.2.2). This even applies to some extent to games which are predominantly designed around providing motoric challenges because some kind of ‘metagame’ can emerge in any type of game.

25 The practice of ‘last hitting’ in DOTA 2 can serve as an example to demonstrate how having no fundamental grasp of motoric challenges in a game inhibits a player’s ability to fully engage in certain mental challenges. Enemy units in DOTA 2 only provide much needed gold (the currency in the game) if the player is the one to make the last hit, that is, make the final attack that kills the computer‐controlled enemy unit. Unexperienced players often misjudge the timing window that is available to them, and thus fail to make the last hit and miss out on gold. This often results in players focusing all their attention on last hitting one computer‐controlled enemy unit (tunnel vision), which in turn makes them susceptible to surprise attacks by other, player‐controlled enemy units. For players who have internalized the last hitting mechanic, on the other hand, last hitting is a trivial task. Their attention is thus not as preoccupied with last hitting, and thus these players tend to be more aware of their surroundings as they focus their attention on trying to ‘read’ and predict enemy movements so as not to fall victim to surprise attacks. This latter practice of thinking is more in line with a kind of mental challenge (i.e. predicting enemy player movement), whereas the practice of ‘last hitting’ (i.e. clicking within a certain time window) revolves more around motoric challenges. 23

3.3 Type 2: Social Absorption

Next to systems and rules, social aspects within the game world can also be a major source of absorption in digital games. As De Kort and IJsselsteijn put it, “[g]aming is often as much about social interaction, as it is about interaction with the game content.” (2008, 18:2). Of course, social interaction does not always result in absorption, and other responses such as increased enjoyment or bonding are also possible. However, many people become absorbed primarily because certain features in a game encourage social interaction or other social aspects.

It is not the goal of this thesis to investigate the nature of social absorption in detail. But just as ludic absorption, social absorption also influences aesthetic illusion to some degree, which is why defining and discussing social absorption in digital games at a basic level will also benefit the subsequent discussion of aesthetic illusion. Social absorption in digital games shall here be understood as the sense of mutual co‐presence within a game world. This admittedly short definition is derived from the following deliberations:

Thon describes social absorption (he calls it social immersion) as

a shift of attention to the other players as social actors and the relationship between them, and the construction of a situation model of the social space that is constituted through the communication and social interaction between the players. (Thon 2008, 39)

Biocca and Harms present a similar view (they write about social presence):

Most succinctly defined as a “sense of being with another in a mediated environment”, social presence is the moment‐to‐moment awareness of co‐presence of a mediated body and the sense of accessibility of the other being’s psychological, emotional, and intentional states. (Biocca and Harms 2002, 10 original highlighting)

Social presence is seen as a gradable phenomenon in that it

can be experienced to varying definable levels, from a low level perception of other social entities, to a deeper sense of psychological involvement, and finally a strong feeling of behavioural engagement and mutual co‐presence (Hudson and Cairns 2016, 2).

While Thon (2008) and Ryan (2015) speak of social immersion, and many other scholars study the phenomenon of social presence (e.g. Lombard and Ditton 1997; Biocca and Harms 2002), it should be emphasized that social immersion and social presence are distinct phenomena that should not carelessly be equated with one another or a state of absorption. The meaning of the terms can overlap in many aspects, depending on the definition that is applied (many scholars have over the years created their own definition

24

of social presence). The term ‘social absorption’ is not meant to replace these other terms—the focus of this thesis is on aesthetic illusion—but it provides a shortcut to group together similar concepts that all emphasize a sense of being ‘drawn into’ a game world through a sense of ‘being with another’, which is fundamentally different to other types of absorption.

Social absorption is often connected to virtual communities and to a sense of belonging to and interacting with a virtual community (cf. footnote 10 in Ryan 2015, 270). For example, players in World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment 2005) can form guilds to collectively solve tasks that they would never be able to complete on their own. These players can also—through the game functionality, such as in‐game chat or ‘emote’ character animations26—engage in more casual social interactions that may be less motivated by the ludic structure of the game and more by social interests. They can, for instance, use the in‐game chat to engage in a personal conversation, or discuss political topics, or also address the social dynamics and hierarchies of the guild. They can also donate virtual (in‐game) money or items to other players or trade with them. But mixing ludic structures with social aspects is also possible, for instance, when going on a quest together with other players or fighting in the local arena against others for honor. As long as players feel a sense of community, they are socially absorbed.

Players can also become more absorbed in a ‘negative community’, that is, one that cannot be trusted because it (potentially) competes (instead of cooperates) with players and tries to harm or defeat them. One example of what I call ‘negative community’ can be found in DayZ (Bohemia Interactive 2013b), in which players are placed in a post‐ apocalyptic zombie dystopia. But it is not only zombies who try to kill the player, other players who scavenge for food, vehicle parts, various materials, and also weapons can decide to fight and loot the player for scarce food and equipment to secure their own survival. The game’s design is such that it creates interesting situations in which it may be beneficiary for people to band together, only to insidiously murder the others once they have outlived their usefulness. DayZ forces players to be wary of other players at all times; trusty relationships are only built slowly over time. This, in turn, potentiall increases players’ social absorption. See also ‘griefing’ in DayZ in chapter 4.3.4.

26 Games implement ‘emote’ functionality differently. In World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment 2005), players can type ‘slash commands’ (‘/’) in the chat window to perform certain pre‐ scripted animations (e.g. ‘/salute’ or ‘/thank’). 25

Another interesting aspect of social absorption is that a virtual community may be completely made up of real people, computer‐controlled entities, or a mix of both. Opinions vary whether social absorption is an effect that exclusively occurs when communicating with human players through the computer. On the one hand, Cairns et al (2014) suggest that this is indeed the case. In their study they found that as long as social interactions occurred within the frame of the game world, players felt a greater sense of social presence (absorption), similarly to how rational responses to an artefact can increase immersion as long as one stays within the frame provided by the representation (cf. Wolf 2013). Interactions with computer‐controlled avatars, however, did not significantly increase a sense of social presence. On the other hand, Thon (2008) argues that aesthetic illusion (his narrative immersion) and social absorption (his social immersion) reciprocally influence each other. According to him, social absorption can increase immersion because social actors (i.e. other human players) can act as “narrative agents” (Thon 2008, 39) in some cases. To him, the reverse is also true, namely that computer‐controlled (e.g. narrative) agents can increase social absorption as long as they behave ‘realistically enough’ (e.g. see parasocial interaction in Klimmt 2003).

There does not seem to be a clear‐cut difference in meaning between social absorption and what Ryan (2015) terms ‘emotional immersion’ (the response to fictional characters). But distinguishing between social absorption and emotional or character immersion (as part of aesthetic illusion) still makes sense because, at least at the present time, neither do games often employ players as ‘narrative agents’ nor does artificial intelligence (AI) frequently achieve building a parasocial relationship with the player that goes beyond superficial levels (i.e. an AI meeting the third level of social presence— mutual co‐presence—as defined by Biocca and Harms (2002)).

3.4 Type 3: Perceptual Delusion

Perceptual delusion is a mental state in which the mind is ‘tricking’ into believing that something not real is, in fact, real. Players experience perceptual delusion when they experience a sense of being physically situated in a game.

Existing literature uses different terms to refer to this or similar phenomena. Wirth et al call it ‘spatial presence’, which is defined by them as follows:

26

Spatial Presence is a binary experience, during which perceived self‐location and, in most cases, perceived action possibilities are connected to a mediated spatial environment, and mental capacities are bound by the mediated environment instead of reality. (2007, 497)

While Wirth et al argue that spatial presence can also be experienced through the imagination27, I would suggest that it is mainly limited to the sensory dimension instead. In other words, artefact‐induced illusory responses are distinct from what I term perceptual delusion. Ryan, too, acknowledges that there are two types of spatial immersion, a narrative kind and a technological kind:

Technologies such as those developed by Oculus Rift (HMDs [head‐mounted displays] sufficiently light and affordable to be used by individual game players) promise to add a new dimension to the game experience—the dimension that I call spatial immersion. But in contrast to the forms of spatial immersion discussed […], this experience will not come from the narrative itself (any story that can be filmed can be shown in a 3D interactive environment) but from the technology that presents it to the senses. (Ryan 2015, 254f.)

In light of ambivalent and overlapping terminology (Ryan’s double‐meaning of spatial immersion28, the suggestion by Wirth et al that spatial presence operates on the sensory level as well as the level of imagination), this thesis instead opts for the term ‘perceptual delusion’ for disambiguation purposes. Identically to one meaning of Ryan’s ‘spatial immersion’, perceptual delusion is predominantly technology‐driven. Unlike Wirth et al, I would argue that the state of ‘perceptual delusion’ is a primarily sensory phenomenon and mostly unrelated to imaginary experiences—though sensory delusion and aesthetic illusion can affect one another to some extent.

27 Cf. Wirth et al (2007, 496): “If the media provide high immersive technologies, humans may respond with feelings of Spatial Presence. However, if immersive impulses are not provided by the media product, internal processes, for example, imagination, can compensate for that deficit in external stimulation – at least to a certain degree. Therefore, Spatial Presence is not limited to the experience of using sensory rich VR‐technology – it can also occur when using less immersive media (i.e., stimuli that control the sensory input to all modalities of the user to a smaller degree[…] or even text‐based media with no direct sensory input”. The ‘internal process’ of imagination refers to a different type of absorption, aesthetic illusion, which should not be grouped together with sensory or perceptual delusion. 28 Spatial presence is not identical to spatial immersion (as defined by Ryan 2015) either. They are related but distinctly different phenomena. While immersion is about (mental) imagination, presence is frequently described as spanning both the imaginary and sensory dimension. Imagination uses the metaphor of imaginative absorption of a game world, i.e. a world ‘moves’ towards a play, presence is about the physical transportation of the player, i.e. the player ‘moves’ towards a game world (see Calleja’s (2011) term ‘incorporation’). A certain degree of presence is required for immersion to occur in performative media. In these media, presence acts as the trigger enabling immersion in the first place. For instance, Tetris is immersive but does not offer a sense of immersion. Similarly, real‐life certainly provides a high degree of a sense of presence, but this does not automatically mean one is also immersed. Immersion, at an absolute minimum, requires an artefact which ‘instills’ in the mind of the recipient its world, characters, and setting. Action is not necessarily crucial to the immersive experience (see, for instance, certain photography, landscape paintings, and sculptures which can also elicit imaginative responses (cf. Wolf 2013, 35)). 27

A state of perceptual delusion in games is often reached through exposure to certain technology. This includes—but is not limited to—motion controls, stereoscopic view, gyro sensors, surround sound, haptic feedback (such as vibrating controllers), and larger displays (see ‘spatial extension’, one of Wolf’s (2013) characteristic features of illusory artefacts and see also a study by Thompson, Nordin, and Cairns (2012), which found that larger touch screen sizes increased levels of absorption). It is through exposure to some or many of these technological features that players can become absorbed through their senses. The key to reaching a state of absorption is the manner in which these technologies are implemented and work together to provide convincing illusionary experiences which trick the brain into believing that the virtual world is actually real. The sheer quantity of technologies is of less importance in this regard (see also the term “immersive fallacy” in Salen and Zimmerman Salen and Zimmerman 2004). The technology must convey the virtual environment in a way so that the perceptual hypothesis that one is physically located in the virtual environment must win out over the hypothesis that they one is situated in the real world (Cairns, Cox, and Nordin 2014, 352f.).

Perceptual delusion can also be created through other means than technology, as is exemplified by the trompe‐l'œil technique with its realistic drawings that create the optical illusion of three‐dimensionality. The convincing optical illusions at first completely deceive the recipients until they notice the deception, in which case they abruptly switch to a fully distanced position towards the artefact (cf. Wolf 2013, 17f.). It is possible to achieve a similar effect in digital games. The Bridge (Taylor and Castañeda 2013), for instance, tasks players with navigating an avatar through levels filled with optical illusions and pieces of impossible geometry and architecture (see figure 2). In this game, optical illusions and frequently jumping forth and back from a state of absorption to a state of distance form central pillars of the intended game experience. Other games may instead employ such an effect more casually or as a gimmick, as is the case, for instance, in Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo EAD Tokyo 2011). Here the title screen sees Mario, the avatar controlled by the player, run around in a room while the camera is in a fixed position. While it looks like all platforms inside the room are connected and can be safely tread on, the player will in actuality fall down when stepping on one specific platform. This mystery can only be solved by pressing a button to change the camera perspective, or by enabling the stereoscopic view mode of the Nintendo 3DS

28

device the game is played on, in which case it is revealed that a perspectival trick was put in place to fool the eyes of the player.

Figure 2 A level in The Bridge (Taylor and Castañeda 2013) which produces a trompe- l'œil-like effect in motion. The screenshot was taken from the official Steam online store front (Steam 2013).

3.5 Type 4: Aesthetic Illusion

The fourth and last type of absorption is aesthetic illusion. Because this thesis is predominantly devoted to studying this type of absorption and how it relates to digital games, chapter 4 is dedicated to providing a more detailed discussion on aesthetic illusion in digital games.

The model of aesthetic illusion in digital games that I propose retains at its core many elements of Wolf’s (2013) transmedial model, but also makes several important modifications and additions. In my model, prerequisites (chapter 4.1.1) are discussed in greater detail than in Wolf’s model. Furthermore, Wolf’s general factors of 1) ‘representation’, 2) ‘recipient’, and 3) ‘context’ are adapted (not only in the title but also ‘in substance’) to fit the field of digital games, namely 1) the game itself and related technology (such as the computer system and relevant input devices), 2) the player, and 3) the context. Interactivity is also introduced as a new general characteristic as a new general characteristic of highly illusionist games.

29

While I argue that digital games allow for four fundamentally different types of absorption, this is to be understood as a predominantly theoretical model with the goal to decrease terminological ambiguities and establish clear classifications and categories. Of course, it is often the case—and is demonstrated several times throughout the thesis—that one type of absorption can significantly affect another type of absorption. To reiterate then: while the focus of this thesis is on aesthetic illusion, any type of absorption cannot be discussed in isolation, and as such an analysis of aesthetic illusion in digital games will inevitably also have to refer to other types of absorption to some extent. See figure 3 for an illustration.

Factors and Types of Absorption Prerequisites

Game Ludic (+ Related Technology) Absorption

Aesthetic Perceptual Player Delusion Illusion

Social Context Absorption

Figure 3 Aesthetic illusion is predominantly affected by the interplay of three distinct factors and also partly influenced by its reciprocal relationship with other types of absorption.

3.6 Comparing and Contrasting Existing Models of Absorption

How do other models of absorption compare to my own model? This discussion was already initiated in chapter 3.1, and will now be concluded after having briefly reviewed my four types of absorption. In chapter 3.1, a number of different models of absorption were proposed by other scholars using wildly varying terminology in an attempt to provide a formal description of absorption experiences which are elicited by digital games. None of the examined models seem to incorporate existing research on aesthetic illusion from the fields of literary studies and the visual arts, even though this research promises to contribute valuable work and insights particularly to the study of immersion

30

in the field of game studies. This thesis hopefully helps to reduce this gap between work done on aesthetic illusion in literary studies and other fields on the one hand and game studies on the other hand. Table 1 provides an overview of several models of absorption experiences and maps them to my own model of absorption.

Next to Wolf (2013), the respective models of Ryan (2015) and Thon (2008) served as inspiration for my own model. Ryan’s primary focus is on narrative immersion, which she examines in detail in her illuminating book Narrative as Virtual Reality 2 (Ryan 2015). My view of narrative immersion is mostly congruent to hers. However, her theory is more limited in scope because of the specific focus on narrative elements. Other important aspects of a complete theory of aesthetic illusion, such as the illusory quality of descriptive elements as well as other types of absorption, are not discussed at all or only mentioned as a footnote. She also confusingly introduced two types of spatial immersion, one of a narrative kind and the other of a technological kind, which is a terminological inconsistency I seek to remove. Her narrative kind of ‘spatial immersion’ becomes part of my ‘aesthetic illusion’ (specifically: ‘mimetic world immersion’), whereas her ‘spatial immersion’ focused on technological and sensory aspects becomes part of my ‘perceptual delusion’. Thon (2008) opted for a different approach in this context, merging the two meanings into the single term of ‘spatial immersion’. I argue, however, that the two different notions of spatial experiences are fundamentally different and thus deserve their own term. Apart from blending two rather distinct notions into one term and different terminology, Thon’s conceptualizations of different dimensions of absorption is remarkably similar to the ones in my own model.

With their SCI‐model, Ermi and Märyä (2005) have, until now, provided the arguably most comprehensive theory of absorption. Similarly to my model, they identify three variables or factors which affect the play experience, namely the game, the player, and the social context. However, these factors are defined more narrowly than my factors (e.g. ‘social context’ eliminates other types of contexts) and none are explored in detail. They also only identify three dimensions of absorption—missing social absorption—, which they name 1) sensory immersion, which is similar to my perceptual delusion, 2) challenge‐based immersion, which can be mapped to my ludic absorption, and 3) imaginative immersion, which is similar to my aesthetic illusion.

The model proposed by Jennett et al. (2008) is similar to the SCI‐model. They group immersion (absorption) factors into two groups: person factors (comprising emotional

31

involvement, cognitive involvement, real world dissociation) and game factors (challenge, control). These factors require further definition, but almost none is provided in the text. Clues as to the meaning of these terms can be found in Cairns, Cox, and Nordin (2014) (Cairns is listed as co‐author for both publications). They suggest that ‘challenge’, ‘control’, and ‘cognitive involvement’ are different aspects of what in the SCI‐ model is termed ‘challenge‐based immersion’. Thus, these three aspects are related to my conceptualization of ludic absorption. ‘Emotional involvement’ can be mapped as a part of aesthetic illusion, and ‘real world dissociation’ is a term that is related to my perceptual delusion. The same article also suggests that there is a link between social presence and absorption, but the term does not appear in the graphic illustration which compares three models of absorption (cf. figure 12.1 in Cairns, Cox, and Nordin 2014, 350). In addition, some elements of their model (challenge, control) are arguably better categorized as factors that can influence the degree of absorption (see also chapter 4.3.1). Overall, this model appears too unfocused and unspecific as its individual elements are not defined clearly.

With the player involvement model, Calleja (2011) aims to circumvent questions of absorption, immersion, and presence altogether by presenting a model that arguably goes beyond the scope of a model of absorption in digital games and instead models different types of play experiences 29 . At the same time, its discussion on aesthetic illusion (his narrative involvement) is more limited when compared to my model. Still, significant overlaps can be identified between his player involvement model and my model of different types of absorption, as made apparent in table 1.

The table also shows how McMahan’s (2003) and Mestre’s (2006) definitions of immersion and presence can be mapped to my own model of absorption.

29 Cairns, Cox, and Nordin state that “the notion of incorporation covers a wide range of playing experiences […] the player involvement model might be better viewed as a generic model of gaming experience” (2014). 32

Table 1 Different models of absorption and how they relate to the model of absorption proposed in this thesis.

My model Aesthetic illusion Perceptual delusion Ludic absorption Social absorption

Wolf’s model ≈Aesthetic illusion (Some aspects of spatial (Wolf 2013) extensions; discussion on trompe-l'œil)

Ryan’s model ≈Narrative immersion ≈Spatial immersion (of a ≈Ludic immersion ≈Social immersion (Ryan 2015) (further subdivided into spatial, technological kind) temporal, emotional immersion)

Thon’s model ≈Narrative immersion ≈Spatial immersion ≈Ludic immersion ≈Social immersion (Thon 2008) (temporal and emotional), (of a technological kind) ≈Spatial immersion (of a narrative kind)

SCI-model ≈Imaginative immersion, ≈Sensory immersion (in ≈Challenge-based (Ermi and Märyä 2005) ≈Sensory immersion (in the the technological sense) immersion psychological sense)

Model of Jennett et al ≈Emotional involvement ≈Real world dissociation ≈Control, ≈Challenge, (Jennett et al. 2008) ≈Cognitive involvement

McMahan’s model ≈Psychological immersion ≈Physical immersion (McMahan 2003)

Player Involvement ≈Kinesthetic involvement, ≈Ludic involvement ≈Shared involvement Model (Calleja 2011) ≈Spatial involvement, ≈Narrative involvement, ≈Affective involvement

Mestre’s model ≈Presence (as a psychological ≈Immersion (as a ≈Social presence (in the (Mestre 2006) consequence of spatial technological variable) sense of interaction with real immersion), ≈Social presence (in people while inside the the sense of interaction with frame provided by the artificial intelligence) game)

33

4 Aesthetic Illusion in Digital Games

After reviewing the transmedial character of aesthetic illusion and comparing existing models of absorption in digital games, it is now time to turn to examining aesthetic illusion in digital games in more detail. This chapter takes Wolf’s (2013) theory of aesthetic illusion and adapts and modifies it according to the unique characteristics of digital games.

4.1 Prerequisites and Characteristics of Aesthetic Illusion in Digital Games

4.1.1 Prerequisites of Aesthetic Illusion

A number of prerequisites must be met for aesthetic illusion to be able to occur. If any of the listed conditions below do not apply to a given play situation, the player cannot have any potential illusory experience offered by the digital game. Certain pre‐ conditions apply to each 1) the player, 2) the context, and 3) the game and related technology.

Concerning the game and related technology, one obvious prerequisite is ownership of the necessary soft‐ and hardware to play digital games. On the software side, the game software itself is obviously required. But this requirement also includes any software dependencies such as specific operating system requirements or up‐to‐date graphics drivers. Minimum hardware requirements are also of major importance. This includes access to an appropriate number of input devices such as mouse and keyboard, gamepad, joystick, foot pedals, etc. and have access to appropriate input methods such as motion sensor input (e.g. via a gyroscopic sensor) or touchscreen input. Similarly, players must own appropriate output devices such as a high definition displays and audio systems which also support the required output methods such as displays supporting stereoscopic view. Different games require different hardware set‐ups and were designed for different input and output devices and methods30. Next to input devices, players

30 Digital games can and often do support different input devices and methods. For example, in the arcade racer Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo EAD 2008), players can choose between various input devices and methods, either 1) using a wheel accessory to steer the virtual vehicles, thus mimicking at a basic level the way cars are steered in real life, or 2) they can also choose more abstract forms of input, such as the Wiimote (allowing motion control and button presses) in one hand and a Nunchuck (joystick) controller 34

must also be the owners of a computer system which is supported by the game (e.g. Sony PlayStation 4) and which is ‘powerful’ enough to make the real‐time calculations that the game demands for graphics and game logic. Some games may also require an internet connection to function as intended (e.g. multiplayer‐only games), or there may be other special hardware required.

The list of components of playability as proposed by Järvinen et al. (2002, chap. 4) can be adapted to compile a list of further prerequisites of aesthetic illusion. When Järvinen et al. (2002) speak of ‘playability’, they have specific game design patterns in mind rather than pre‐conditions of aesthetic illusion. For the purposes of this thesis, the list is reinterpreted and reformulated so that a ‘minimum of playability’ must be achieved in order for aesthetic illusion to occur.

Structural playability. Aesthetic illusion in games builds on their inherently ludic structure (see figure 4). While this is a trivial assessment, it must be noted that without rules and structures, games would not be games. Aesthetic illusion in games depends on the existence of ludic elements because without them it would be impossible to create a game world (mimetic world representation). This game world, in return, is a prerequisite for the inclusion of stories and characters, for these are always grounded in some kind of world. The existence of a ludic structure is by itself not enough to generate aesthetic illusion. In order for aesthetic illusion to occur, some form of mimetic world representation must at least also exist.

Technological and functional considerations. This category requires hardware (e.g. graphics card, CPU, RAM, input and output devices) as well as software (e.g. operating system, the overall game code, the networking code in games reliant on online features) to function correctly and reliably to some extent. While hardware and software must not at all times work flawlessly to allow for aesthetic illusion, any interferences and disruptions that occur may result in a distancing effect. Too many of such interruptions in short succession may result in an ‘unplayable’ or ‘unimmersive’ game state. If, for

in the other, or 3) only the Wiimote, or 4) a more ‘traditional’ classic controller (buttons and joysticks). There are also games that presuppose a certain input device. One example of such a game is Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (Starbreeze Studios 2013), which specifically requires a game controller. Aesthetic illusion in digital games is not necessarily dependent on the types of input devices and methods a game was originally designed for. This means that, for instance, using a PC emulator to play Pokémon Red (Game Freak 1999), which was designed exclusively for Nintendo’s Game Boy system, the game can still elicit imaginative experiences, even though the input device and method do not conform to the original design of the game. 35

Rules and Structures (ludic)

Mimetic World Representation (narrative and descriptive)

Story and Characters (narrative)

Aesthetic Illusion in Digital Games

Figure 4 Ludic elements are a prerequisite for mimetic world representation, which in turn is a prerequisite for narrative events and happenings (story) and narrative agents (characters).

instance, errors or frequent crashes caused by the game software prevent the player from starting and playing a game level, no aesthetic illusion can occur. Thus, a certain minimum standard of technical and functional reliability must be met for the game to be able to facilitate aesthetic illusion.

Sensory considerations. The game must present enough ‘readable’ sensory input to the players in order for them to be able to make sense of visual, aural, and other perceptions so as to meaningfully engage with the game. At a very basic level, this means that the game must spread meaningful sensory information through all the sensory channels it makes use of (visual, aural, etc.). For instance, if the play mechanic of a game relies on visual orientation and navigation, it must also make some kind of use of the visuals (instead of presenting, for instance, merely a black screen).

Social aspects. Games designed around multiplayer experiences often require a minimum number of players to be able to generate the intended experience. Even if this required minimum is not met, a limited kind of illusion may still occur because games often allow player engagement on some basic level. This is the case, for example, in Counter‐Strike: Global Offensive (Valve Corp. 2012), a tactical shooter in which two teams are pitted against each other and in which players must each fulfil different tasks. The game allows a player to engage with it completely offline by providing computer‐ controlled artificial intelligence agents which take over the control of the team members. Played like this, however, Counter‐Strike does not provide the ‘full’ range of aesthetic

36

illusion as players do not experience a sense of social absorption, which influences players’ sense of mutual co‐presence (see chapter 3.3). This core aspect of the game design can only be experienced in a multiplayer setting. Other games such as Clash of Clans (Supercell 2013) do not allow players to play offline (theoretically it could only be played alone if everyone else stopped playing it). In this game, players build a base to mine resources, upgrade buildings over time, train military troops, and send them off to attack and loot other players’ villages. The game could be played without the multiplayer element, focusing solely on resource gathering and base building, and played this way, aesthetic illusion can obviously still occur. But without the multiplayer component (which here too is a central pillar of the intended gameplay experience) the game would be deprived of its multiplayer aspects (e.g. joining a clan, helping clan members, fighting in clan wars) and the feeling of mutual co‐presence (social absorption), which in turn could negatively impact aesthetic illusion.

Prerequisites do not only concern the game, but player prerequisites must also be considered. Similarly to Wolf’s notion of the ‘average recipient’ (cf. 2013, 31), it makes sense to adopt the concept of the ‘average player’ in the context of preconditions of aesthetic illusion in digital games. He or she only exists as a theoretical construct and has the required knowledge and skills to play games so that aesthetic illusion may occur. This player is neither a complete novice nor a total expert, and must have the predisposition for experiencing aesthetic illusion and be willing to suspend their disbelief, that is, willing to be ‘recentered’ (Ryan 1991) in the game world while at the same time distant enough so as not to fall into a state of delusion. He or she must also be “capable of deciphering and responding to the denotational as well as connotational information stored in the respective work” (Wolf 2013, 31) and meet a minimum level of media literacy as well as a varying set of other skills or literacies (depending on the game), such as reading and writing literacy, (multi‐)cultural literacy (knowledge of one’s own or other cultures), visual literacy (ability to critically read images), and possibly a ‘gaming literacy’ that encompasses knowledge and a set of skills needed to play a game. Being able to decipher information also means that physical impairments such as blindness or hearing impairment often preclude affected people from a large number of typical game experiences. A certain degree of mastery over the game controls can also be expected of the ‘average player’.

A more precise definition of the ‘minimally able player’ is difficult because digital games offer such a breadth of different experiences that it is easy for someone to be an

37

expert at certain types of games or within certain game genres while not even being able to ‘read’ other types of games or genres properly.

Similarly to the concept of the ‘minimally able player’, the contextual conditions must be such that they allow for aesthetic illusion to occur with regard to spatial, historio‐cultural, generic, and other contexts as discussed in Wolf (2013, 24–27). This may include, for instance, a place in which players can engage with games in relative privacy (e.g. no frequent immersion‐inhibiting interruptions such as loud noises).

4.1.2 Characteristics of Aesthetic Illusion in Digital Games

This chapter aims to examine whether Wolf’s proposed general characteristics of aesthetic illusion also apply to digital games and where they might require adjustments.

One general characteristic of aesthetic illusion is that it is a “basically pleasurable mental state” (Wolf 2013, 51). Existing games research and my own experiences suggest this statement holds true for digital games (cf. Murray 1997, 98; cf. Douglas and Hargadon 2000). Pleasure here is not to be confused with the rather vague concept of ‘fun’, which is a somewhat related yet distinctly separate phenomenon from that of aesthetic illusion. After all, it is possible to have ‘fun’ playing a game with friends while completely distanced from the game itself. Likewise, one can be completely immersed in a gaming situation which may not be described as particularly ‘fun’ (e.g. hiding from a dangerous monster in a horror game). Immersion is only one possible aspect of a given game experiences among others such as light‐hearted pleasure or socialization (cf. Poels, de Kort, and IJsselsteijn 2007).

Immersion (and thus aesthetic illusion) is also seen to be an experiential state of mind rather than a personality trait (cf. Cairns, Cox, and Nordin 2014, 341). It is “not a property of a game or media text but is an effect that a text produces. What I mean is that immersion is an experience that happens between a game and its player, and is not something intrinsic to the aesthetics of a game” (Elena Gorfinkel cited in Salen and Zimmerman 2004, chap. 27).

Brown and Cairns (2004) found that immersion in digital games is gradable and unstable. They propose to divide immersion in three levels: engagement, engrossment, and total immersion. While the definitions of these levels were identified to use problematic terminology in that they intermingle the metaphors of immersion as mental absorption and immersion as transportation (cf. Calleja 2011, 30f.), the notion of different

38

levels of immersion in digital game overlaps with Wolf’s description of aesthetic illusion as a gradable phenomenon. Brown and Cairns also refer to their of total immersion as a “fleeting experience” (2004, 1299) and thus highlight the unstable quality of immersion. In their model, the number of barriers regulate the degree of distance between the player and the game.

Illusory effects can be elicited by a wide variety of games of various genres and types, from the most popular games such as the Super Mario series, Minecraft (Mojang 2011), or Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar North 2015) to the most niche ones such as Hack ‘n’ Slash (Double Fine Productions 2014), from family‐friendly arcade games like Tetris (Pajitnov and Pokhilko 1984) to hard core simulations such as the military simulation ARMA 3 (Bohemia Interactive 2013a) or the vehicle simulation Spintires (Oovee Game Studios 2014), from games applying true‐and‐tested formulas like The Legend of Zelda series to avant‐garde titles such as Her Story, and from dull ‘lowbrow’ games to intellectually demanding games. It does not matter whether digital games are part of popular culture (i.e. ‘non‐aesthetic’) or if they belong to a traditionally more niche, possibly avant‐garde and intellectual, set of games (i.e. ‘aesthetic’), they all harbor the potential to elicit and guide illusory playing experiences (but they may fall short on executing on this potential, of course).

Games can be predominantly narrative or non‐narrative (descriptive) in nature and still equally be capable of eliciting illusory responses from players. Non‐Narrative games are here understood as focusing mostly on the mimetic representation of the game world while narrative games emphasize stories and characters over (or often in addition to) the game world. Exploration games such as Proteus (Key and Kanaga 2013) often foreground the game world and descriptive element. Many adventure games and some abstract games such as Thomas Was Alone (Bithell 2012), in which a narrator anthropomorphizes geometrical shapes, emphasize narrative elements over description. However, in most games, both narrative and non‐narrative elements can be found which help elicit illusory responses. The popular practice of ‘environmental storytelling’, for example, even combines narrative and descriptive elements.

Aesthetic illusion is not limited to fiction in games either. A multitude of genres ranging from political games, to historical or science ones, simulations, sports games, quizzes, and other games all attempt to model or simulate parts of the real world. This includes, for example, the truck driving simulation Euro Truck Simulator 2 (SCS Software

39

2012), the football sports game FIFA 16 (EA Canada 2015), and government simulation Democracy 3 (Positech Games 2013). These games are as capable of eliciting illusory responses as games emphasizing fiction.

4.2 The Game and Related Technology, the Player, and the Context as Essential Factors of Aesthetic Illusion

Wolf’s transmedial trichotomy of factors involved in the emergence of aesthetic illusion can easily be adapted to also describe aesthetic illusion in digital games. His ‘representation’ becomes my ‘games and related technology’, his ‘recipient’ my ‘player’ factor, and the third factor remains as ‘context’. In this subchapter, each of the three factors will be discussed. Wolf provides the most extensive analysis for the third factor (representation) and proposes a list of four characteristic features of illusionist artefacts. One should keep in mind that, as Wolf notes, the player (recipient) and the context pose many methodological questions and problems in the study of aesthetic illusion (cf. 2013, 27–32). Because the primary aim of this text is to explore the compatibility of Wolf’s transmedial model with digital games and his model primarily examines representation factors, the main focus of this thesis is on re‐evaluating these representational factors as to their applicability to digital games and related hardware and software aspects.

4.2.1 The Player and Context as Important Factors of Aesthetic Illusion

While it is necessary to make certain practical assumptions about the ‘average player’ (e.g. when discussing prerequisites to aesthetic illusion), such an approach to player modeling—when taken too far—obviously significantly limits the way players as essential factors of aesthetic illusion can be studied. It thus appears useful to also consider other approaches to player modeling depending on the circumstances. Numerous player models have been proposed in the past, but because of their sheer quantity and the fact that player modeling is not the central topic of this thesis, a brief and exemplary discussion on fundamental approaches to player modeling must suffice.

Player theories may either take a top‐down, bottom‐up or hybrid approach to modeling players (cf. Yannakakis et al. 2013). Top‐down approaches are model‐based in that they build on a theoretical framework. Models are first hypothesized and then tested in an experimental phase—a practice predominantly applied, for instance, in the

40

humanities and social sciences. Incidentally, this was also the approach taken to formulate my own model of absorption in digital games. But player models can also be constructed from the bottom up. These model‐free approaches “attempt[…] to model and predict player actions and intentions […] as well as game data mining efforts to identify different behavioral” (Yannakakis et al. 2013, 48). Most player models are a hybrid of these two approaches in that they can be located somewhere between a completely top‐down or completely bottom‐up approach.

Next to distinguishing between different types of modeling approaches, player models can also be divided into field‐specific (game‐specific) models and more general theories focusing on emotional, behavioral, cognitive, or other kinds of modeling which can still provide useful insights on modeling players or play behavior.

One well‐known game‐specific player model is Bartle’s (1996) taxonomy of player types. According to Bartle, each player is a mix of four types: the achiever, the explorer, the socializer, and the killer. The model was initially developed from the bottom‐up by filtering through interviews conducted with long‐standing players of MUDs (multi‐user dungeons) over the course of several months. Achievers seek treasure, hunt for high scores, and generally revel in making progress such as leveling‐up or solving puzzles. All else in a game is just a means to reach this goal. Explorers are most drawn to discovering every nook and cranny of the game world and the game itself. They delight in exposing and testing a game’s internal systems, or even in ‘breaking’ them, but they also find the most joy in roaming and exploring the game world, finding ‘easter eggs’ (hidden messages by the developers), or experimenting with non‐traditional play styles. Socializers are most interested in meeting and socializing with other people. For them, the game and making progress is mainly a means to reach this end and serves as a backdrop to facilitate social encounters. Finally, killers are at their best when they can dominate other people. They usually engage in aggressive behavior towards other players and generally cause as much mayhem and distress as possible.

Kallio, Märyä, and Kaipinen (2011) also developed their model of gaming mentalities from the bottom up. They were interested in designing a model which describes the different motivations and mentalities behind player engagement in games. For this purpose, they developed a mentality heuristic following structured and in‐depth interviews as well as group interviews and identified three crucial components with each three indicators of specific gaming mentalities: the intensity of the play session (session

41

length, regularity, concentration on the game), factors concerning sociability (physical space, virtual space, engaging with games outside the game space such as in online forums), and game factors (individual games or game devices, game genres, access to games).

An example of a game‐specific top‐down model is Frome’s (2007) taxonomy of emotional player responses to digital games. In his model, digital games can generate eight types of emotional responses, depending on the role of the player (as observer‐ participant or as actor‐participant) and the current focus (ecological aspects, narrative aspects, the game elements, or the game itself as an artifact).

General theories may also contribute important insights which can prove relevant to game studies or game design. Some more prominent theories about mental absorption or related phenomena, such as Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory or the notion of cognitive absorption, have already been discussed (see chapter 3). The ‘skinner box’ is another important theory based on B. F. Skinner’s learning theory of operant conditioning. The following quote explains the basic principle behind the skinner box:

“Skinner claimed that the frequency of a given behavior is directly linked to whether it is rewarded or punished. If a behavior is rewarded, it is more likely to be repeated. If it is punished, it becomes suppressed. This deceptively simple and straight‐forward theory may explain why EverQuest is so addictive. […] The rewards cycle in EverQuest begins with instant gratifications. When you start a new character, everything you need to do is close by [...]. The first few mobs you attack die in several swings and you make level 2 in about 5 kills. By the time you make level 3 half an hour later, you are more aware of the underlying skill points, the accumulation of money, and gain a desire to get better equipment. Gradually, it takes longer and longer to get to the next level. The simple tasks that you did to improve trade skills have become trivial, but the rewards you get ‐ the blue skill points and the metal bits ‐ drive you to perform tasks more elaborate than before because trivial tasks are no longer rewarded. The one‐click reward disappears, and is gradually replaced by rewards that take more and more clicks to get. And suddenly, some of us find ourselves clicking away for hours in front of a forge or jewellery kit. […] This process of guiding an individual to perform more and more elaborate and complex tasks is known as shaping in Operant Conditioning.” (Yee n. d.)

EverQuest (Sony Online Entertainment 1999) may be an early example of the incorporation of skinner box design in games, but its simple yet powerful view of player psychology—given enough initial micro‐stimuli, players will stay engaged even when the amount of micro‐stimuli decreases over time—has proved to be immensely effective so that the skinner box, in form of a design philosophy, has found its way into the more and more games. Today, the ‘skinner box’ model is probably one of the most successful and widely used models in digital games.

42

However, Yannakakis et al. warn that the application of general theories to player modeling should be treated with caution. After all, these theories were usually not developed with digital games in mind and, as such, their applicability to this field often remains largely untested (cf. 2013, 48). Calleja (2011) also notes that concepts such as ‘flow’ and ‘fun’ may be too generic and thus remain inappropriate for the study of games.

Contextual aspects must also be considered as essential to the formation of aesthetic illusion. Wolf (2013) suggests a number of contextual factors, which all prove relevant in a game situation as well. While there continues to be great interest in player models (a large number of different theories have been proposed in the past), unfortunately only few studies were published regarding the influence of contextual factors on immersion. Several studies such as Ermi and Märyä (2005) acknowledge that context influences the formation of immersive situations, but it is uncommon for any studies to discuss this issue in more depth or present empirical findings. In one rare study that mentions findings on contextual factors, Brown and Cairns (cf. 2004, 1299) suggest that turning out the lights and turning up the volume leads to an increase in game absorption (they call it immersion). But even with little available empirical evidence, it makes sense to assume that the situational context can have an impact on the degree of immersion in games. It should be expected that constructing an environment which is free of distractions certainly helps facilitate immersive experiences. On the other hand, (frequent) interruptions such as loud noises in the background or bright sun beams which obscure the display, as a rule, increase distance instead.

The social context is also of particular relevance. Playing a game while other people who actively watch, praise, criticize, or comment on one’s play style are present in the same room will usually draw the attention of the player out of the game and towards the remarks made by these other people. It matters whether or not “the other player [is] part of the game world in which to become immersed” (Cairns, Cox, and Nordin 2014, 352). If other players act as social agents within the game world and communicate about the game, that is, discuss the shared play experience while staying within the frame that the game provides, this behavior, I argue, can increase immersion (see social absorption in chapter 3.3). If, on the other hand, players’ communication steps outside the established frame, distance is created instead31. This is, for instance, often the case in party games

31 See De Kort and IJsselsteijn: “The accounts of social interaction and social context effects do not lend themselves easily for combination with conceptualisations of flow and immersion” (2008, 2). See also 43

such as SingStar (London Studio 2004), in which players compete against each other in virtual song contests, or also when playing local multiplayer modes in games such as Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (Steel Crate Games 2015), which requires players to cooperate and communicate effectively to defuse bombs while under time pressure. Party and local multiplayer games certainly can (and often do) create immersive experiences, but their design is centered on integrating external social contexts into the play experience and thus requires players to frequently step out of the game world and communicate with other players.

Depending on the play situation, playing with other players can either be immersive (as long as everyone involved communicates while staying within the established frame of the game) or increase distance (if players step out of this frame). Playing for an audience, however, significantly reduces the amount of illusory responses. For example, in recent years, ‘Let’s Plays’ and live streaming have become more and more popular practices of how players engage with games32. In a ‘Let’s Play’, players record their own play session while usually simultaneously commentating the play experience or talking about entirely unrelated topics. They then upload these videos to video‐sharing websites—primarily YouTube—to make these commentated videos available to the public. Others stream their play session live over the internet to a global audience. Play conducted in this way certainly robs it of most of its immersive quality as audience expectations and responses constantly linger at the back of the head of the performer33.

Wolf (2013) also states that the cultural‐historical context, certain (generic) sets of frames among players, and their expectations of games towards being ‘state of the art’ in a technical and aesthetic sense all significantly influence illusory reception processes. The arguments he provides completely apply to digital games as well. Some may argue that the current ‘retro movement’ in the digital game sector disqualifies the ‘state of the art’ argument. The retro movement can be seen as a renewed interest in publishing remasters and remakes of older games, or as incorporating their aesthetic style in

Sweetser and Wyeth: “Social interaction […] can even interrupt immersion in games, as real people provide a link to the real world that can knock players out of their fantasy game worlds” (2005, 10). 32 For example, each video of the popular German ‘Let’s Player’ Gronkh is watched by tens of thousands of people. The videos regularly even surpass a hundred thousand views. Of course, the majority of people who produce Let’s Plays are not nearly as successful in terms of gathering views. 33 A ‘rest’ of immersion may still remain. Players who create ‘Let’s Plays’ without audio commentary can more easily mentally ‘bracket off’ their audience and thus become more immersed. 44

original games and ‘demakes’ 34 (as demonstrated, for example, by the increased attention to chiptune soundtracks, that is, synthesized 8‐bit music). However, I would argue that players have become used to certain technological or aesthetic standards which are subtler than a particular aesthetic style being employed. For instance, virtual cameras have come a long way since the attempts of early 3D games of the 1990s. While in Super Mario 64 (Nintendo EAD 1997, 64) players would frequently have to manually adjust the camera angle in order to orientate themselves, the camera in Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo EAD Tokyo 2010), a title in the Super Mario series released over ten years later, has arguably mostly mastered the ‘art’ of subtly guiding the gaze and attention of viewers. In the latter game, the camera remains mostly ‘invisible’ and it is only rarely that players must make manual adjustments. Had Super Mario Galaxy 2 implemented the same camera system as Super Mario 64, players would probably have scolded the game for its ‘bad’ and outdated camera controls. Over the span of ten years, players have become accustomed to a higher standard of camera control in games. This example is meant to show how retro games—in particular remakes—do not necessarily replicate the design choices, aesthetic styles, systems, or even whole games because by doing this, they would probably lose some of their immersive potential. They instead attempt to replicate how it ‘felt’ playing these games in the past, but (partly) viewed from a contemporary perspective. If the changes or improvements that have since become standard were not included in these retro games, most players would certainly notice this and, as a result, might be drawn out of the play experience to some extent.

Player expectations are another important factor in shaping illusory responses and related to some extent to the concepts of gamer identity and gamer culture. As Denisova and Cairns argue that “expectations of a game, which can be affected by external information, are therefore increasingly important in terms of shaping gaming experience, and matching them in the game is believed to lead to a heightened sense of immersion” (2015, 1). Expectations can be connected to marketing, word of mouth descriptions of the game, previous games of the developer (track record), and many other factors.

34 Demakes are adaptations or reinterpretations of games for older computer hardware (sometimes even deprecated hardware). A recent example of a demake is The Wit.nes (dustmop 2016), which was inspired by the game The Witness (Thekla, Inc. 2016). While The Witness supports only some modern computer systems, the demake is in development for the deprecated Nintendo Entertainment System (abbreviated NES; see also the word pun in The Wit.nes), which was the very first home console released by Nintendo in 1986 in Europe. 45

The attitude of the game industry and subsequently player expectations towards many games and game series has in the last decade shifted from ‘games as finished products’ to ‘games as services’. Games today are often understood as a service in that they receive regular content updates after the initial release and often for years to come. Developers often turn to online forums and player feedback to improve their games. More and more game developers even release unfinished versions of their games before the designated release date for a variety of financial and developmental reasons, but this also enables players to take a more active role in shaping the play experience by criticizing or lauding aspects of the game and providing ideas and feedback to the game developers. Sometimes strong negative reactions and criticism by the players can lead to game developers altering story elements. Players reacted in this way, for example, to the possible endings in Mass Effect 3 (BioWare 2012). The outcry prompted the developer to add an additional ending (cf. Cobbett 2012; cf. “Demand a Better Ending to Mass Effect 3” 2012, a campaign with over 50,000 public supporters). Players, of course, do not need to participate in any of these communities or cultures, but it cannot be denied that active participation in online forums, chat messages, participating in online guilds or clans, producing levels or asset creator with game editors, contributing ideas, thoughts, and feedback to the game developers, and a variety of other practices can inform player expectations and attitudes towards the game and game developer in complex ways which in turn can also influence illusory responses of players.

The concepts of gamer identity (cf. De Grove, Courtois, and Van Looy 2015) and game culture (cf. Mäyrä 2008, chap. 2) also play an important role in the context of immersion in games and are related to the previous point on player expectations. Both of these concepts are arguably more important to the field of digital games than equivalent concepts are to other fields and media (e.g. ‘film culture’) due to games’ inherently interactive nature and the many communal and participatory structures which have emerged and developed alongside games particularly since the advent of the internet. For instance, in recent years, the term ‘hardcore player’ has become a more and more popular label for a certain group of players, possibly to provide a ‘counter‐identity’ to the newly emerged gamer identity of the ‘casual player’:

The stereotypical casual player has a preference for positive and pleasant fictions, has played few video games, is willing to commit small amounts of time and resources toward playing video games, and dislikes difficult games. […] The stereotypical hardcore player has a preference for emotionally negative fictions like science fiction, vampires, fantasy and war, has played a large number of video games, will invest large amounts of time and resources toward playing video games, and enjoys difficult games. (Juul 2010, 29 italics original)

46

Of course, depending on other contextual factors such as the genre of the game, social and situational factors, as well as other aspects, players may sometimes lean more towards one or the other side on this casual‐hardcore‐spectrum. But from my own experience players often affiliate themselves with a specific group (e.g. statements such as ‘I only play real games’ indicate an affinity towards the ‘hardcore gamer’ stereotype. Another example: players—in contrast, for instance, to viewers or readers—are more used to being able to influence and help shape games and play experiences. This circumstance is at least partly owing to the fact that games are more malleable and often subject to frequent change than other artefacts. For instance, players may download levels created by other players to shape their own play experience, or they may create levels on their own. Many games, for instance, are also updated weekly or monthly— updates can introduce new content, resolve errors and problems, and even change the way the game is being played. In contrast to this, books may receive a second edition years after first being published and films may receive a director’s cut and be remastered once or twice. The fact that games are malleable and interactive (see chapter 4.3) may also shape players’ attitudes and expectations towards being able to influence game development (as frequent demands made by players in online forums and comment sections towards changing, adding, or removing this or that element from the game may indicate).

4.2.2 The Game and Related Technology as Another Factor Affecting Aesthetic Illusion

The third factor contributing to aesthetic illusion is the prime subject of investigation in this text: the game and related technology. While this subchapter examines the applicability of characteristic features of aesthetic illusion in digital games, the discussion on interactivity as another immersive feature (of games in particular) is relegated to chapter 4.3).

One characteristic feature of artefacts, according to Wolf (2013), is that highly illusionist works tend to draw attention to the content level while the level of transmission remains ‘hidden’ in the background (see the “celare artem” principle in Wolf 2013, 50f.). This relationship between content and transmission level remains true in digital games, but deserves further elaboration.

Wessely (2013) identifies an inherent paradox in the constellation of the mutual dependence of the game and the computer with ramifications concerning the ‘power’ of

47

illusory effects. He argues that the mental concept of a game (i.e. the virtual world (re)presented by the game) is completely unrelated to the underlying technical concept it builds upon (i.e. the language and inner logic of the computer)35. The relationship between the two concepts is also discussed by Arsenault and Perron:

When[…] the gamer finds out that an enemy in Quake [id Software 1996] will always appear from the left, he still only witnesses the repetitive result of the computer’s response to his action. He does not, per se, discover the game’s algorithm which remains encoded, hidden and multifaceted (from the graphics, which deal with the appearance of the enemy, to the artificial intelligence, which manages this enemy’s actions). His mental model will never represent the gameplay as a computer set of instructions or calculated formulae (the enemy’s movement from left to right is not thought of by the gamer as “Enemy1.PositionX = PositionX+1”). Therefore, the notion that a gamer’s experience and a computer program directly overlap is a mistake. (Arsenault and Perron 2009, 110)

I see this differently. On a purely technical level, I agree that the mental and technical concept always remain different to some extent. But the argument that there is an absolute divide between mental and technical concept in games is misleading and does not hold when put under close scrutiny. This divide may apply to some exceptional cases which override Wolf’s ‘celare artem’ principle, but certainly not to the majority of games.

One testament to the blending of the mental and technical concept can be found in the epic plot structure frequently employed by many games. The epic plot is the most popular plot type in digital games precisely because its structure (i.e. a solitary hero saves the world or a damsel in distress) and emphasis on combat are aspects which are relatively easy to simulate with computers (cf. Ryan 2015, chap. 10). Many Nintendo games employ this epic plot structure (archetypical examples being the many Super Mario jump and run games and the various The Legend of Zelda adventures in each of which players set out to rescue kidnapped princesses by defeating enemies and progressing through the levels). This structure can also be found in games as diverse as the Call of Duty military shooter series, in fantasy action roleplaying games such as Diablo II (Blizzard North 2000), or in real‐time strategy games such as Command & Conquer (Westwood 1996) and WarCraft 3 (Blizzard Entertainment 2002). The epic plot

35 Cf. Wessely (2013, 352): “Indeed, the mental concept of the game does not relate in any way to its technical concept. Quite the opposite is the case: remaining aware of a specific technical concept while being engaged in a computer game would be completely alien to the human perception and would deprive players of any experiential reception opportunity.” 48

structure can also be found in the management type game Die Stämme (InnoGames 2003), which served as an object of investigation in Wessely (2013).

Indeed, certain types and genres of games even put the technical details of computer software and hardware at the center of their play experience. For example, it is in the nature of hacking games to foreground the underlying functionality and technology of computers. A prominent example is Uplink (Introversion Software 2001), in which players assume the role of a hacker in a futuristic cyberspace dystopia. Players accept contracts or missions which require them to connect to remote computer systems over the (in‐game, thus fictional) internet, crack security systems, and perform the required action to fulfil the contract (e.g. retrieve or delete certain files, plant a virus, change criminal or medical records, hack a bank account and transfer money). The money acquired from contracts or hacked bank accounts is then used to upgrade existing soft‐ and hardware, or to purchase new or upgrade existing applications or hardware systems36. Another game, Hack ‘n’ Slash (Double Fine Productions 2014), takes the term ‘hacking’ quite literally, as it requires players to manipulate components of its own game code and even complete programming tasks to progress in the game world and story line37. Including elements of programming in a game is another way of blurring the line between technical and mental game concepts. Games such as Hack ‘n’ Slash, Human Resource Machine (Tomorrow Corporation 2015), or SpaceChem (Zachtronics Industries 2011) contextualize machine‐oriented concepts such as variables, loops, and conditions within the larger context of a virtual game world. Other games do not go so far as to include programming tasks and prove to be a more ‘beginner‐friendly’ meshing of technical and mental concepts. This is, for example, the case with Her Story (Barlow 2015), in which players interact with a virtual computer screen and use the search function to retrieve and watch small chunks of several fictional police recordings of an

36 Incidentally, next to this open‐ended mission structure, Uplink (Introversion Software 2001) also features linear story missions in which the player picks one of two sides, either helping to destroy the internet (the game world) via planting a highly destructive and fast‐spreading computer virus on many computer systems or saving the internet and the computers from this virus by hacking into infected systems and deleting the virus in time. This aspect of the story structure thus also conforms to the epic plot archetype. 37 The marketing text of Hack ‘n’ Slash reads: “Your sword can hack the variables of objects. You find magic artifacts that allow you to tune global variables to your liking. Discover equipment that lets you see the game’s internal debug visualization to uncover things that weren’t meant to be seen. […] As you achieve advanced hacking mastery, you’ll be able to dive directly into the game’s assembly in the form of procedurally generated dungeons and modify the live‐running code” (Double Fine Productions 2016). 49

interview with the wife of her diseased husband38. By searching for the correct terms, new video chunks are revealed, and through repeating this search‐and‐watch‐process, players can slowly piece together the chronological order of the events that happened between the wife and her husband.

Experience points, levels, and attribute skill points mirror the numerical nature and mathematical ‘view’ of computers, but at the same time they often contribute to further characterization of the avatar (e.g. experience points can be seen as a metaphor of the life experience of the avatar, attribute skill points describe the level of knowledge, skills, and shortcomings of a fictional character).

There are other examples, such as the potentially immersive effects of non‐diegetic interfaces in games (see the discussion on user interfaces in chapter 4.2.2), but the point should be clear by now. In many cases, the mental and technical concept of digital games are not so far removed as Wessely (2013) or Arsenault and Perron (2009) may suggest. The ‘real’ convergence between the two concepts is less important than the exposure of the player to the technicalities Technical and mental concepts may converge to some extent, for example, in the epic plot type structure, in certain game types and game genres such as in hacking and programming games, or a convergence of the two concepts can also become more apparent in ‘gamey’ elements such as experience points and attribute points. This convergence or blending of concepts, in turn, can facilitate illusory experiences through providing a fiction of authenticity. Being exposed to and interacting with seemingly ‘real’ computer elements in a seemingly authentic way can instill a sense of enticement in players: they may feel that they are no longer merely playing a game, but also ‘crossing the border’ into the real world. For instance, while the practice of hacking in Uplink (Introversion Software 2001) has little to do with how hacking computer systems is conducted in the real life, the game provides a plausible fiction of the hacking process to unknowing players.

In a related argument, Wessely also notes that digital games could be seen as disregarding the ‘celare artem’ principle because the hardware is often foregrounded in the play experience; for example, players are required to physically touch and use input devices to interact with the game. But he notes that in actuality, players perceive the computer (and I would argue this includes input devices) “as part of the illusionist

38 The ‘play situation’ is thus: the real player sits in front of a real PC, which in turn emulates a virtual character sitting in front of a virtual PC which provides a search function to search the video archive of the police. 50

experience rather than as a system alien to it. The medium is thus integrated into their aesthetic illusion, and by this aesthetic illusion may even be intensified” (2013, 356). Mastery of controls, that is, the notion that controls have become an extension of the player’s body or mind, as well as aspects of perceptual delusion such as haptic feedback can also greatly increase immersion. Indeed, most players who have used haptic feedback enabled controllers before and experienced a controller vibrating in their hand when their virtual car crashed into an obstacle or a large monster knocked the player’s avatar away will probably agree with this statement wholeheartedly.

Books on game design often refer to a design rule that games should provide a “smooth, seamless experience” (Adams 2010, 35). Some games require players to do the opposite of deeply immersing themselves in a game world. Examples are Davey Wreden’s games The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe 2013) and The Beginner’s Guide (Everything Unlimited Ltd. 2015), as well as other titles such as Spec Ops: The Line (Yager Development 2012), which deconstruct the function of game genres or the nature of games themselves. These games encourage players to turn to the metareferential level and think critically about the game’s design, inherent structure, and contextual factors, which on the one hand provides new and interesting game experiences that had not been explored before, but at the same inevitably break the illusion to some extent to achieve this goal. It can thus be assumed that games which put an increased emphasis on the level of transmission have to sacrifice immersion to some extent. From this, it can in turn be inferred that in order to increase immersion in games one must make the level of transmission become more inconspicuous.

Examining the content level more closely, Wolf suggests that highly illusionist artefacts usually have a certain spatial extension. A study by Thompson, Nordin, and Cairns (2012) suggests that immersion in digital games does benefit from spatial extension. In their study they found that increasing the display size (a smaller screen on an iPod Touch was tested against the larger screen of an iPad)—with all other variables of the game situation set as equal as possible—did in fact result in a more absorbing game experience. It also seems safe to say that it is difficult to immerse oneself in games which can be completed in an extremely small amount of time. Illusory responses typically require a certain minimum of temporal extension to unfold. It should be noted that it is impossible to determine a fixed minimum amount of time needed—aesthetic illusion is too complex a phenomenon and dependent on the interaction of a multitude of elusive factors. Spatial and other kinds of sensory extensions also contribute to what

51

I elsewhere refer to as ‘perceptual delusion’ (see chapter 3.4). The simple relationship between the two terms is that the more senses a game occupies (via extensions among other things), the more present the player is likely to feel inside the game world. Sensory extensions are an example of how the lines between different types of absorption (here: perceptual delusion and aesthetic illusion) as defined in my model can become blurred. Different types of absorption can mutually influence and support one another.

Wolf (2013) states that accessibility—including consistency and verisimilitude—is another typical feature of highly illusionist artefacts. This notion applies to digital games too. The interactive nature of digital games combined with a generally strong focus on audio‐visual elements increases their potential for providing more authentic (and thus accessible) engagements than other media (see, for example, agency as discussed in chapter 4.3.1). At the same time, illusionist worlds created by games are possibly more volatile than in other media due to more variables being involved. Interactivity in particular can turn into a double‐edged sword and break the illusion if game design does not appropriately consider and make precautions for all likely interactions and outcomes. While the possible illusionist effect is arguably greater than in other games, at the same time any experience of disillusionment runs the risk of greater consequences than in other media. For example, consider a fictional character in a book who faces an obstacle and makes a decision on how to overcome this obstacle. Readers must accept the decision made by the character, as there is no direct way to influence it. In contrast to this, if players faced a similar obstacle in a game, they could—if the game’s design allows this—choose between multiple options, possibly drawing players into the world because they feel a sense of agency. There is, however, a flip‐side to this: if players came up with a—in their eyes—valid solution, but the game does not acknowledge this (e.g. because the game designers did not anticipate and implement the particular solution, or because the game only erroneously conveys the impression that this solution would work), players might feel betrayed and disillusioned by the games’ initial promise of interactivity. The game at first offers a sense of agency, but then refuses to acknowledge it.

Perceptual delusion can contribute to increased accessibility in that certain input devices and methods can give players a more authentic (intuitive) means of interacting with a game. For example, the Wiimote, which captures the hand motions of the player in the real world and translates them into the motions of an avatar in the virtual world,

52

provides a more authentic bodily experience of playing tennis than a standard controller with abstract button presses could.

Internal focalization, in the sense of seeing the world from the perspective of a single avatar, can also contribute to a greater sense verisimilitude39. After all, every person is their own ‘internal focalizer’, and mimicking this focal point at the game level serves to increase illusionist tendencies.

It also makes sense that highly illusionist artefacts tend to be consistent. The poles in chapter ‘Highway 17’ of the game Half‐Life 2 (Valve Corp. 2004) shall serve as an example. As can be seen in figure 5, the poles of the dock indicate that they used to be covered in water and that the sea level has retreated by several meters. This environmental clue falls in line with a superordinate plot point that states the alien life forms which invaded the world of Half‐Life 2 are slowly draining Earth’s resources. After discovering these exposed poles, the players will probably assume that the alien life forms are slowly draining the sea. Consistency does not only concern the narrative and descriptive elements of digital games, but also the sensory and ludic level. For instance, in highly illusionist games, one can usually explore worlds with high audio‐visual consistency (even in details such as stepping on snow or pebble produces different sounds). Software bugs (errors, faults, flaws of computer programs that cause incorrect results) can cause inconsistencies at the ludic or sensory level, as does the inconsistent behavior of user interfaces in games. Inconsistent user interface behavior can be irritating and disillusioning as demonstrated, for example, by the user Dslyecxi (2013), who criticizes the inconsistent behavior of the contextual menu in ARMA 3 (Bohemia Interactive 2013a).

But even when no software or hardware bugs are involved, technologies such as the internet connection and input devices (such as motion controllers) must function as intended in order to provide a consistent play experience.

While immersive digital games often aim for audio‐visual realism, they also often deviate from real‐life while not necessarily losing their immersive ‘pull’. Genre

39 This is regardless of whether players experience the world through a first person perspective (i.e. the virtual camera is positioned so as to imitate a situation in which the eyes of the avatar are literally imitated) or third person perspective (i.e. the camera is positioned behind the avatar so that the figure is visible). Both cases, however, are examples of internal focalization as the focalizer is always the avatar. External focalization in games refers to a players being decoupled from controlling a single entity. This is often the case, for instance, in strategy games, in which players often operate as a ‘free‐floating’, invisible entity that manages cities or military bases and commands troops. 53

Figure 5 The player must use a crane in Half-Life 2 (Valve Corp. 2004) to move the transport vehicle to an inaccessible area. The exposed poles of the dock indicate how the sea level used to be several meters higher. The picture was taken by the user Herdkiller (2012). conventions play a big role in this respect. The influence of conventions on a game’s perceived sense of realism can be illustrated by pointing at the single player campaigns in ego shooters such as Call of Duty (Infinity Ward 2003) or Battlefield 3 (EA DICE 2011). The games were praised at the time for their realism. But one aspect of these games that probably would immediately alienate most new players not familiar with the genre conventions is that the games require players to single‐handedly kill hundreds of fictional enemy characters to advance the plot and finish the campaign. This surely is highly unrealistic, but experienced players accept it as a genre convention. Similar affordances are granted games of all genres, including, of course, fantasy and science fiction. Cheng and Cairns note in this context that “the graphical realism of the game should cohere with the behavioural realism” (2005, 1272). But while many digital games certainly strife for a certain degree of (especially audio‐visual) realism, they also allow for a certain ‘wiggle room’ when it comes to deviations from the rules of reality (perhaps even more so than in other media due to their very nature as games).

54

Game developers are more inclined to lay bare certain technicalities of the medium than creators of other media. There may be many reasons for this, but the abstract nature of many input devices surely plays a major role. Today, players still almost ubiquitously use binary button presses (sometimes exclusively, sometimes in addition to other, more gradable and fine‐grained control methods) to interact with a game. This limitation means that complex interactions are often by necessity mapped to arbitrary button presses which, consequently, must be first learned by players because the relationship between input and output is not immediately discernible. Pressing the ‘A’ button on an Xbox controller while playing one game may lead to a significantly different action than in another game40. Teaching players the controls is one aspect of digital games—there are others too—in which technical aspects of the game can easily and quickly surface. I have played countless games which have taught me how to play them through pop‐up messages, telling me to press this button to jump or that button to open a door in the game. Highly illusionist games, however, tend to be more graceful in teaching the player how to control the game and are more successful at concealing technicalities (outside of any genre conventions)—often by employing the well‐known ‘show, don’t tell’ rule. For example, one game which adheres to this rule fervently is Half‐ Life 2 (Valve Corp. 2004), which is often lauded for its superb game design and ‘invisible tutorials’ (cf. Game Maker’s Toolkit 2015) that teach players how to play the game largely without resorting to on any pop‐up windows and other metareferential markers.

Wolf also notes that illusionist artefacts show a tendency towards a certain degree of complexity and lean towards seriousness, and that they are interesting to the contemporary recipient. This observation holds true with regard to digital games as well and need not require further elaboration.

User interfaces such as head‐up displays (HUDs) and action menus41 in digital games must also be mentioned in the context of life‐likeness and metareferentiality. It should

40 Cf. Sweetser and Wyeth: “However, help shouldn’t be given through in‐game dialogue, as real‐ world things attached to game world characters (e.g. “to open the hatch press A on the control pad”) causes immersion to break” (2005, 8). 41 HUDs are often used to display important status information such as the current ‘health’ status of the avatar, available items or spells, remaining time, high score points, remaining ammunition of weapon types in shooters, crosshair cursors that indicate the center of the screen (especially important for shooters), mini‐maps functioning similarly to GPS systems, the current game status (e.g. ‘PAUSED’), and much more. Next to displaying status information, user interfaces are also frequently employed as an action menu, for instance, to manage items inside the backpack in DayZ (Bohemia Interactive 2013b; see also figure 6), to craft new items by combining existing ones in Minecraft (Mojang 2011), or to choose one specific action out of a list of many possible actions in games such as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (Ubisoft Montreal 2005) or The Sims (Maxis 2000). 55

be noted that this topic certainly deserves more scholarly attention than can be provided here at this point and that a thorough investigation into the relationship of the user interface with aesthetic illusion would probably merit its own paper. But this thesis should at least broach this interesting and complex subject.

The overwhelming majority of games employs user interfaces in some form or another. While Wessely notes that “interactive interfaces[…] appear to enhance rather than reduce the immersive effect” (2013, 352), I argue one has to take a more nuanced view on the topic. Some games have attempted to partially or fully incorporate user interfaces into the game world. For instance, in Crysis 3 (Crytek 2013), the status information (such as the health bar) is displayed in a way to make it look as if it were projected onto the helmet visor by the futuristic military uniform of the avatar. But by and large, user interfaces are clearly placed on an extra‐diegetic layer in games and thus exist outside the game world. Iacovides et al found in a recent study that removing HUD elements increases immersion for expert players because of an increased cognitive involvement and sense of control (cf. Iacovides et al. 2015, 19). But they also argue that a more nuanced position must be taken as novice players often benefit from HUDs. It makes sense that players who are already highly familiar with the internal structures of a game may become more immersed if the difficulty of the game is further increased by removing non‐diegetic status bars. Less experienced players, on the other hand, might desperately depend on extra‐diegetic interfaces which provide additional information so as not to become ‘lost’, frustrated, or fully disillusioned. Indeed, the removal of certain crucial interfaces in games can lead to a less immersive experience regardless of the skill level or experience level of the player (which, indirectly, hints towards a certain immersive quality of some user interfaces).

But a perhaps more meaningful way to assess the immersive quality of user interfaces is to turn away from the dichotomy of ‘experienced player’ versus ‘non‐experienced player’ and towards a scale concerning the degree of automatization. Similarly to how readers automatize the turn of the page, players can automatize interaction with user interfaces. The more automatized an action, the more inconspicuous it becomes. Given enough exposure to and familiarity with the user interface of the game, it can ultimately become completely ‘invisible’ to the player (as turning the page becomes an ‘invisible’ action to the immersed reader).

56

While illusionist artefacts certainly show a tendency to reduce metareferential elements in favor of heteroreferentiality, this does not mean that metareferentiality in all cases increases the distance between the recipient and the artefact42. User interfaces in games are a case in point. Technically, of course, all non‐diegetic user interfaces in games are metareferential. But functionally, interfaces act as an important ‘bridge’ between the player and the game in that they are a means to overcome deficiencies and shortcomings which are inherent to the medium (e.g. health bars can compensate for the player’s limited perceptual awareness of the bodily state of the avatar43). Thus, interfaces can be said to function as a necessary conventionalized and automatized medial device with the goal to promote interactivity. The non‐diegetic user interface depicted in figure 6 exemplifies this ‘bridging’ function, while figure 7 presents a non‐ diegetic user interface which clearly distances the player from the game. It should be noted that a state of immersion with regard to interacting with user interfaces such as the one depicted in figure 6 does not come naturally. Depending on players’ previous experiences with similar game systems and other factors, it takes time until they have familiarized themselves with the user interface of the game and feel comfortable using it intuitively. Figure 7 will always distance players independently of their degree of familiarity with the menu.

42 Cf. Wolf (2013, 42): “Yet this does not mean that mimesis alone guarantees the emergence of aesthetic illusion, nor that all illusionist texts must either be realistic (they can also be, e. g., modernist) or mimetic in the sense of imitating (slices of) the world of real‐life (non‐mimetic science fiction, albeit opposed to such ‘imitation’, can be illusionist, too). In any case, illusionist works tend to keep distancing elements, and metareferential distance in particular, to a minimum.” 43 User interfaces are but one possible solution to indicating the current state of the avatar. For example, some games use special animations and sound effects (e.g. gasping, panting) instead of a health bars to indicate the health state of the avatar. Of course, these different approaches can also be combined. 57

Figure 6 In DayZ (Bohemia Interactive 2013b), players can press a button to make the depicted user interface appear. Here, players can manage their items. When they are done, they press the same button again to make the menu disappear and to continue roaming the 3D world. This is an example of a non-diegetic interface which becomes part of the potentially immersive game experience after players familiarize themselves with interacting with the menu. The picture was taken by the user PatheticFallacy (2015).

Figure 7 This option menu appears in the middle of the screen in DayZ (Bohemia Interactive 2013b) when pressing the ‘Escape’ button. This is an example of a non- diegetic user interface which distances the player from the game.

58

4.3 Interactivity, its Facets and Consequences as Potential Intensifiers of Aesthetic Illusion

Interactivity certainly influences illusory responses of players in profound ways. The reciprocal relationship of the user’s input and the computer’s response, or more specifically the player’s input and the game’s response, is at the heart of any digital game and a key reason why digital games can be so enjoyable and immersive (cf. Klimmt 2003). In the following, five concepts made possible in part or fully by the interactive nature of digital games and their ‘immersive quality’ shall be discussed. It should be noted that these concepts cannot fully be separated from one another. For example, analytical complexity (a new type of uncertainty introduced in games) is inextricably connected to agency, randomness (another new type of uncertainty) is an often important component of systems of emergence, and narrative adaptivity (a type of adaptivity) can help create narrative anticipation (a type of uncertainty).

4.3.1 Agency

What is agency? For Murray, agency is “the power to take meaningful action and see the results of decisions and choices” (1997b, 126). Thue et al agree that it is not enough for players to perceive that games allow for agency, “players must additionally desire the outcomes of their actions to occur" (2010, 215, my highlighting). Renowned game designer Sid Meier once famously addressed the importance of agency in games:

Sid Meier said, “A game is a series of interesting choices.” To be worthwhile, gameplay choices must be non‐trivial. Each strategy that the player considers using must have an upside and a downside. If there is only an upside, the AI [artificial intelligence] should take care of it automatically. If there’s only a downside, no one will ever use that strategy so why bother including it in the game? (Rollings and Morris 2003, 61)

Taking these statements into account, agency in this text will be understood as describing the non‐trivial reciprocity between user input and computer output. ‘Non‐ trivial reciprocity’ means that multiple meaningful choices must be available to the player that are each clearly discernible from one another, that result in discernibly different game states, and that there is no obvious ‘ideal’ choice.

A greater sense of agency can positively affect illusory responses in that it contributes to a more life‐like experience. After all, real life is interactive, and interactive games thus appear more realistic and accessible by analogy. Another important aspect to consider is that by forcing players to consciously or subconsciously make decisions, they

59

inevitably become complicit in the action. This complicity can lead to states of fascination, anticipation, or apprehension with regard to witnessing the consequences of past decisions and can create extraordinarily immersive ‘pull’ effects.

When speaking of agency and making choices, the term is applied broadly. Games can explicitly draw players’ attention to the decision‐making process (and, in addition, often to the respective outcomes). For example, at several points in The Walking Dead (Telltale Games 2012), the game indicates that players must choose one of several dialogue options (e.g. in a fight between two fictional characters, players can choose to side with either of the characters or remain neutral). In the fantasy role playing game The Witcher 2 (CD Projekt RED 2012), players must choose at the end of act 1 whether to make an alliance with the bandit Iorveth or the special forces commander Vernon Roche, who have conflicting ideologies and goals. Depending on their decision, players will have access to certain areas in the game and will be locked out from others. Their decision severely impacts which future characters will be available to interact with, how certain characters’ attitude towards the players shift, which parts of the game world will be explored in more detail, and also which parts of the story will be revealed. Another way of drawing explicit attention to player agency is to provide players with a limited set of points which they then have to distribute among various character attributes. In The Sims 2 (Maxis 2004, 2), players must choose how nice, cleanly, outgoing, active, and playful a character is. Different characters can behave differently, which in turn can lead to different narrative situations. This method of characterizing individual avatars was inspired by a role playing game convention in which players distribute a set quantity of attribute points among various ‘stats’ and character traits such as strength, dexterity, intelligence, number of health points, charisma, luck, and so on. Because they can only distribute a limited quantity of points, players must choose which attributes to prioritize. Depending on the type of character created through assigning attribute points, players are usually forced to adapt different play styles which align with the set attributes and character traits. A character with many points in strength and health points tends to be better‐suited to close combat while characters with many points in charisma and luck may be more successful in persuading or bribing their way out of a conflict. In any case, all these choices are clearly highlighted or made explicit in some way. Players may be forced to make a decision under time pressure, which can further add to the perceived pressure of making the ‘best’ choice, and the game state often does not progress without the player making a conscious choice. Explicit meaningful choices thus often increase

60

the cognitive involvement of players. This involvement can be rational, but also emotional (especially when under time pressure).

On the other hand, players make many implicit choices. The game does not specifically draw attention to implicit choices, they are instead inconspicuous in nature and may not even appear to players to be decisions as such. For example, when playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo EAD Tokyo 2010), players have the choice whether to move Mario to the left or right on the screen, to move forward or backward, whether to let him jump now or wait for a better opportunity, whether to explore the area in front or the one on the side. This moment‐to‐moment decision‐making, however, tends to be more relevant to ludic absorption than aesthetic illusion.

Interestingly, games can also explicitly indicate players must make all‐important choices when in actuality the outcomes only deviate marginally. The Walking Dead (Telltale Games 2012) uses this technique to create the illusion (or ‘near‐illusion’) of choice and branching storylines when in actuality the story is relatively linear with only minimal deviation.

“But there’s something odd: Your decisions don’t seem to influence the plot at all. Your actions change some details, but the game is quick to implement them into the planned‐out story. For example: If you choose to rescue Carley, tough journalist and potential love‐ interest, in Episode One, she plays a minor role in Episode Two and then dies in Episode Three, trying to defend Ben from accusations of theft. If you instead choose to rescue Doug, huge nerd and all‐around nice guy, he plays a minor role in Episode Two and then dies in Episode Three, trying to defend Ben. Your power over the plot seems to be really limited.” (Froschauer 2014)

One ‘trick’ the game employs to achieve this (near‐)illusion of agency is that sometimes after players make a choice, it will display in the top left corner of the screen the message “[Character] will remember that”. This implies the choice players just made will have serious repercussions at a later point in time. But this implication is often a mere play of smoke and mirrors. In actuality, it is often the case that the game does not remember the choice and the decision has no repercussions at all. It is easy to imagine that, psychologically, a simple message box stating “[Character] will remember that” popping up on screen after players made a possibly very difficult decision makes them immediately question their choice again and as a result, also become more involved with the narrative consequences on the characters and story. Players may wish certain characters to be or act in a certain way. At one point in my own play‐through of the game—in which one has to survive a zombie apocalypse—the group of survivors I was with was invited to a seemingly secure farm with plenty of food—even meat—and other 61

supplies. It soon turned out that the farmers were cannibals and had secretly slaughtered one of my group members to serve him as meat for everyone during lunch. I had found out this dark secret just in time and sprinted to the dining table to warn everybody in of what it was they were about to eat. Unfortunately, I was too slow and Clementine, a little girl who I was the surrogate for and wanted to protect, took a bite of the meat before I could stop and tell her. Then a box in the top left corner appeared: “Clementine will remember that”. This was a crushing moment for me. I did not want Clementine to have to live with this memory, but this was now a fact of my story I had to live with.

Another example of such a smoke and mirror play can be found in the first mission Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (Ubisoft Montreal 2005) titled “Lighthouse”. In the game, the player takes control of the NSA black ops agent Samuel Fisher. The mission is to identify the body of a person of interest (POI) who was tortured to death. Upon discovery, the player notices that the deceased body is still in the same demeaning position as it was while being subjected to torture—in an erect stance and tied with both hands overhead. The player can leave the body behind as is and move on with the mission. Alternatively, the player can cut the body loose, or even shoot it, to trigger special dialogue with Irving Lambert—chief of the operation and connected to Sam via a headpiece—that otherwise would not have been played back.

Lambert: It doesn't sound too good down there, Fisher. Sam: The sound isn't the problem. You should smell it. Lambert: You sure he's dead? Sam: Deader than Elvis. [If the player cuts the body loose] Lambert: Fisher, I said leave the body! We don't have the means to extract him. Sam: Just because he's dead doesn't mean I have to leave him here hanging like a piece of meat. Lambert: Don't get too connected, Fisher. I need you to stay rational. Sam: You can spare 30 seconds for some simple dignity. [If the player shoots the body] Lambert: Sam, what are you doing? Sam: Making sure he's not suffering. Lambert: Well leaving NATO rounds in his body is not gonna look good. Leave the evidence alone and get moving. Sam: On my way. (Wikiquote 2016, my highlighting) Unlike The Walking Dead, the game does not make it explicit that players have multiple choices available to them. If they move their avatar close enough to the body, an option will appear on the screen which allows them to cut the body loose if they select it. Players can also choose to shoot the body, which is never specifically indicated by the game (but the game rules, implicitly, allow it, of course). Choice here is subtly integrated 62

in the surroundings. The outcome is that different dialogue is triggered and players learn (a little bit) more about the characters of Irving Lambert and Sam Fisher. But the mission continues in the same linearity. In this example, agency is used to further characterize important characters through meaningful interaction with the game environment.

While relatively inconsequential, such ‘mini‐choices’ still have a certain appeal and can certainly immerse players further into the game world. They can be seen as a relatively inexpensive method to make the game world seem more realistic. In my own experience, discovering that the game responds to my interaction with the environment (see the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory example) can affect immersion positively. At the same time, I also know from experience that the opposite can happen, specifically in cases where the game has no appropriate responses where player expects a response. For example, a player might have the impression that a specific game element is connected to a number of choices and decides to interact with it in a way that the developers did not foresee. As a result, the game does not respond to the player input, may be perceived as an ‘irregularity’ in an otherwise convincing illusion and thus potentially increases illusory distance.

In short, games can make themselves appear more interactive on the narrative level than they really are. In the case of The Walking Dead, players clearly do have agency, but not nearly at the grand scale as the game seems to imply. Player decisions have almost no impact on the overall story in this game—they can only influence details of the story. The same applies to agency in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and yet several instances of ‘mini‐choices’ (such as the player interacting with the deceased body of a person of interest) which are scattered and hidden throughout the game can help enrich the illusory experience of the player. After all, agency as defined in this text simply means that players must perceive that there are a number of meaningful choices available to them. Whether there truly is a set of meaningful choices available to them is not necessarily important. And it seems the illusion of choice (or in the case of The Walking Dead, the illusion of plot‐impacting choice) is enough to generate in players a greater sense of agency, which in turn can affect illusory responses.

4.3.2 Uncertainty

Uncertainty is not a concept exclusively linked to interactivity—other mostly non‐ interactive media such as books or films also allow for types of recipient uncertainty (e.g. narrative anticipation). But the interactive nature of games allows for new forms of

63

uncertainty that are impossible in other artefacts or adds new dimensions to forms of uncertainty which are not exclusive to digital games. In the following, the terms of uncertainty suggested by Costikyan (2013) will be used to distinguish between different types of uncertainty and discuss how they can positively affect levels of immersion, namely analytical complexity, narrative anticipation, performative uncertainty, solver’s uncertainty, randomness, and uncertainty of perception.

Analytical complexity is linked to agency. The term describes situations in which players must make a choice with possibly extensive repercussions. Analytical complexity is, for example, “the primary source of uncertainty in the game of Chess” (cf. Costikyan 2013, 39), but it can also positively affect illusory responses in digital games. For instance, The Walking Dead provides players with a small number of (seemingly) high‐stake situations of analytical complexity, namely each time the game forces players to quickly and intuitively choose between one of several dialog options. Other games place an emphasis on more deliberate decision‐making processes. Players may be required to evaluate statistics and make decisions by adjusting numbers and sliders (cf. Wessely 2013) and consequences of made decisions may often be complex in nature (i.e. influence number of different variables in not immediately obvious or visible ways). While such games are sometimes derogatively referred to as ‘animated spreadsheets’, they might be the purest example of digital games which derive much of their immersive power from analytical complexity.

Game Dev Tycoon (Greenheart Games 2012) shall serve as an example. In this game, players start and manage their own game company. At first, players work in the garage of their own house, but if the company is managed correctly and after several hit games, it can eventually grow into a large company that develops and publishes multiple games and even produces its own hardware systems. This is at least the theme and fantasy of the game. Players engage with the game by mostly clicking various buttons and moving sliders to decide what kind of game to develop in which genre and having which features. Yet, from my own experience, this can be a highly absorbing experience. When playing the game, I was not only absorbed in the ludic structure, but the theme or fantasy of being a game developer was critical to my deep obsession with the game. Game Dev Tycoon may be a specially telling example because its ludic structure is rather ‘weak’. By this I mean that, to a large extent, decisions made in the game have no or only little influence on the success of the player because of the peculiarity of how the underlying algorithm works which determines what counts as a successful game release and what

64

does not. Game Dev Tycoon thus creates an illusion of meaningful choice similarly to The Walking Dead. The mere illusion of analytical complexity—especially if its deception remains undetected—often resonates so well with players that it alone can pull them further into the game world. Once I came to understand the functionality of the underlying algorithm in Game Dev Tycoon better, my thematic kind of immersion decreased and distance increased respectively. From that point on, I was mostly absorbed in the ludic elements of the game rather than the overall narrative or theme. I wanted to ‘game the system’ and ‘trick’ the algorithm to serving me completely, which was unrelated to aesthetic illusion.

This example shows how thematic games and player preferences (I am personally very interested in game development) can significantly influence levels of immersion. Analytic complexity in combination with themes and preferences can fuel the player’s imagination. Concerning the macrostructure and contrary to most avatar‐centered games, thematic games primarily operate on the symbolic level rather than iconic one with regard to aesthetic illusion. Individual elements on the microstructure, however, may still often possess an iconic quality (e.g. buttons featuring certain icons rather than text). Thematic management types of games exist in a wide variety, for example, one can manage theme parks in Theme Park World (Bullfrog Productions 1999), build one’s own television empire in TV Manager 2 (Niels Bauer Games 2001), manage one’s favorite football club in Football Manager 2016 (Sports Interactive 2015), manage a zoo in Zoo Tycoon (Blue Fang Games 2001), create efficient transportation networks in Industry Giant II (JoWood Productions 2002), or head a prison in Prison Architect (Introversion Software 2015). The list goes on and on (see, for example, the list of business simulation games on Wikipedia 2016).

Analytical complexity is not exclusive to management types of games. Other games or genres also employ this type of uncertainty to increase aesthetic illusion. One such game is FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games 2012), in which players take control of a starship (in the spirit of the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation) and have to make their way across several dangerous galaxies. While moving through these galaxies, players have to choose between several branching travel paths and estimate the involved risks and rewards. Should they enter a nebula to avoid enemy starship patrols? Should they use available scrap material (the currency in the game) to upgrade the ship’s shields or should they upgrade the weapons instead? While many decisions in The Walking Dead only give the (near‐)illusion of agency, in FTL: Faster Than Light, almost the

65

opposite is true. Objectively, the stakes are much higher in this game as almost all large and small decisions can result in disaster and cause the sudden end of the journey. If wrong decisions lead to the destruction of the starship, players lose all game progress, have to start from the very beginning again, and move through new randomly generated galaxies.

Narrative anticipation is a common type of uncertainty and is inherently connected to aesthetic illusion, but the addition of agency allows for new ways how narrative anticipation is created in digital games. For example, digital games can contain several pre‐scripted narrative outcomes, and depending on the choices the players make, the story changes according to certain variables (see also ‘narrative adaptivity’ in chapter 4.3.3). In The Witcher 2 (CD Projekt RED 2012), several decisions made in the course of the game determine which of the eight pre‐scripted endings will be ‘activated’. In other words, the combination of player agency and analytical complexity leads to a kind of narrative anticipation that would be impossible in non‐interactive art forms. In Dark Souls (FromSoftware 2012), players meet at several occasions in the game the knight Siegmeyer of Catarina, who repeatedly asks them for help. Every time they choose to help him, they can continue his storyline and learn more about him. But players need to be careful to protect Siegmeyer because he can die in a battle with enemy monsters. The Siegmeyer storyline connects narrative anticipation with performative uncertainty in that it is up to the players’ motoric skills to prevent its premature termination. In games with highly event‐dependent, emergent narratives such as The Sims 2 (Maxis 2004) or FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games 2012), randomization plays a big role in creating narrative anticipation. In The Sims 2 pseudo‐random events such as a stove catching fire or a thief robbing the house create a narrative kind of ‘dynamic’ or unpredictability, and randomly generated star systems in FTL: Faster Than Light make dangerous events such as hostile encounters with enemy starships unpredictable in every new play‐through. This heavily event‐dependent type of narrative anticipation can be compared to watching a football game live in that the events unfold on the go rather than in a prescribed fashion.

Occasionally, decisions in games affect not only the narrative of the respective game but also the narrative of sequels. This can be accomplished through importing the save game file of the previous game in the sequel, which gives the sequel access to the decisions players made in the previous game. Two games in which the narratives are connected in this way are The Banner Saga (Stoic 2013) and Mass Effect (BioWare 2007).

66

In these games, the decisions made in the first game will carry over to later games in the series. If, for example, certain characters died in the first game, they will not be available in the respective sequels.

Contrary to analytical complexity and narrative anticipation, other types of uncertainty predominantly influence aesthetic illusion only indirectly. This applies to both performative uncertainty (stressing uncertainty in physical performance) and solver’s uncertainty (stressing mental processing over physical activity). For example, games often offer optional areas which require better performative skills than playing the main path. In Bastion (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment 2011), players can unlock ‘dreams’ in which they fight waves of approaching enemies. For every two waves defeated, the game unveils another piece of information about several characters and the game world. But this is an optional arena with the main goal to test the motoric skills of the players (performative uncertainty) and—if they succeed—rewards them with exposition. Other games require players to solve optional puzzles (solver’s uncertainty) to access optional areas. For example, many of the diaries that are scattered all about in Bioshock (2K Boston 2007) are optional collectibles that further contextualize the dystopian state of unterwater city of Rapture and the downfall of its major characters. Optional areas in games often require players to perform more difficult motoric or mental challenges, which especially appeals to expert players who tend to seek more challenging game play.

Randomness can also—often more subtly than overtly—help increase aesthetic illusion. The (partial) randomization of the game world and its events with each new play‐through in FTL: Faster Than Light, and the rule that when the player‐controlled starship is destroyed, players lose all their progress and are forced to start a new journey with a new starship and crew, ensures that the story of each play‐through is unique and cannot be replayed in the same way again44 (in theory, randomization can create an identical world again, but this is highly unlikely). In SWAT 4 (Irrational Games 2005), in which players lead a five‐man SWAT team in resolving hostage and other delicate situations, enemy placement and behavior is partly randomized to ensure that the situation remains unpredictable to some extent in multiple play‐throughs. In both FTL:

44 Randomization mostly concerns the construction of the galaxies that need to be crossed by the starship and chance encounters and events. The overall goal or framing in FTL: Faster Than Light, that is, the task to deliver data packet intercepted from rebel forces to and reach Federation headquarters, remains the same in each play‐through. 67

Faster Than Light and SWAT 4, randomization contributes not only to ludic absorption. Randomization also exposes players to different events, different enemy placements and behaviors, and other aspects in new play‐throughs of the game. This, in turn, exposes players to mimetic, narrative, or descriptive elements of the game which they may previously have missed. In addition, randomness is an important component of emergence, as is discussed in chapter 4.3.5.

Uncertainty of perception can also increase the degree of immersion. For example, Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games 2012) puts players in the shoes of two protagonists who commit ultra‐violent acts of mass murders against the Russian Mafia. The aesthetic style includes many surrealist elements and is influenced by 1980s culture. The audio‐visual quality of the game—especially its surrealist visual effects such as tilted perspectives and strobe lights as well as a pulsating soundtrack which is heavy on bass—help create a trance‐like game experience. Visual noise and the rough, pixelated art style as well as the sheer quantity of layered visual effects contribute to creating a kind of visual ambiguity in which players need to be fully engaged to make sense of what is happening on the screen. Horror games use such visual filters to great effect to intentionally distort and warp monsters or scary events to create further tension (cf. Amnesia: The Dark Descent by Frictional Games 2010). But visual ambiguity can also be used more subtly as demonstrated by Dear Esther (The Chinese Room 2012). The game takes place on an island. In some places in the game, attentive players might sometimes catch a glimpse of a figure in the far distance. To me, it was unclear whether I had just seen a figure in the distance or if my brain had played a trick on me. Was there another person on this seemingly uninhabited island, or was it perhaps a mysterious apparition of some sort? Visual ambiguity here is pointedly applied to make players become more attentive to the dialogue and the spatial elements of the game, and thus more immersed.

4.3.3 Adaptivity

Interactivity allows games to uniquely adapt the game situation to the state of the player. Adaptive games are to be understood as games which “dynamically chang[e] their design (i.e. adaptive) in light of the player’s ongoing interactions with the videogame” (Gilleade and Dix 2004, 228). Lopes and Bidarra define adaptivity similarly as “[d]ynamically adjusting game elements, according to the individual performance of the player” (2011, 85). Contemporary games already adapt a multitude of elements dynamically such as the 3D environment, the quantity, placement, and behavioral

68

patterns of other characters (especially enemy characters), the narrative, the audio and visuals, and so on.

Music is a powerful tool which helps create or increase aesthetic illusion, for example, in film. Due to digital games’ interactive nature, however, it is more difficult to exploit music as deliberately and in as targeted a manner as in film. But adaptive music, which is becoming more and more common in games, promises to solve this issue. One option is to make music change dynamically when certain spatial triggers are activated. For example, Half‐Life 2 (Valve Corp. 2004) plays back extra‐diegetic music once players reach a certain point in the levels (Wikia (2016) lists the respective locations and songs). Mario Kart 8 (Nintendo EAD Group No. 1 2014) plays back four different musical realizations of the same base track depending on the location of the controlled vehicle on the race track. Similarly, in the market area of Skyward Sword’s (Nintendo EAD 2011) Skyloft location when players visit different stalls, the same song is played, but with different instruments depending on the stall that is visited. Skyward Sword also employs adaptive music “in certain dungeons like Skyview Temple, [where] the music is the same throughout, but different elements are added as you enter different rooms” (Game Maker’s Toolkit 2014). Music cannot only adapt according to spatial triggers, but it can also change dynamically according to the current game state. In the multiplayer online battle arena DOTA 2 (Valve Corp. 2013), for example, extra‐diegetic music usually remains relatively inconspicuous unless the game registers that multiple players are engaging in a fight, in which case the game switches to faster‐paced and action‐packed music. The games of the Left 4 Dead series play back no extra‐diegetic music by default, but depending on the level of tension as determined by an algorithm, the game layers the more music samples over one another the tenser the respective play situation becomes.

Less frequently, games also dynamically adjust some of their visual and spatial elements. The stealth action game Dishonored (Arkane Studios 2012) introduces a play variable ‘chaos’ which is primarily determined by the number of people killed. ‘Chaos’ influences how many guards are posted in subsequent levels and the quantity of dangerous plague‐carrying rats and humans, and even the aesthetics of some levels. For example, in the last mission, ‘The Light at the End’, players with a ‘low chaos’ see a clear, white sky while for players with a ‘high chaos’ status, the mission takes place during the night. Arma II: DayZ Mod (Bohemia Interactive 2013b) assigns players specific ‘skins’

69

(‘bandit’ clothes or ‘hero’ clothes) depending on their play style45. Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve Corp. 2009) dynamically adjusts the game world itself. For example, it can alter the paths players can take to reach the exit or change the amount of precipitation (ranging from drizzle to downpour), depending on an algorithm (aptly named ‘The Director’) which aims to provide the ‘right’ amount of challenge for players. But this type of game world adaptivity is still rare in commercial digital games today46. (Lopes and Bidarra 2011)

Adaptive narratives and interactive storytelling. In spirit, what I call narrative adaptivity is similar to the choose‐your‐own‐adventure book genre, but in execution the two types differ significantly. Digital games allow for a more seamless implementation of narrative adaptivity. Readers of choose‐your‐own‐adventure types of books have to manually flip through book pages to find the correct page to continue reading while due to the nature of digital games the level of transmission can remain inconspicuous. Interactive storytelling (IS)

is commonly used to describe the vision for future computer‐based entertainment systems […] In brief, IS technology is envisioned to offer unique entertainment experiences to users by enabling them to actively engage in a meaningful storyline, to shape it according to individual decisions and preferences, and to interact with computer‐controlled characters in a human‐like, authentic way […]. (Klimmt et al. 2012, 188)

Next to the examples of narrative anticipation discussed in the previous chapter, aspects of a game’s narrative can also be adapted more subtly. Left 4 Dead demonstrates this through its dialog system. Depending on the friendly and enemy character constellations, or on a specific character first entering a specific area in the game world, a specific character may utter various responses or even enter a brief conversation. At the beginning of the mission ‘The Light at the End’ in Dishonored (Arkane Studios 2012), the boatman who transports the player to the location will either wish them good luck and pay his respects if they have a ‘low chaos’ status or, in the case of a ‘high chaos’ status, he shows disrespect towards them and their violent and lethal play style and fires a gun before leaving to alarm the guards to put the player at a disadvantage. In Bastion (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment 2011), a narrator sometimes ‘narrates’ or reacts

45 In the standalone version of DayZ (Bohemia Interactive 2013b), the bandit and hero clothes are no longer assigned to players because the feature was implemented that avatars could now be dressed by players. A side effect of this is that other players cannot as easily be identified as bandits or heroes. This increase in behavioral uncertainty of other players can increase mistrust between them and affect social absorption. 46 See Lopes and Bidarra (2011, 90): “As for results on adaptive game worlds, they are very scarce. The only example we found of game world adaptivity is in the commercial game Left 4 Dead 2 […]. According to the developers, the layout of certain sections of levels is dependent on the player’s performance […] (a graveyard with a simpler layout for underachieving players is presented as an example).” 70

to actions of the player (after the fact, of course)47. But unlike The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe 2013), which makes the player actively contradict the instructions of the narrator and deconstructs the illusion of agency in digital games, narrative adaptivity in Bastion is meant to commentate player actions and places the player visits, and narration is applied in such a manner as to remain within the frame of the game world.

Adaptivity in games can also take on many other forms, such as adaptive difficulty as employed in games such as Left 4 Dead (Valve Corp. 2008) and Resident Evil 4 (Capcom Production 2007), and adaptive mechanics as implemented in games such as Max Payne (Remedy Entertainment 2001)48. These types of adaptivity are less relevant to aesthetic illusion and will thus be not discussed in more detail. It would certainly be worthwhile, however, to dedicate more scholarly resources to investigating the relationship between aesthetic illusion and adaptivity in more detail.

4.3.4 Interruptions

Another interesting aspect to consider is the degree to which visible or noticeable interruptions of the gameplay experience and interactive elements affect aesthetic illusion. Interruptions can appear in many different forms.

Technology‐related interruptions tend to affect illusory experiences negatively. They can occur, for example, because of hardware limitations. Such limitations can relate to the time it takes to load a new level into the computer memory, (micro) stutters caused by the computational complexity of a game scene or underperforming hardware respectively, waiting times related to connecting to online game servers, and other technology‐related aspects. According to Nielsen,

0.1 second is about the limit for having the user feel that the system is reacting instantaneously, meaning that no special feedback is necessary except to display the result. […]

1.0 second is about the limit for the user's flow of thought to stay uninterrupted, even though the user will notice the delay. Normally, no special feedback is necessary during delays of more than 0.1 but less than 1.0 second, but the user does lose the feeling of operating directly on the data. (Nielsen 1993, chap. 5)

47 For example, when falling off the eponymous floating construction Bastion, the narrator might say: “"I've been meaning to put some guard rails there.” 48 See Lopes and Bidarra (2011, 89): “In Max Payne [...], a mechanism unknown to players altered the level of mechanics like player aim assistance, according to individual skills (thus adjusting shooting difficulty).” 71

Players who are used to fast‐paced game play and who have quick reaction times often respond particularly sensitively to (micro) stutters. Next to hardware issues, software issues or deliberate design decisions (e.g. software bugs (errors), or how the game is segmented into levels or missions) can also affect aesthetic illusion or any other type of absorption. Interruptions on the software level are, for example, loading screens and cut scenes.

In order to minimize instances of technology‐related interruptions in form of loading screens in Half‐Life 2 (Valve Corp. 2004), the game creates the illusion of a coherent play experience in which the end of one level is identical to the beginning of the next level. When players reach the end of a level, the screen will freeze for a moment and display the message ‘Loading’, and once the new level is loaded, players can continue onwards. At no point are players seemingly removed from the game world, which arguably helps maintain the aesthetic illusion. Nintendo’s approach is slightly different in many of their games. Like the game world of Half‐Life 2, the world of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword’s (Nintendo EAD 2011) also appears to be coherent but is in actuality segmented into different levels. But whenever players enter a new level, the game takes away control from them for several seconds, plays back an avatar animation (e.g. opening and closing doors), and often uses a screen fade animation to signify the transition from the old level to the new one. The game exploits the fact that it is in control of the avatar, camera, and all other elements for several seconds to load the new level in the background within seconds. To the player, however, this seemingly smooth transition happened inside the game world and during a short cut scene, and thus the illusion is maintained. In any case, fast loading times are crucial for the illusion not to break.

Interruptions are not necessarily related to technological factors, but can be part of the overall game design or the game mechanics. Imitating traditional turn‐based table‐ top games, turn‐based digital games such Civilization V (Firaxis Games 2010) only have one (human or artificial) player move at a time while the action potential of the other players is suspended for the moment. Interruption by design can also occur whenever the current game state is reset. In fast‐paced games such as the jump and run game Super Meat Boy (Team Meat 2010), the levels are designed to be completed only after tens or hundreds of failed attempts. For this reason, the levels are relatively short and players respawn instantaneously at the beginning of the level after each failure. While the ‘price’ of failure in Super Meat Boy is reduced to an absolute minimum, other games such as

72

FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games 2012) center their design around the game mechanic of permanent death, which, in case of failure, potentially resets hours of play progress, and thus raises the stakes exponentially the closer players move towards the ending. Interruptions by design (or alternatively by mechanics) do not decrease aesthetic illusion, but merely provide a different kind of play experience.

However, faulty or inconsistent implementations of design‐related or mechanics‐ related interruptions can lead to a decrease of aesthetic illusion. For example, if games fail to instantaneously reset the game state in fast‐paced games such as Super Meat Boy (Team Meat 2010), but instead take seconds or even minutes to do so, they run the risk that they drain levels of immersion among players. Sometimes specific design‐related interruptions go against the overall game design. For example, Half‐Life 2 (Valve Corp. 2004) requires players to stay alive to progress through the linear story. Players who are shot in the game and die have reached a failure state and the game resets to a previous state (the last checkpoint). But at one specific point in the chapter ‘Point Insertion’ the narrative requires players to be overwhelmed by enemy forces—i.e. seemingly reach a fail state—so that the fictional character Alyx can come to their rescue. The fail state mechanic that is valid throughout the whole game is temporarily suspended (i.e. interrupted) for a story purpose. When I played this section for the first time, this temporary dissonance in the game’s rules resulted in a frustrating play experience. I had been trying not to get caught by the enemy and had been failing and reloading a previous save game for what felt an hour before I realized that I was supposed to get caught to progress the story. This realization was alleviating, disorientating, and frustrating at the same time. A similar incident occurred in the horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games 2010), in which players must hide and run away from several monsters. After hours of play time, this behavior of running away from monsters was ingrained in me, but at one point late into the game—again for story purposes—requires that the players are caught. In every other case and at every other place and time, when I was caught, I was killed by the monster and reached a fail state. But in this specific instance, the player is not killed after getting caught but only incarcerated. Because such interruptions go against established rules and patterns which are assumed to valid throughout the game without exception by players, interruptions which invalidate such assumed ‘game play truths’ run the risk of causing confusion and frustration and thus of increasing the distance between the player and the game.

73

Audio‐visual interruptions also strongly influence aesthetic illusion. I can vividly remember a moment in the last mission of the hacking game Hacknet (Team Fractal Alligator 2015) called ‘Bit ‐‐ Termination’. After I had finally found the mainframe server containing the backup files of a dangerous virus I needed to delete and started hacking this server to gain administrator access to the system, the screen started to flash and change its color scheme from calm azure to threatening red, and a bombastic soundtrack replaced the presently calm background music (see the video of this mission uploaded by YouTube user aRkker 2015). The audio‐visual changes signified that my intrusion into the computer system did not go unnoticed and a counter‐attack was started to shut down my PC. This ‘explosive’ and sudden turn of events, the time limit, tense music, and flashing screen, instantly caught my full attention. With a racing pulse and shaking hands, in this brief time frame, I was utterly absorbed in the game world and occupied with achieving the narrative goal: delete the virus at all costs. The genre of horror games also uses audio‐visual interruptions to great effect. This includes, for example, long silences interrupted by a sudden loud noise, and visual filters to distort players’ vision and to create visual ambiguity and uncertainty in general (see also uncertainty of perception in chapter 4.3.2). When players look directly at the monster that chases them or when players witness disturbing events in the horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games 2010), the game usually applies visual filters which heavily distort the screen, possibly to represent the horror being felt by the avatar at that moment. Similarly, players can hear the heartbeat of the character, remote noises such as grinding rocks or teeth, and eerie whispers when the ‘sanity level’ of the player falls below a certain threshold. In a sense, these audio‐visual interruptions described above represent a kind of stream of consciousness which projects the emotional and psychological state of the avatar onto an audio‐visual level. This, in turn, helps decrease the distance between the player and the avatar.

New and interesting play experiences can emerge from applying and mixing design‐ related and audio‐visual interruptions in innovative ways. One game that uses interruptions in an interesting new way is Crypt of the NecroDancer (Brace Yourself Games 2015), which mixes real‐time elements with turn‐based ones. In the game, players must move through various dungeons and fight monsters all while staying within the beat of the extra‐diegetic music. If they miss a beat, the action they want to perform will not complete, which potentially puts players at a disadvantage if they want to escape or engage in a fight. The steady rhythm and pulsating music in coordination with the game

74

mechanics certainly creates a more focused and absorbing play experience. However, whether and how this game and other games which use interruptions in innovative ways help elicit aesthetic illusion requires further investigation.

Interactivity is also frequently the cause of narrative interruption in digital games, which usually affects aesthetic illusion negatively. For instance, agency increases the complexity of aspects concerning narrative delivery (e.g. the ‘pacing’ of the story, see also how ‘adaptivity’ is used to mitigate this problem). Other art forms give authors almost complete control over what is revealed when, where, how, and so on. In digital games, however, these aspects are now in part determined by the player, which severely complicates the process of delivering a coherent, consistent, and uninterrupted narrative. A detailed discussion on the reciprocal influence of interactivity and narrativity, and the subsequent impact on aesthetic illusion, could be the topic of its own paper. At this point, I will limit myself to briefly discussing one frequently employed practice which tends to disrupt a ‘smooth’ narrative delivery. The practice in question is called ‘grinding’ (i.e. repetitive, cyclical behavior). In many games, players can ‘grind’ for experience to level up, to become more powerful, or for a variety of other reasons. ‘Grinding’ often serves the function of delaying (interrupting) players’ progression in the story line. Some games expect players to ‘grind’ at certain points in the game before they are powerful enough to progress the story. Another way games interrupt narratives is by overtly ignoring past play outcomes. For example, in the real‐time strategy game Command & Conquer: Red Alert (Westwood 1996), players can either take command over the military forces of the Allies or of the USSR, who engage in a fictional third world war. Players can win the war fighting for either side. Thus, if players side with the USSR, they can win the war and make the USSR become the new leader of the world. However, in the sequel, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (Westwood Pacific 2000), which takes place years after the events of Red Alert, the Allies have won the war. The ending of the Allies campaign of the prequel thus retroactively becomes the only ‘true’ ending. Narrative interruption here occurs in the sense that one narrative path is ignored in favor of the other. But it should be noted that narrative interruptions do not necessarily affect immersion negatively. For example, many games feature optional quests or missions which in no way are connected to the main story, but still help embellish the fictional universe through side stories and providing additional information and contextualization.

75

The last type of interruption to be addressed is interruption by the presence of others. Without going into a detailed discussion on this phenomenon, the practice of ‘griefing’ (i.e. destructive player behavior) can severely affect levels of enjoyment and immersion and often leads to highly emotional responses by the victims. Similarly, cheating practices, expert knowledge, and even simply play experience can negatively affect levels of immersion. For instance, players may be proud of building—over the course of hours or days—a large structure in the Lego‐like sandbox game Minecraft (Mojang 2011), only to then have it destroyed by TNT explosions set up by another online player. Especially in cooperative games, new players may wish to go into a game’s narrative ‘blind’, but this endeavor may be thwarted by experienced or expert players who already know the ins and outs of the game and prevent new players from enjoying the narrative delivery and illusory effects as ‘purely’ as with another new player. Of course, this is not to say the presence of others inevitably leads to interruptions. I argue that in the majority of cases, the presence of other players in games leads to more enjoyment, more social absorption (see chapter 3.3), and does not necessarily interfere negatively with other types of absorption (such as aesthetic illusion). I further argue that even interruptions by the presence of other players can, in a sense, contribute to aesthetic illusion. In DayZ (Bohemia Interactive 2013b), the expectation of falling victim to ‘griefing’ practices is at the core of the game’s design. The play experience of the game is de facto structured in large parts around notions such as mistrust and betrayal. The game teaches players to expect that strangers will stab them in the back, shoot them from afar, and rob them if they have the opportunity to do so. As a result, new players soon begin to mistrust strangers they meet, and possibly react in the same hostile way they have been subjected to. This inherent mistrust among players leads to more intense event‐driven encounters and creates a ‘raw’ and hostile atmosphere that feels like a realistic depiction of being a survivor in a truly post‐apocalyptic wasteland.

4.3.5 Emergence

According to Juul, narrative emergence in digital games is often described loosely and broadly “as the player’s experience of the game […], or the stories that the players can tell about the game, or, perhaps, the stories that players can create using the game” (2005, 157ff.). Indeed, the narratives in some games contain more ‘traditional’ pre‐ scripted events while narratives in other games emerge more ‘freely’ within a defined frame from the interplay of several variables.

76

In games such as Half‐Life 2 (Valve Corp. 2004), Bioshock (2K Boston 2007), or even The Walking Dead (Telltale Games 2012), which allows players some degree of narrative agency, players still mostly experience pre‐scripted elements. This means that the game’s events and outcomes, happenings, characters, and other elements are mostly fixed to a large degree, that is, determined beforehand by the game developers. Game designers hold much control over how the play experience unfolds. This mode is similar to the one found in books and movies, and probably allows for the ‘purest’ type of aesthetic illusion. Other games such as Minecraft (Mojang 2011) or DayZ (Bohemia Interactive 2013b) include few or no elements of pre‐scripted elements, but they instead consist of a relatively small set of rules that yields a large number of possible outcomes. Because in these types of games players only operate within a more or less loose frame set by the game, they can in a sense ‘create’ their own stories (but which are still ‘authored’ or framed by the game to a degree). This is what Juul calls “emergent narrative or player story” (2005, 157). Juul distinguishes in this context games of progression and games of emergence, the latter of which he views as “the primordial game structure” (2005, 5). In a sense, games of progression are about ‘storytelling’ (by the game, but with ‘help’ of the player who obviously must play the game) while games of emergence are about ‘storymaking’ (by the player, but with help of the game which provides rules and frames). This does not mean aesthetic illusion is only suited to games of progression. Games of emergence still include elements and structures which allow for immersion, albeit to an arguably lesser degree as games of progression.

The binary distinction between the types ‘progression’ and ‘emergence’ is misleading. The two terms should be considered as poles on a continuous scale. Most games contain a mix of elements of progression and emergence and usually are closer in spirit to one or the other pole. The Sims series is an example of one of many game series who falls between the two poles. It neither contains linear narratives that play out the same every time nor is the series as open‐ended as other games such as Minecraft (Mojang 2011)— see figure 8 for a graphical interpretation. Jenkins notes that

[m]ost players come away from spending time with The Sims with some degree of narrative satisfaction. [Will] Wright [original designer of The Sims] has created a world ripe with narrative possibilities, where each design decision has been made with an eye towards increasing the prospects of interpersonal romance or conflict (Jenkins 2004, 128).

The Sims series tells no pre‐scripted stories, but due to the event‐driven nature of the game, the game (with or without the interference of the player) will still create stories that emerge from contextual factors. Similarly, in FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset 77

Games 2012), the overall story frame is pre‐scribed (i.e. escape the starships of the rebel forces and successfully deliver a data packet to the Federation headquarters that could turn the war), but events that take place within this broad frame are ‘created’ in a cooperative effort of the game and the player in that any possible event in the game is pre‐generated by the game algorithm and is activated by the player by moving the starship to the location of the event or to a different one.

Half‐Life 2 Player’s share The Sims 2 Minecraft

Game’s share

Aesthetic Illusion: Other imaginative experiences: predominantly game‐induced, predominantly player‐induced, similarity of imaginative responses dissimilarity of imaginative across players, responses across players, emphasis on storytelling (more emphasis on ‘storymaking’ (less progression, less emergence) progression, more emergence) Figure 8 This is an adaptation of the graphic in Wolf (2013, 9). It places the games Half-Life 2, The Sims 2, and Minecraft at different points on the scale according to the emphasis they place on aesthetic illusion compared to other imaginative experiences.

5 Conclusion and Further Research Perspectives

This thesis set out to examine to what extent Wolf’s (2013) transmedial theory of aesthetic illusion applies to digital games. Several elements of his theory were examined in detail, including prerequisites, general characteristics, and factors of aesthetic illusion in digital games. It was found that his proposed general characteristics of highly illusionist artefacts also apply to digital games. His theory was amended with a discussion on how interactivity as an additional general characteristic in games further affects the facilitation of illusory responses. Next to discussing aesthetic illusion in digital games, the thesis also proposes a model which distinguishes between four types of absorption in games, one of which is aesthetic illusion. The goal was to clearly define and demarcate aesthetic illusion and other types of absorption to do away with the

78

existing terminological huddles, ambiguities, and overlaps in the meaning of different terms such as ‘immersion’, ‘absorption’, and ‘presence’.

However, the discussion on aesthetic illusion in digital games is by no means exhausted. As a next step, one could investigate in more detail non‐general (e.g. factor‐ specific, genre‐specific) characteristics of games which affect aesthetic illusion. For example, how does the audio‐visual quality of the game impact immersion (I only briefly addressed this)? How do simulation games differ from other types of games in eliciting aesthetic illusion? The influence of contextual factors on aesthetic illusion and other types of absorption is also under‐researched. Furthermore, this thesis did not look into the functions and examine five out of six principles of aesthetic illusion in digital games. The one exception was the discussion on Wolf’s (2013) ‘celare artem’ principle, which could still also be explored in more detail. Indeed, considering the metareferential quality of user interfaces, the convergence of technical and mental concepts, and other relevant aspects, a profound discussion on the ‘celare artem’ principle is perhaps particularly important and appropriate in the context of aesthetic illusion in digital games (cf. also Wessely 2013, 355f.). Another important aspect to consider for future studies is the question of how aesthetic illusion relates to other types of absorption. Perceptual delusion seems to be perhaps the most privileged in its capacity to promote illusory responses, but this relationship would require further investigation. The now recurring interest in head‐mounted display technology and virtual reality may prove an appropriate starting point in this regard. The field of game studies would also benefit from meta‐analyses which could help build a robust and detailed taxonomy of all terms and definitions on absorption in the field of game studies. Historical inquiries may also bring more insight into how illusory responses to games have changed and continue to change over the years, e.g. with regard to ‘state of the art’ technology and the recent ‘retro’ trend concerning remasters, remakes, and demakes.

It would certainly be worthwhile to dedicate more scholarly resources to investigating the impact of interactivity on aesthetic illusion in digital games. New illusory effects made possible by experimenting with interactivity and music seem to me particularly interesting and promising (see, for example, the discussion on Crypt of the NecroDancer (Brace Yourself Games 2015) in chapter 4.3.4). But that is not to play down the ‘immersive quality’ of other concepts made possible by interactivity, such as agency, uncertainty, adaptivity, which all deserve more scholarly attention. For instance, investigating the impact of the (often) disruptive dynamics of interactivity on narrative

79

delivery in games and illusory player responses would certainly be a worthwhile endeavor. In this thesis, I have but scratched the surface of how interactivity affects immersion—it is up to future academic inquiry to ‘dig deeper’.

I further acknowledge that this thesis is primarily centered around the question of immersion. Indeed, it seems to be a common practice in the field of game studies to place most attention on the positive effects of absorption. As Wolf notes, aesthetic illusion “proves to be a complex phenomenon characterized by an asymmetrical ambivalence” (2013, 16) between immersion and distance. It is this aspect of aesthetic illusion and other absorption experiences that is perhaps the most neglected from a research perspective and certainly deserves more attention.

6 Ludography

2K Boston. 2007. Bioshock. Microsoft Windows. http://www.bioshockgame.com/. Arkane Studios. 2012. Dishonored. Microsoft Windows. https://www.dishonored.com/. Barlow, Sam. 2015. Her Story. Microsoft Windows. http://www.herstorygame.com/. BioWare. 2007. Mass Effect. Microsoft Windows. http://www.masseffect.com/. ———. 2012. Mass Effect 3. Microsoft Windows. http://masseffect.bioware.com/. Bithell, Mike. 2012. Thomas Was Alone. Microsoft Windows. http://www.mikebithellgames.com/thomaswasalone/. Blizzard Entertainment. 2002. Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos. Microsoft Windows. http://us.blizzard.com/en‐us/games/war3/. ———. 2005. World of Warcraft. Microsoft Windows. http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/. Blizzard North. 2000. Diablo II. Microsoft Windows. https://eu.battle.net/shop/en‐ us/product/diablo‐ii. Blue Fang Games. 2001. Zoo Tycoon. Microsoft Windows. http://zootycoon.wikia.com/wiki/Zoo_Tycoon. Bohemia Interactive. 2013a. Arma II: DayZ Mod. Microsoft Windows. http://store.steampowered.com/app/224580/. ———. 2013b. DayZ. Microsoft Windows. http://dayzdev.tumblr.com/. Brace Yourself Games. 2015. Crypt of the NecroDancer. Microsoft Windows. http://necrodancer.com/. Bullfrog Productions. 1999. Theme Park World. Microsoft Windows. Capcom Production. 2007. Resident Evil 4. Nintendo Wii. https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Wii/Resident‐Evil‐4‐Wii‐edition‐282849.html. CD Projekt RED. 2012. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Microsoft Windows. http://thewitcher.com/en/witcher2. Crytek. 2013. Crysis 3. http://www.crysis.com/. Dennaton Games. 2012. Hotline Miami. Microsoft Windows. http://www.hotlinemiami.com/. Double Fine Productions. 2014. Hack “N” Slash. Microsoft Windows. EA Canada. 2015. FIFA 16. https://www.easports.com/fifa. EA DICE. 2011. Battlefield 3. Microsoft Windows. https://www.battlefield.com/. Everything Unlimited Ltd. 2015. The Beginner’s Guide. http://thebeginnersgui.de/.

80

Firaxis Games. 2010. Civilization V. Microsoft Windows. http://www.civilization.com/. Frictional Games. 2010. Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Microsoft Windows. https://www.amnesiagame.com/. FromSoftware. 2012. Dark Souls. Microsoft Windows. https://www.bandainamcoent.eu/product/dark‐souls‐prepare‐to‐die‐edition/pc. Galactic Cafe. 2013. The Stanley Parable. Microsoft Windows. http://www.stanleyparable.com/. Game Freak. 1999. Pokémon Red. Nintendo Game Boy. Greenheart Games. 2012. Game Dev Tycoon. Microsoft Windows. http://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game‐dev‐tycoon/. id Software. 1996. Quake. Microsoft DOS. store.steampowered.com/app/2310/. Infinity Ward. 2003. Call of Duty. Microsoft Windows. https://www.callofduty.com/. InnoGames. 2003. Die Stämme. Webbrowser. https://www.die‐staemme.de/. Introversion Software. 2001. Uplink: Trust Is a Weakness. Microsoft Windows. https://www.introversion.co.uk/uplink/. ———. 2015. Prison Architect. Microsoft Windows. https://www.introversion.co.uk/prisonarchitect/pc.html. Irrational Games. 2005. SWAT 4. Microsoft Windows. http://irrationalgames.com/studio/projects/swat‐4/. JoWood Productions. 2002. Industry Giant II. Microsoft Windows. store.steampowered.com/app/271360/. Key, Ed, and David Kanaga. 2013. Proteus. Microsoft Windows. http://twistedtreegames.com/proteus/. London Studio. 2004. SingStar. Sony PlayStation 2. https://www.singstar.com/home.html. Maxis. 2004. The Sims 2. Microsoft Windows. http://www.ea.com/the‐sims‐2. Mojang. 2011. Minecraft. Microsoft Windows. https://minecraft.net/en/. Niels Bauer Games. 2001. TV Manager 2. Microsoft Windows. http://www.nielsbauergames.com/TVManager.html. Nintendo EAD. 1997. Super Mario 64. Nintendo 64. ———. 2008. Mario Kart Wii. Nintendo Wii. ———. 2011. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Nintendo Wii. http://www.zelda.com/skywardsword/. Nintendo EAD Group No. 1. 2014. Mario Kart 8. Nintendo Wii U. http://mariokart8.nintendo.com/. Nintendo EAD Tokyo. 2010. Super Mario Galaxy 2. Nintendo Wii. http://supermariogalaxy.com/. ———. 2011. Super Mario 3D Land. Nintendo 3DS. http://supermario3dland.nintendo.com/. Oovee Game Studios. 2014. Spintires. Microsoft Windows. http://spintires.com/. Pajitnov, Alexey, and Vladimir Pokhilko. 1984. Tetris. Electronika 60. Positech Games. 2013. Democracy 3. http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy3/. Remedy Entertainment. 2001. Max Payne. Microsoft Windows. http://www.rockstargames.com/maxpayne/. Rockstar North. 2015. Grand Theft Auto V. Microsoft Windows. http://www.rockstargames.com/grandtheftauto/. SCS Software. 2012. Euro Truck Simulator 2. Microsoft Windows. http://www.eurotrucksimulator2.com/. Sony Online Entertainment. 1999. EverQuest. Microsoft Windows. https://www.everquest.com/. Sports Interactive. 2015. Football Manager 2016. Microsoft Windows. http://www.footballmanager.com/games/football‐manager‐2016. Starbreeze Studios. 2013. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Microsoft Windows. Steel Crate Games. 2015. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. Microsoft Windows. http://www.keeptalkinggame.com/. Stoic. 2013. The Banner Saga. Microsoft Windows. http://stoicstudio.com/.

81

Subset Games. 2012. FTL: Faster Than Light. Microsoft Windows. http://www.ftlgame.com/. Supercell. 2013. Clash of Clans. Google Android. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.supercell.clashofclans&hl=en. Taylor, Ty, and Mario Castañeda. 2013. The Bridge. Microsoft Windows. http://thebridgeisblackandwhite.com/. Team Fractal Alligator. 2015. Hacknet. Microsoft Windows. http://www.hacknet‐os.com/. Team Meat. 2010. Super Meat Boy. Microsoft Windows. http://supermeatboy.com/. Telltale Games. 2012. The Walking Dead. Microsoft Windows. https://www.telltalegames.com/walkingdead/. The Chinese Room. 2012. Dear Esther. Microsoft Windows. http://dear‐esther.com/. Thekla, Inc. 2016. The Witness. Microsoft Windows. http://the‐witness.net/news/. Tomorrow Corporation. 2015. Human Resource Machine. Microsoft Windows. https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine. Ubisoft Montreal. 2005. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Microsoft Windows. http://store.steampowered.com/app/13570/. Valve Corp. 2008. Left 4 Dead. http://store.steampowered.com/app/500/. ———. 2009. Left 4 Dead 2. Microsoft Windows. http://store.steampowered.com/app/550/. ———. 2012. Counter‐Strike: Global Offensive. Microsoft Windows. http://store.steampowered.com/app/730/. ———. 2013. DOTA 2. Microsoft Windows. http://store.steampowered.com/app/570/. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. 2011. Bastion. Microsoft Windows. Westwood. 1996. Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Microsoft Windows. http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Red_Alert. Westwood Pacific. 2000. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. Microsoft Windows. http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Red_Alert_2. Yager Development. 2012. Spec Ops: The Line. http://www.specopstheline.com/. Zachtronics Industries. 2011. SpaceChem. Microsoft Windows. http://www.zachtronics.com/spacechem/.

7 Bibliography

Adams, Ernest. 2010. Fundamentals of Game Design. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: New Riders. Argawal, Ritu, and Elena Karahanna. 2000. “Time Flies When You’re Having Fun: Cognitive Absorption and Beliefs about Information Technology Usage.” MIS Quarterly 24 (4): 665– 94. aRkker. 2015. “Hacknet Final Mission.” Video‐Sharing Website. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBPhtgVfmII. Arsenault, Dominic, and Bernard Perron. 2009. “In the Frame of the Magic Cycle: The Circle(s) of Gameplay.” The Video Game Theory Reader 2: 109–131. doi:10.1080/01972240903423444. Baiter, Leon. 1999. “On The Aesthetic Illusion.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 47 (4): 1293–1333. doi:10.1177/000306519904700417. Bartle, Richard. 1996. “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs.” Journal of MUD Research. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard_Bartle/publication/247190693_Hearts_Clubs _Diamonds_and_Spades_Players_who_suit_MUDs/links/540058700cf2194bc29ac4f2.pdf. Biocca, Frank, and Ben Delaney. 1995. “Immersive Virtual Reality Technology.” In Communication in the Age of Virtual Reality, edited by Frank Biocca and Mark R. Levy, 57–124. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

82

Biocca, Frank, and Chad Harms. 2002. “Defining and Measuring Social Presence: Contribution to the Networked Minds Theory and Measure.” http://astro.temple.edu/~lombard/ISPR/Proceedings/2002/Biocca%20and%20Harms.pdf. Brown, Emily, and Paul Cairns. 2004. “A Grounded Investigation of Game Immersion.” In CHI ’04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1297–1300. CHI EA ’04. New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/985921.986048. Cairns, Paul, Anna Cox, and A. Imran Nordin. 2014a. “Immersion in Digital Games: Review of Gaming Experience Research.” In Handbook of Digital Games, edited by Marios C. Angelides and Harry Agius, 337–361. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118796443.ch12. Calleja, Gordon. 2011. In‐Game: From Immersion to Incorporation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cheng, Kevin, and Paul A. Cairns. 2005. “Behaviour, Realism and Immersion in Games.” In CHI ’05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1272–1275. CHI EA ’05. New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/1056808.1056894. Cobbett, Richard. 2012. “Mass Effect 3: The Extended Cut: A Happy Ending?” Video game journalism. Eurogamer. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012‐06‐27‐mass‐effect‐3‐the‐ extended‐cut‐a‐happy‐ending. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. 1817. Biographia Literaria, edited by George Watson. London: Dent. Costikyan, Greg. 2013. Uncertainty in Games. Playful Thinking. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Cox, Anna, Paul Cairns, Pari Shah, and Michael Carroll. 2012. “Not Doing but Thinking: The Role of Challenge in the Gaming Experience.” In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 79–88. CHI ’12. New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/2207676.2207689. De Grove, Frederik, Cédric Courtois, and Jan Van Looy. 2015. “How to Be a Gamer! Exploring Personal and Social Indicators of Gamer Identity.” Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication 20 (3): 346–361. doi:10.1111/jcc4.12114. De Kort, Yvonne A. W., and Wijnand A. Ijsselsteijn. 2008. “People, Places, and Play: Player Experience in a Socio‐Spatial Context.” Computers in Entertainment 6 (2): 18:1–18:11. doi:10.1145/1371216.1371221. “Demand a Better Ending to Mass Effect 3.” 2012. https://www.facebook.com/DemandABetterEndingToMassEffect3. Denisova, Alena, and Paul Cairns. 2015. “The Placebo Effect in Digital Games: Phantom Perception of Adaptive Artificial Intelligence.” In Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer‐Human Interaction in Play, 23–33. CHI PLAY ’15. New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/2793107.2793109. Double Fine Productions. 2016. “Hack ‘N’ Slash on Steam.” Online Store. Steam. http://store.steampowered.com/app/246070/. Douglas, Yellowlees, and Andrew Hargadon. 2000. “The Pleasure Principle: Immersion, Engagement, Flow.” In Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM on Hypertext and Hypermedia, 153– 160. HYPERTEXT ’00. New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/336296.336354. Dslyecxi. 2013. FFS: Arma 3’s Action Menu Must Die. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I‐ Ve4PJQhjY. dustmop. 2016. The Wit.nes (Demo). Nintendo Entertainment System. https://dustmop.itch.io/the‐ witnes. Egenfeldt‐Nielsen, Simon, Jonas Heide Smith, and Susana Pajares Tosca. 2013. Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction. Routledge. Ermi, Laura, and Frans Märyä. 2005. “Fundamental Components of the Gameplay Experience: Analysing Immersion.” In DiGRA ’05 ‐ Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play. Vol. 3. http://www.digra.org/wp‐ content/uploads/digital‐library/06276.41516.pdf. Frome, Jonathan. 2007. “Eight Ways Videogames Generate Emotion.” In Situated Play, Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference.

83

Froschauer, Adrian. 2014. “Clementine Will Remember All of That.” http://ontologicalgeek.com/clementine‐will‐remember‐all‐of‐that/. Game Maker’s Toolkit. 2014. “Adaptive Soundtracks | Game Maker’s Toolkit.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0gvM4q2hdI. ———. 2015. “Half‐Life 2’s Invisible Tutorial | Game Maker’s Toolkit.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMggqenxuZc. Gilleade, Kiel M, and Alan Dix. 2004. “Using Frustration in the Design of Adaptive Videogames.” In Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, 228–232. ACE ’04. New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/1067343.1067372. Grodal, Torben. 2000. “Video Games and the Pleasures of Control.” In Media Entertainment: The Psychology of Its Appeal, edited by Dolf Zillmann and Peter Vorderer, 197–213. LEA’s Communication Series. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hartmann, Tilo, Christoph Klimmt, and Peter Vorderer. 2001. “Avatare: Parasoziale Beziehungen Zu Virtuellen Akteuren.” Medien Und Kommunikationswissenschaft. Herdkiller. 2012. “File:HL2 H17 Car Crane.png.” Wiki. Strategywiki. http://strategywiki.org/wiki/File:HL2_H17_car_crane.png. Hudson, Matthew, and Paul Cairns. 2016. “The Effects of Winning and Losing on Social Presence in Team‐Based Digital Games.” Computers in Human Behavior 60: 1–12. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.02.001. Iacovides, Ioanna, Anna Cox, Richard Kennedy, Paul Cairns, and Charlene Jennett. 2015. “Removing the HUD: The Impact of Non‐Diegetic Game Elements and Expertise on Player Involvement.” In Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer‐Human Interaction in Play, 13–22. CHI PLAY ’15. New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/2793107.2793120. Järvinen, Aki, Satu Heliö, and Frans Mäyrä. 2002. Communication and Community in Digital Entertainment Services. Prestudy Research Report. Hypermedia Laboratory Net Series 2. http://urn.fi/urn:isbn:951‐44‐5432‐4. Jenkins, Henry. 2004. “Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” In First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, edited by Noah Wardrip‐Fruin and Pat Harrigan, 44:118–130. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jennett, Charlene, Anna L. Cox, Paul Cairns, Samira Dhoparee, Andrew Epps, Tim Tijs, and Alison Walton. 2008. “Measuring and Defining the Experience of Immersion in Games.” International Journal of Human‐Computer Studies 66 (9): 641–61. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2008.04.004. Juul, Jesper. 2005. Half‐Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, MA: MIT press. ———. 2010. A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kallio, Kirsi Pauliina, Frans Mäyrä, and Kirsikka Kaipainen. 2011. “At Least Nine Ways to Play: Approaching Gamer Mentalities.” Games and Culture 6 (4): 327–53. doi:10.1177/1555412010391089. Klimmt, Christoph. 2003. “Dimensions and Determinants of the Enjoyment of Playing Digital Games: A Three‐Level Model.” In , edited by Marinka Copier and Joost Raessens, 246–57. Utrecht: Faculty of Arts, Utrecht University. Klimmt, Christoph, Christian Roth, Ivar Vermeulen, Peter Vorderer, and Franziska Susanne Roth. 2012. “Forecasting the Experience of Future Entertainment Technology: ‘Interactive Storytelling’ and Media Enjoyment.” Games and Culture 7 (3): 187–208. doi:10.1177/1555412012451123. Liptay, Fabienne. 2015. “Neither Here nor There: The Paradoxes of Immersion.” In Immersion in the Visual Arts and Media, edited by Fabienne Liptay and Burcu Dogramaci. Studies in Intermediality 9. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Rodopi.

84

Lombard, Matthew, and Theresa Ditton. 1997. “At the Heart of It All: The Concept of Presence.” Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication 3 (2). doi:10.1111/j.1083‐6101.1997.tb00072.x. Lopes, R., and R. Bidarra. 2011. “Adaptivity Challenges in Games and Simulations: A Survey.” IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games 3 (2): 85–99. doi:10.1109/TCIAIG.2011.2152841. Mateas, Michael, and Andrew Stern. 2005. “Structuring Content in the Façade Interactive Drama Architecture.” In Proceedings of the First Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference, 93–98. Mäyrä, Frans. 2008. An Introduction to Game Studies: Games in Culture. London, England: SAGE Publications. McMahan, Alison. 2003. “Immersion, Engagement and Presence: A Method for Analyzing 3‐D Video Games.” In The Video Game Theory Reader, edited by Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, 67–86. New York: Routledge. Mestre, Daniel R. 2006. “Immersion and Presence.” Translated from French. http://www.ism.univmed.fr/mestre/pub/Pres_2005.pdf. Murray, Janet Horowitz. 1997. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Nakamura, Jeanne, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 2014. “Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.” In , 239–263. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978‐94‐017‐9088‐8_16. Nielsen, Jakob. 1995. Usability Engineering. San Francisco, CA, USA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc. Oxford Dictionaries. 2016. “Imagination.” Accessed May 9. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/imagination. PatheticFallacy. 2015. “DayZ Inventory Ideas.” Fan Page. DayZ TV. http://www.dayztv.com/pic/dayz‐inventory‐ideas/. Poels, Karolien, Yvonne de Kort, and Wijnand IJsselsteijn. 2007. “‘It Is Always a Lot of Fun!’: Exploring Dimensions of Digital Game Experience Using Focus Group Methodology.” In Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on Future Play, 83–89. Future Play ’07. New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/1328202.1328218. Rollings, Andrew, and Dave Morris. 2003. Game Architecture and Design: A New Edition. Indianapolis: New Riders Games. Ryan, Marie‐Laure. 1991. Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ———. 2015. Narrative as Virtual Reality 2: Revisiting Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Literary Theory / Cultural Studies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. 2004. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Seah, May‐li, and Paul Cairns. 2008. “From Immersion to Addiction in Videogames.” In Proceedings of the 22Nd British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Culture, Creativity, Interaction ‐ Volume 1, 55–63. BCS‐HCI ’08. Swinton, UK, UK: British Computer Society. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1531514.1531522. Steam. 2013. “The Bridge.” Online Store. Steam. http://store.steampowered.com/app/204240/. Sweetser, Penelope, and Peta Wyeth. 2005. “GameFlow: A Model for Evaluating Player Enjoyment in Games.” Comput. Entertain. 3 (3). doi:10.1145/1077246.1077253. Thompson, Matt, A. Imran Nordin, and Paul Cairns. 2012. “Effect of Touch‐Screen Size on Game Immersion.” In Proceedings of the 26th Annual BCS Interaction Specialist Group Conference on People and Computers, 280–285. BCS‐HCI ’12. Swinton, UK, UK: British Computer Society. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2377916.2377952.

85

Thon, Jan‐Noël. 2008. “Immersion Revisited. On the Value of a Contested Concept.” In Extending Experiences. Structure, Analysis and Design of Computer Game Player Experience., 29–43. Rovaniemi: Lapland University Press. Thue, David, Vadim Bulitko, Marcia Spetch, and Trevon Romanuik. 2010. “Player Agency and the Relevance of Decisions.” In Interactive Storytelling: Third Joint Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2010, edited by Ruth Aylett, Mei Yii Lim, Sandy Louchart, Paolo Petta, and Mark Riedl, 210–215. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978‐3‐642‐16638‐9_26. Walton, Kendall L. 1990. Mimesis as Make‐Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wessely, Christian. 2013. “Columns of Figures as Sources of Aesthetic Illusion: Browser‐Based Multiplayer Online Games.” In Immersion and Distance: Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and Other Media, edited by Werner Wolf, Walter Bernhart, and Andreas Mahler, 339–64. Studies in Intermediality 6. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Wikia. 2016. “Half‐Life 2 Soundtrack.” Wiki. Wikia. http://half‐life.wikia.com/wiki/Half‐ Life_2_soundtrack?oldid=293029. Wikipedia. 2016. “List of Business Simulation Video Games.” Wiki. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. May 19. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_business_simulation_video_games&old id=720986622. Wikiquote. 2016. “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.” Wiki. Wikiquote. https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Tom_Clancy%27s_Splinter_Cell:_Chaos_Theor y&oldid=2124967. Wirth, Werner, Tilo Hartmann, Saskia Böcking, Peter Vorderer, Christoph Klimmt, Holger Schramm, Timo Saari, et al. 2007. “A Process Model of the Formation of Spatial Presence Experiences.” Media Psychology 9 (3): 493–525. doi:10.1080/15213260701283079. Wolf, Werner. 2004. “Aesthetic Illusion as an Effect of Fiction.” Style 38 (3): 325–50. ———. 2013. “Aesthetic Illusion.” In Immersion and Distance: Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and Other Media, edited by Werner Wolf, Walter Bernhart, and Andreas Mahler, 1–63. Studies in Intermediality 6. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Yannakakis, Georgios N., Pieter Spronck, Daniele Loiacono, and Elisabeth André. 2013. “Player Modeling.” In Artificial and Computational Intelligence in Games, edited by Simon M. Lucas, Michael Mateas, Mike Preuss, Pieter Spronck, and Julian Togelius, 6:45–59. Dagstuhl Follow‐Ups. Dagstuhl, Germany: Schloss Dagstuhl–Leibniz‐Zentrum fuer Informatik. http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2013/4335. Yee, Nick. n. d. “The Virtual Skinner Box.” The Norrathian Scrolls. http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/skinner.html.

86