Our bodies within virtual reality

After this weeks lectures and tutorial I started to think more about video games. To be honest I haven’t played on a console since my brother and I got a SEGA, which I clearly must admit that I played on everyday. The history/ context of video game’s made me realise that the further evolving console’s and games are exactly the same as the past consoles such as SEGA, and today’s games have just been enhanced such as The Super Mario Brothers franchise. The topics of ‘diegetic’ immersion’ and ‘situation immersion’ made me realise and think about my actions when I use to play videos games against my older brother. I never realised my body movements while playing and how my mind would work sub consciously, until Kevin spoke about that subject in tutorial, that diegetic immersion is defined by your focus on something but your mind is not fully focused on it i.e. someone is talking to you and you looking at them then suddenly say “sorry what was that?” Situation Immersion is explained by the factor of your body and mind as a player in a video game and you become occupied in the space of the screen. I found this to be very interesting due to the fact that I would look back at my actions while playing and realise it was true that I embodied myself with the virtual reality of the video game. Not only that but as I invested myself as the character I would only pick Mario over Luigi because he was the main character by which I saw him as the best in my mind. The manner of how immersion sets off the way you move and think is incredible. I never imagined that this was part of what a video game is aimed to do, but we as people are embodied within this virtual space. Many people do not realise this but it’s an automatic feature when we begin to start a game, we are taken away from reality and into the world of virtual reality. I have attached a link from the game “Far Cry 2” to demonstrate the producer’s main attribute of immersion and how it works within this game. The player is placed within the game set in a war based environment. I started to think why is our body and mind being taken to this virtual world? Is there a bigger reason why we feel the need to be another character?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S--zR5BQAW0