Research Article

Immersion and Gameplay Experience: A Contingency Framework

Table 1

Literature review of immersion.

ReferenceMain results/implications

Brown and Cairns [8]Analyzed players’ feelings towards their favourite game and led them to propose three gradual and successive levels of player immersion: engagement, engrossment, and total immersion.

Ermi and Mäyrä [1]Subdivided immersion into three distinct forms: sensory, challenge-based, and imaginative immersion.

Nacke and Lindley [9]Forwarded that the experience of immersion is very close to what Csikszentmihalyi describes as a flow experience.

Douglas and Hargadon [10]Used schema theory to understand immersion in different media. Examined antecedents to immersion in interface design, options for navigation, and other features of game. Adopted flow for understanding the consequences of immersion.

Paras and Bizzocchi [11]Argued that educational games need to be immersive to be well functioning. The main rationale was that immersion involves an acceptance and submission to rules and conditions that create and drive the participation in the virtual environment.

Reid et al. [12]Found a positive correlation between immersion and enjoyment. Argued immersion to be temporal, but influences gamers over time as they trigger attitudes as enjoyment.

Weibel et al. [13]Found presence (compare immersion), flow, and enjoyment (compare gameplay experience) to be different but yet related concepts in a statistical test of two groups with about 40 participants in each.