Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: news.duke.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!solaris.cc.vt.edu!news.vt.edu!out.nntp.be!propagator-SanJose!in.nntp.be!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!uunet!ash.uu.net!world!not-for-mail
From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: Quick Poll: Aisle endings
Sender: news@world.std.com (Mr Usenet Himself)
Message-ID: <GtK7p8.EM@world.std.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 02:46:19 GMT
References: <fa8b4a52.0203221217.51d51e8c@posting.google.com> <a7lgul$hp$1@news.panix.com> <a7lq38$m4e4b$1@ID-101183.news.dfncis.de> <a7mnb2$44b$1@foobar.cs.jhu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: shell01.theworld.com
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999)
Lines: 36
Xref: news.duke.edu rec.arts.int-fiction:102117

L. Ross Raszewski <lraszewski@loyola.edu> wrote:
>Oh, I agree, but these are distinct viewings, and I think it's unfair
>to consider information which is unique to the experience of IF-as-Art
>when determining something specific to IF-as-Simulation:
>
>'Immersiveness' is a property of the IF simulation.

This is sort of true, but not entirely. Immersiveness is the
'suspension of disbelief' of interactive works, and hence it
is a property of interacting with a work; I don't think it
has to do with simulation per se, as much as it has to do with
the much misused 'mimesis'. But you might even be able to become
immersed in a CYOA.

Anyway, dropping into a metagame, e.g. upon dying, does tend to kill
immersiveness at that instant. But when I go back into the game,
I still carry knowledge of that experience with me during
further playthroughs. That knowledge can work like any knowledge
I might carry into a game which might ruin its immersiveness:
knowledge that it's using an engine known to be minimally
interactive; knowledge gleaned from a review that it's not
consistent and realistic. The difference is that this is
knowledge acquired from playing the game itself 'as it was
meant to be played'--the author must have known that the vast
majority of players would have exactly this experience, hence
the author most likely intended players to have this experience.
I had the experience, and didn't like it.

If I watch a movie, and somebody breaks the fourth wall and
totally stops suspension of disbelief, and then we rewind the
movie to somewhere much earlier and start watching, I may still
have my suspension of disbelief ruined. The difference is that
one the case I used is a case that is the natural way of
experiencing the work (IMO).

SeanB
