Eye Tracking Looks at What Creates Immersive Gaming Experience
There are plenty of buzzwords going around these days that deal with the World Wide Web, website effectiveness, user experience, and the interactive and immersive qualities of sites and gaming. But what does the word ‘immersive’ actually mean? What do we mean when we call a game ‘immersive?’
According to a newly published article in The Guardian, there are many obvious signifiers, “Time passes unnoticed. You become unaware of people or events around you. Your heart rate quickens in scary or exciting sections. You empathize with the characters.” This is all, as they put it, “basic stuff.” But what are the causes? How do game engineers do it right and how do they do it wrong?
The article features an interview of Toby Gard, the video game designer responsible for creating the famous game Lara Croft. He suggests that poor research will often accidentally break the immersive spell. If there’s an inconsistent prop in a game environment, for example, that could be disruptive. An American road sign in a European city, for instance. Set dressing is important, as is the use of ‘arbitrary spaces’ or environmental features that are obviously included for gameplay challenge and serve no purpose in the reality of the setting. The errors may be trivial, sure, Gard insists that for true immersion to occur, the gamer must be convinced that the space their playing in is authentic.
But there is even more to immersion than perception and response to the designer’s creation. There needs to be an emotional connection to the game resulting from attentiveness, imagination, and absorption. A lecturer on Human Computer Interaction at York University, Dr. Paul Cairns, is conducting research on the science behind immersion, what is actually happening physiologically to someone who is sucked into a gaming experience. To accomplish this he is looking at personality, people’s sense of time while playing, and yes, eye tracking. Using eye tracking technology, he may be able to identify which elements or aspects of a game evoke emotional responses or connection with gaming experience on an immersive level by noting where the gamer look.
I wonder how incorporating eye tracking devices as a gaming peripheral would enhance immersion? Adding intuitive control of the viewing window alone would create a whole new level of reality, especially in 3D games.
What do we mean when we call a game ‘immersive’?
Related articles: