Hello, and welcome to my talk, A Grounded Analysis of Player-Described Board Game Immersion.
My name is Timea, and today I am going to be talking about our study which asked the
questions of how board game players experience immersion, and how these experiences might
differ from immersion in other media, such as video games. Whilst immersion in video
games is studied extensively, this is not the case when it comes to board game immersion,
and one of the reasons for this might be that we don’t know what board game immersion is.
So to answer these questions, we’ve started with sampling our data from board game specific
forum discussion threads, such as Reddit and BoardGameGeek, as these were threads where
users answered prompt questions such as:
"What is the most immersive board game you have ever played?"
We chose these specifically because the questions were user-generated, and they yielded rich,
and authentic discussions amongst the players themselves.
In the end, we have collected a total of 220 forum comments, which we’ve supplemented
by interviewing 5 board game players, who were recruited through social media and email
open calls. They were selected because they all identified as frequent players who also
engaged in related discussions.
We have analysed our data following a standard Grounded Theory approach. In the end, we arrived
to the following findings:
Board game players have their own definitions of immersion which are rich, complex and varying.
and
board gamers have power over their immersion in a way that maybe video game players do not.
So, What do I mean by these two statements?
First, whilst players talk about their immersive experiences in different ways, we found that
end, there is Engrossment in the Challenge of the Game, and at the other end, there is
these could be best described as waypoints between two ends of a spectrum, where at one
Submergence into the Game World.
We suggest that Immersion for most players is some blend between these two.
The difference between being immersed at one end of the spectrum, and being immersed at
the other...is that when players experience Engrossment in Challenge, they usually do
not care about a game world, either because there isn’t one, or they simply neglect it,
and they find immersion in strategic planning, or having a high influence over the outcomes
of gameplay.
Experiences of Submergence into the Game World are essentially the exact opposite, where
all players care about is the game world and if there isn’t one, they might construct
it for themselves. Players are also submerged in the unfolding
narrative, whether or not they are part of this narrative, does not matter too much
to them.
These end-points blend into each other to varying degrees, so we could find experiences
where a player is still engrossed in challenge, but is also interested in the game world,
Or, a player could care equally about gameplay and the gameworld, and maybe feel a sense
they might see it more as an outsider rather than being part of it.
of embodiment and identify with their in-game character.
Or, a player who is still very much submerged in the unfolding narrative, could also want
Now, to answer the other question of how players have power over their immersion:
some influence over the events.
Players have conditions of immersion, which need to be met in order for immersion to happen.
for example, players could require the game to have a certain theme, or the gameplay to
These can come from the game itself,
have a certain level of difficulty, and so on.
These can also come from what happens around the table, so the players themselves.
For example, how players behave during gameplay, including the interaction between players,
or their reaction to certain aspects of gameplay, or even some voluntary practices which are
not strictly part of the game itself, such as role-playing their characters or using
custom music to enhance the game’s setting.
Players who are playing the same game, however, might have differing conditions for being
immersed.
For example, one player might only become immersed if the whole group engages in voluntary
role-playing,
whilst another might only become immersed if the game has really challenging decisions
and just wants to optimise for mechanics.
In these cases, immersion can be broken for both of them, or even everyone else at the
table because of these contradicting conditions.
In other cases, however, all players might have the same conditions for immersion and
can take initiative in forming their immersive experiences by all participating in the same
voluntary activity, or even breaking the rules together in order to customise their experience.
Being able to bend, modify or even break rules to suit players’ needs is due to board games
being a more open system, allowing players to customise their experience even if the game
in itself does not match their conditions of immersion.
So together with voluntary practices, this is how players gain power over their own immersion.
So to Summarise, immersion has different meaning to different players, and therefore, players
experience immersion differently.
Immersion has conditions, which need to be met in order for it to happen.
Immersion can be broken, and players have power over their immersion through voluntary
practices and by board games being more open systems. 75 00:06:03,800 --> 1193:08:49,296 Thank you!