This paper presents an overview on Spatial Presence (Immersion) in the current Digital Games and Virtual Reality evolution researches.
On Spatial Presence, we speak about Werner Wirth’s research about the subject, its definition, the game characteristics that lead to Spatial Presence and the player characteristics that lead to Spatial Presence.
On the evolution of Virtual Reality, we make a quick introduction on what is Virtual Reality, when did it start how it evolved, how the system works and its Immersion.
We will also give some examples of cross-benefits between Digital Games and Virtual Reality and how the Immersion is one of the main purposes of Virtual Reality technology.
Introduction
Digital Games are dedicated to entertainment and more recently to more serious purposes like the merging of games with health or treatment, this kind of game is denominated “Serious Game”.
In recent years, the emerging of consumer’s hardware dedicated to games induced great progress for realism and gameplay. Graphics rendering and physics engines, digital surround sound and new interaction interfaces are examples of areas which have benefited of these last improvements and widely contribute to the gaming experience.
Virtual Reality focuses on user’s presence or more commonly called Immersion, which is its indubitable feeling of belonging to the virtual environment.
At this point, we can argue that Virtual Reality can be a provider of new methods and resources for Games. The recent commercialization of Virtual Reality sets like HTC Vive, Oculus Rift or PlayStation VR, allows player to achieve a level of presence never seen before. Despite its commercial early life those devices are not yet a total convincing Immersion experience due to the necessity of high end hardware and to the physical sickness felt by some people who tries the new medium due to the asynchronous impairment of the brain (that is thinking “in” the VR world) and the body that is not acting physically as is the avatar’s inside the game.
One of the adjectives that gamers like to toss around when describing their favorite Digital Games is “immersive.”
What makes a game immersive? Ask people and you’ll probably get a ton of different answers, but psychologists have been studying Immersion in various kinds of media for decades, including Digital Games, so they could describe more accurately what is the meaning of Immersion, specifically, Immersion in Digital Games and Virtual Reality.
Psychologists don’t call it “Immersion.” Instead, they call it “Presence,” which, admittedly, isn’t as cool. Regardless, researchers have identified several kinds of presence regarding how we perceive media, but its Spatial Presence that we think comes closest to what gamers think of as “Immersion.”
Briefly, Spatial Presence is often defined as existing when “media contents are perceived as ‘real’ in the sense that media users experience a sensation of being spatially located in the mediated environment.”
The idea is that a game (or any other media from books to movies) creates Spatial Presence when the user starts to feel like he is “there” in the world that the medium creates.
People who experience Immersion tend to only consider choices that make sense in the context of the imaginary world. Someone immersed in Red Dead Redemption, for example, might be more likely to use travel methods, like stagecoaches, that make sense within the game, instead of methods that don’t (like fast traveling from a menu screen or teleport points). People immersed in media also tend to enjoy it more. With this said it was just a question of time for us to have access to Virtual Reality Devices at consumer grade prices for us to enjoy even more the Immersion in our favorite titles.
Spatial Presence (commonly known as Immersion)
How to feel Spatial Presence? How does this happen? What about a game and what about the player that makes him feel like he’s leaving the real world behind? Theories abound, but a few years ago Werner Wirth and a team of other researchers sat down to consolidate the research and come up with one unified theory.
Diagram1: Visualization of the two-level model of Spatial Presence theory by Wirth et al.’s
Let’s take a simplified look at the parts most relevant to us gamers.
In a simplified way Wirth et al.’s theory says that Spatial Presence happens in three steps:
– Players form a representation in their mind of the space or world with which the game is presenting them.
– Players begin to favor the media-based space (the game world) as their point of reference for where they “are”.
-Profit!
All This process starts with players forming a mental model of the game’s make-believe space by looking at various cues (images, movement, sounds, and so forth) as well as assumptions about the world that they may bring to the table.
Once that mental model of the game world is created, the player must decide, either consciously or unconsciously, whether he feels like he’s in that imagined world or in the real one. Of course, it’s worth nothing that this isn’t necessarily a conscious decision with the prefrontal cortex’s stamp of approval on it. It can be subconscious, on the sly, slipped into sideways and entered and exited constantly.
Researchers have extensively studied how these two steps happen, but we think it’s more interesting for our purposes here to skip to the bit about what qualities of the media (game) and person (player) that they’ve found facilitate both of these steps and create Immersion.
Game characteristics that lead to Spatial Presence
Characteristics of games that facilitate Immersion can be grouped into two general categories:
-Those that create a rich mental model of the game environment
-Those that create consistency between the things in that environment.
Let’s take the concept of richness. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but richness relates to:
Multiple channels of sensory information means simply that the more senses you assault and the more those senses work in conjunction, the better.
1. Completeness of sensory information means that the fewer blanks about the mental model of the game world that the player has to fill in, the better. Abstractions and contrivances are the enemy of Immersion. For example, take the game Assassin’s Creed. It is immersive because its towns were filled with people who looked like they were doing …people stuff and not just stay in the background static as rocks.
2. Dealing in a familiar environment also allows the player to comfortably make assumptions about those blank spaces without being pulled out of the world to think about it. Knowing what the Wild West is supposed to look like and having Red Dead Redemption conform to those stereotypes goes a long way towards creating Spatial Presence.
3. Cognitively demanding environments where players have to focus on what’s going on and getting by in the game will tie up mental resources. This is good for Immersion, because if brain power is allocated to understanding or navigating the world, it’s not free to notice all its problems or shortcomings that would otherwise remind them that they’re playing a game.
4. A strong and interesting narrative, plot, or story will suck you in every time. In fact, it’s pretty much the only thing in a book’s toolbox for creating Immersion, and it works in games too. Good stories attract attention to the game and make the world seem more believable. They also tie up those mental resources.
1. Turning to game traits related to consistency, we have:
Lack of incongruous visual cues in the game world is one of the more interesting precursors to Spatial Presence.
2. Examples might include heads up displays, tutorial messages, damage numbers appearing over enemies’ heads, achievement notifications, friend’s list notifications, and the like. It’s also the reason why in-game advertising wrecks Immersion so much. Seeing instances of ads for the new upcoming movie while trying to rescue hostages kind of pulls you out of the experience.
3. Believable behavior from things in the game world means that characters, objects, and other creatures in the game world behave like you’d expect them to. It’s also worth noting that the cues need to make sense and be constant throughout the experience.
4. An unbroken presentation of the game world means that the spatial cues about the imaginary world your game has created should not just up and vanish. Which is exactly what happens every time you get a loading screen, a tutorial, or a game menu. When that happens, the game world literally disappears for a few minutes, and we can’t feel immersed in something that isn’t there.
5. Interactivity with items in the game world could probably fit under the “richness” list above, but we include it with consistency because it’s another way of giving the player feedback on actions and a sense of consistency between various parts of the environment. Operating machines, talking to NPCs, and fiddling with physics makes it seem like the various pieces of the world fit together consistently.
Player Characteristics Leading to Spatial Presence
Of course, players have some say in how immersed they get in a game. Some people just have more spatial ability and can build those mental models of game worlds more readily and make them more vibrant. And researchers have found that people have an “absorption trait” which means that they’re quicker to get fascinated by something and drawn into it
Other times the player takes a more active role. Some players simply want to believe in the illusion, and will induce their own bias towards accepting the “I am there” hypothesis. In this state, they’ll require less confirmatory information to accept that hypothesis and less disconfirming information to reject it. This is also similar to the idea of “suspension of disbelief” where players willfully ignore stuff that doesn’t make sense (like thunderous explosions in space or the fact that enemy soldiers can soak up a dozen of gunshots without going down) in order to just have a good time.
Other researchers have also pointed to a concept they call “involvement” which is a media user’s desire to act in the make-believe world, to draw parallels between it and his life, and to effect changes in it according to their own design. To me, this seems like an overly fancy way of saying “some people like to role-play” which leads directly to greater Immersion.
So there you have it. Everybody can cite examples of things that yank them out of the game experience, and it turns out that psychologists have examined, classified, and isolated a lot of them. This isn’t to say, though, that ALL games should strive to be immersive. we think games are kind of unique in all media in that this is so. A game can still be a good game without being immersive, and maybe some types of games are better if they aren’t immersive. But that’s the great thing: game designers have a lot of paths that they can take to good art.
Virtual Reality Evolution
What is Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality is a simulation in which computer graphics are used to create a realistic-looking world where, with the user’s input, the user can have real-time interactivity.
The Evolution
The concept of Virtual Reality (VR) began in 1960 with Heilig with a Head Mounted Display (HMD) patent. This work was continued by Ivan Sutherland in 1966, adding two cathode ray tubes (CRT) mounted alongside the user’s ears, although because of their weight they had to be supported by a mechanical arm which had potentiometer sensors to measure the user’s view direction.
Later, in 1991, “Virtuality” was launched. Virtuality’s VR gaming pods were a conjunction of Commodore Amiga 3000 computers and Visette’s HMDs alongside a variety of controllers. This system had a small number of VR games and the resolution of the HMD was only 267x37px with a framerate of 20fps.
In 1993, Sega developed the “Sega VR” for the home console Sega Genesis. This system was only launched for the arcade machines instead of Genesis due to the problems associated with VR systems of motion sickness and headaches.
In 1995, Nintendo launched the “Nintendo’s Virtual Boy”, a tripod-mounted HMD with red Light-Emitting Diode (LED) graphics, which were hard on the eyes, and still without head-tracking technology. This system also caused dizziness, nausea and headaches to the users.
“VFX1 Headgear” by Forte Technologies was also launched that year. This HMD VR system was heavy weighted, had a dual Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) with three degrees of motion tracking, built-in stereo speakers and a handheld controller with motion sensors called “Cyberpuck”. The display’s resolution was 263x230px per eye with 256 colors and a refresh rate of 60Hz.
In 2009, Palmer Luckey, started developing a low-cost. high-performance VR system using a single LCD screen. The prototype was finished in 2011, which caught id Software’s John Carmack’s attention evolving to a Kickstarter Campain that raised $2 million for the continued research of the technology.
In 2014, Google developed the “Google Cardboard” a foldable cardboard viewer that fits an android phone. This system was meant to run VR developed applications on the android phone and use the cardboard to give the user the Immersion and experience of those applications.
In 2015, Samsung developed the “Samsung Gear VR” an HMD like Google Cardboard but exclusively to Samsung smartphones with an accelerometer and a gyroscope for a full Immersion experience.
In 2016, after six iterations on the prototype the first retail version of the “Oculus Rift” was available for pre-order for $599, which featured an Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) with a resolution of 1080x1200px per eye, a refresh rate of 90Hz, built-in headphones with 3D audio and six degrees of head tracking.
In April 2016, HTC and Valve Corporation released the “HTC Vive”. The system has two screens, one per eye, with a resolution of 1080x1200px and a refresh rate of 90Hz, 70 plus sensors including a microelectromechanical system (MEMS), a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a laser position sensor that allows a 4.6×4.6 meter tracking space, and a field view of 110 degrees. The combination of these sensors allows the user to have a room scale Immersion experience.
In October 2016, Sony Computer Entertainment released the “Playstation VR”. The system has a 5.7inch OLED display with a field of view of 100 degrees, 1920 x RGB x 1080 (960 x RGB x 1080) resolution per eye with a refresh rate of 90-120Hz, incorporated microphone and gyroscopic and accelerometer sensors. To use the system, it’s also needed a “Playstation Camera” for a 9 LED positional tracking, and either the “Playstation Move” controllers or the Dualshock 4 controller.
Till this date, VR systems are in continued development as the Games and Applications for VR are increasing in numbers and the retail clients are expecting to get more, better and lower-cost sets to use in home.
Virtual Reality system
Virtual Reality, like Digital Game takes advantage of several other scientific areas like cognitive science, computer graphics, electronics etc. A reality system aims at immersing one or more users in an artificial environment where he will be able to feel and interact in real-time thanks to sensory-motor interfaces.
The experience will have to be credible enough to gull user’s senses in order to create, as an ultimate goal, a feeling of presence of the virtual objects, but also a feeling of his self-presence in the virtual environment. This feeling of presence can be achieved relying on five pillar which are Immersion, interaction, real-time, emotions and cognitive science. It may be interesting to make clear the function of each pillar.
The Immersion is the sensory stimulation which permit the perception of the virtual environment and then its comprehension.
The interaction enables the user to not remain spectator of the experiment but to act on it.
Real-time, we mean we have to maintain the coherence of the perception-action loop.
The emotions bring by the experience help the user to accept the experiment by distracting his attention from real world environment including the interaction devices and from the shortcomings of the application.
The cognitive science enables to understand (amongst other things) how Human apprehend their environment, that’s a very useful point in order to improve the Immersion and interaction efficiency.
Some application of Virtual Reality:
1. Simulator for the army and the industry
2. Tool for the treatment of phobias
3. Education and culture with the reconstitution of antic sites and art.
Virtual Reality Immersion
In a VR environment, a user experiences Immersion, or the feeling of being inside and a part of that world. He is also able to interact with his environment in meaningful ways. The combination of a sense of Immersion and interactivity is called telepresence. In other words, an effective VR experience causes you to become unaware of your real surroundings and focus on your existence inside the virtual environment.
Virtual Reality sickness
Some people can experience Virtual Reality sickness than can occur when exposure to a virtual environment causes symptoms that are similar to motion sickness symptoms. The most common symptoms are general discomfort, headache, stomach awareness, nausea, vomiting, pallor, sweating, fatigue, drowsiness, disorientation, and apathy. Other symptoms include postural instability and retching.
Virtual Reality sickness is different from motion sickness in that it can be caused by the visually-induced perception of self-motion; real self-motion is not needed. It is also different from simulator sickness; non-Virtual Reality simulator sickness tends to be characterized by oculomotor disturbances, whereas Virtual Reality sickness tends to be characterized by disorientation.
Cross-benefits between Virtual Reality and Digital Games
In this section, we present some examples of cross-benefits between Virtual Reality and Digital Games.
Benefits from Virtual Reality to Digital Games
There are numerous benefits from Virtual Reality to games essentially because Virtual Reality is an aggregation of multiple scientific domain instead of a single one. These various research areas are improved by needs of VR applications. Part of these enhancements generally transit into mass market once the developing cost is reasonable.
For example, computer graphics have benefited from expectations of simulator applications. Indeed, they need a realistic and real time rendering. This has induced developments of physically-based engine that have been progressively transited in Digital Games.
As Virtual Reality is requiring immersive interactivity between the user and the virtual environment, many haptic devices have been developed. Hence, several tools have been designed for Digital Games including vibrating, feedback or haptic devices like Microsoft Kinect elements.
Benefits from Digital Games to Virtual Reality
First VR should thank Digital Games to be at the initiative of numerous improvement in real-time computing.
A Digital Game is a good provider of emotions (fear, happiness, curiosity…). The player has to surpass oneself in order to take up the challenges against himself or other people and, as a consequence, the player motivation and involvement increase.
Currently, games benefit from a good popularity thanks to the young population enthusiasm for entertainment. This popularity has stimulated the creation of cheaper and lighter Virtual Reality systems.
At last, the democratization of Digital Games has led to the creation of various open source libraries like Ogre 3D that can facilitate the creation of Virtual Reality applications also VR libraries are available.
Hardware is continuously improved by Digital Game industry: equipment become quickly highly capable and cheap. At the beginning, Virtual Reality installations were made with specific hardware like a dedicated graphic card or an expensive video projection system. Now a Virtual Reality room can be created using consumer grade components. Many hardware developments designed for games have been reused in research areas because of its simplicity and low cost. For example, some Virtual Reality installations use a Nintendo Wii remote for interactivity.
Conclusion
Digital Games evolved a lot over the past years, and the expectation and demand of the consumers are very high. Consumers, now, want a game that has good/great Immersion that will take them to another reality and will make them forget about the real world for the length that they are engaged with the game. This is where VR comes in place, with the HMD and good controllers, since it’s a new technology, or better yet, an improvement of a technology that not many have experienced, it heightens the Immersion of the player and is able to isolate him/her from the world for the time that he/she is engaged in the game. The real-time interaction and engagement, like we said before, is something that not many consumers have experienced, so it brings forth many new emotions for the consumer. Depending on the consumer and the game itself, he/she, because of the evolution of the HMD, should not experience anymore sickness or headaches and should be able to get the full Immersion experience of the VR without any discomfort.
We are going to need, in the video game industry, more development of VR games, further experience of these games from the consumer for feedback so the game developers and HMD engineers can iterate on their products and improve them to get to the needs of the consumer.
It’s a fast growing, high demand area, if you want to get in to the industry you should start now and help improve the future of this technology, because there are many ways one can interact with the technology and probably many of the developers are still too attached to the process of the non-VR games, and need new insight, feedback and innovative ways of thinking for the industry to evolve, which implies directly with the evolution of the Immersion so it becomes more realistic and even more enjoyable.