Embodiment or Immersion? On the Modes of Engagement in Video Games

Abstract

EMBODIMENT OR IMMERSION? ON THE MODES OF ENGAGEMENT IN VIDEO GAMES How do players engage with video games? This question has many potential answers. The aim of this paper is to provide a closer look at two of such answers that are prominent in the philosophical debate on video games. These answers focus on two distinct ideas: that of embodiment, and that of immersion. The former arises from the phenomenological tradition of thought and is based on the views of Maurice Merleau-Ponty that is applied to the realm of video games by such scholars as Timothy Crick. Phenomenological concept of embodiment is used here to describe how playing video games is a carnal activity in which the game itself becomes an elongation of our own body. According to this view, the player’s engagement in a video game is a direct experience of its content. Opposed to that is the idea of immersion, considered here based on Kendall L. Walton’s theory of mimesis as make-believe. This theory, which is applied in the context of video games by such researchers as Grant Tavinor, claims that all representational art is analogous to children’s games of make-believe. Perception of art bedomes an act of imagination in which we pretend that an art object is what it represents. In accordance with this view, the player’s engagement in a video game is an indirect experience of its content. The question is: Are those two approaches contradictory or is there a way to reconcile them? This paper argues that such a possibility exists and proposes a combined view that utilizes both of those concepts.