What Is Immersion? Towards a Phenomenology of Virtual Reality

Abstract

Although the importance of the concept of immersion in game studies is indisputable, its meaning remains imprecise and ambiguous. My goal here is to develop a phenomenological clarification of this concept. I begin by clarifying how immersion has been understood in game studies. I further contend that immersion in digital games should be recognized as one modality of immersion among others. This basic realization allows one to open a dialogue between game studies and phenomenology. I develop a phenomenological conception of immersion, which relies on Alfred Schutz’s phenomenology of multiple realities and Theodor Conrad’s phenomenology of immersion. Although such an approach provides us with a general conception of immersion, it does not clarify what specific features characterize immersion in digital games. I argue that this form of immersion is a hybrid phenomenon, which shares certain features with immersion in non-digital games and other features with immersion in other types of digital media. I further demonstrate that immersion in digital games is characterized by a specific function of embodiment. With this in mind, I conclude my analysis by introducing a phenomenologically grounded distinction between actual and virtual embodiment, thereby clarifying in which sense immersion in digital games is an embodied and a disembodied experience.