Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Love me in a box

Four main types of gameplay Immersion can be found in games: Spatial Immersion, Emotional Immersion, Cognitive Immersion and Sensory-Motoric Immersion. from Patterns in Game Design by Staffan Björk and Jussi Holopainen
Game designers work to create immersive experiences so that a player's consciousness is drawn deeply into game play. Immersion supports the consciously chosen suspension of disbelief by directly engaging subconscious systems that generate emotional and physical responses. For most people, it is easy to separate the authentic experience of emotions within games from the fabricated environment and narrative that stimulate the experience.

The line between fantasy and reality is not so clear-cut within virtual worlds. The highly immersive nature of the experience makes it almost impossible for us to separate the real beings we interact with from the fictional elements they are enmeshed within. In the fuzzy world of anonymous relationships, authenticity becomes equated
to some extent with character consistency. This seems to be especially true in romantic relationships.

In the atomic world, relationships often have difficulty when one person makes a significant change such as newly found religious observance or even an avid hobby that their partner doesn't take up. Physical change such as significant weight gain or loss can also put stress on a relationship.

It is not surprising that in virtual worlds, relationships are very vulnerable to changes from established norms. In the atomic world, your partner may now worship Allah instead of Jesus, but you know they have the same parents, siblings, job, gender, etc. In an anonymous virtual world relationship there is nothing solid to hold onto.

It seems to me that if you are not willing to let your partner change to pursue a non-destructive interest that doesn't break a core agreement such as fidelity, the relationship is grounded more in objectification than love. This applies to all worlds.




5 comments:

Forelle Broek said...

"It seems to me that if you are not willing to let your partner change to pursue a non-destructive interest that doesn't break a core agreement such as fidelity, the relationship is grounded more in objectification than love. This applies to all worlds."

Well put. This prompts several questions for further thought, among which these come first to mind:

* What counts as a "core agreement" and how does this differ in "actual" v. "virtual" worlds?

* How do responses/reactions to "non-core-agreement-breaking" changes differ as between actual and virtual world settings and relationships?

Digado said...

Hello Botgirl, like your new design (yes it's been a while so sorry if I'm late :P). On topic, I'm not sure if i understood you right (you seem to be very keen on posting this as confusing as possible) but how did immersion get dragged into these 'relationships'?

When not 'immersed' you wouldn't have the relationship either, is that what you are saying, or does immersion create these relationships...? People created 'virtual' relationships long before 'worlds' such as SL over the internet, with or without immersion (chatboxes, facebook, forums & MUDS), with or without avatars, certainly without visual reference. Its human anticipation and (latent) desire that work the imagination, I don't see how that 'blurs clear lines of immersion' at all.

To be honest I presume at this point that this just one of the meme's that goes around to somehow justify virtual relationships as long as there is a social taboo on them. If you have some clear thoughts on this I'd be very interested in hearing them. I'm still trying to get my head around that last paragraph tho, I'm sure it makes sense in some way - I just don't see it...

Botgirl Questi said...

forelle: Thanks. I think of core agreements as "deal breakers" which might include monogamy, no physical abuse, etc.

I think the difference is setting is a lot about how easy it is to bail out in SL, versus RL. Maybe not emotionally, but certainly physically with things like packing, perhaps children, etc.

Botgirl Questi said...

digado: Thanks! Rather than fire something off now, I'll try to express my thoughts more completely in the next blog post.

Botgirl Questi said...

digado: I responded more substantively to your comments in today's post.