Hermeneutic Relations in VR: Immersion, Embodiment, Presence and HCI in VR Gaming

Abstract

The emergence of Virtual Reality (VR) as a viable consumer medium for gaming offers an opportunity to reconceptualise understandings of immersion, embodiment and presence in gaming. However, many of the discourses and attempts to conceptualise experience in VR games conflate these terms rather than understanding each as a state of engagement with a VR environment or game. This results in a lack of understanding of the importance of design and intentionality in the VR game with regards to immersion, embodiment and presence. Using a post-phenomenological approach, this paper differentiates immersion, embodiment and presence as three kinds of relation utilising the I – technology – world schema. This approach allows for an understanding of these states of engagement as layered and hierarchical rather than instantly emergent on the part of the technology. The hermeneutic relation between the user and VR game [I → (technology – world)] that indicates presence can be understood as a feeling of place or placehood in VR and is intentionally the state aimed for as optional in VR games. The importance of technological intentionality as a co-constructor of embodiment and presence is exemplified through an analysis of user reviews of VR games either built-for VR or ported to VR. Built-for VR games create the possibility of a sense of place for the games by incorporating the possibility of embodiment and presence into the design of control and movement while ported VR games fail to immerse because of a lack of technological intentionality towards these goals.