No definition of immersion holds up to scrutiny. Every definition describes something that is not real and something that I would not want if it were. Yet, immersion still holds meaning. What it strives for is not real, but the striving itself is real.

We will start with the literal definition, that you can be immersed in the game world enough to believe it real. This is absurd. Do you fear death in the game as you fear death itself? Would you want to? Do you really think that the graphics on your screen can ever become so realistic that you ever would?

Let us move to a more plausible definition, that immersion lets you sink into the game such that it fully absorbs you. I am often fully absorbed. Most commonly, this happens when I work. I use Emacs when I work. Even its worst critic would not accuse Emacs of fancy graphics.

My finding a flow state while writing code does not disprove this definition though. So, let me try reframing it; the player puts themself in the game and by making the graphics better, we make it easier for them to do so. I do not agree with this either. Imagination is much stranger than that. A photorealistic comic is not easier to enter than one made of stick figures. An animated movie is not intrinsically harder to enter than a live action one. I am not such a believer in games exceptionalism to imagine that games are different here.

It does not match my experiences playing games either. I do not find that games have progressively become easier and easier to get into as graphics have become better. I do not find lo-fi games harder to get started with than AAA games. Old games are not unplayable.

Possibly then, immersion can help me accept the game world as complete. When a game is immersive, I accept it totally and simply do not think of taking the same actions that I would in the real world. Unfortunately, this is my behavior in every game. I waste no time trying to persuade the blocks of Tetris of the physics I know. There is always some negotiation, but fundamentally to play a game, one must play by its rules.

Rather than support this bargain, immersive features often work to break it. Consider the heat haze of Crysis. The air above hot objects in that game refracts the light differently, causing a shimmer, mimicking light in the real world. I had never noticed this in the real world until Crysis told me about it. Now, whenever I see heat haze in the real world, I think of Crysis.

If heat haze breaks me out of my immersion in the real world, imagine what it does when I play a game. I know of this heat haze because of a loud and protracted publicity push by the developer. When I see it in the game, those articles and interviews come to mind. Rather than bring me deeper into the game, it reminds me that this is a product build by people at great cost.

Here then is the only definition of immersion that works; immersion is when the developers spent a lot of money making the game. The only purpose of the shrinking horse testicles of RDR2 is so that you know that someone spent the time and money to build that feature. This expenditure is only made more meaningful by the fact that every horse I had when I played the game was female.

There is nothing unusual about a consumer good strutting over how much it cost to make. People enjoy spending money to buy objects that they want and they enjoy it much more when they feel they got good value for their money. If the game cost a billion dollars to make, purchasing it for a hundred is a steal. If I have already spent a few hundred dollars on a game console, spending another eighty on a game that needs its graphics cards is how I justify the purchase.

This is not unique to games. When I see the ship crest the hill in Fitzcarraldo, even though it looks indistinguishable from a model, I know the effort they took to lift it over. When I see a star in an indie movie, I know the effort it took to sign them on.

By demonstrating effort, the good can simulate value. When I see an athlete injured, it adds value to the sport. When players see a team crunch, it adds value to the game. If there existed a healthy critical ecosystem and a literate and reflective player base, we would find it easier to deliver value than to simulate it. As it is, we must meet the player where they are and demonstrate value in an overt and incontrovertible way.

So also follows mechanics like water conducting electricity or fire spreading. There is no realistic way to model water conducting a lightning bolt spell because there is no such thing as a lightning bolt spell. Even if it were to exist, a lightning bolt spell could not damage multiple people in a single pond because hit points and damage also do not exist. The expectation that it would damage multiple people comes not from the real world but instead from other games that spent the money to build the feature.

This blunt demonstration is particularly heavy in video games where decades of framing have been used to justify the sales of graphics chips. So much of the infrastructure of the medium comes from console manufacturers needing to justify the purchase of a very expensive toy made more expensive with each passing generation. So, the difficult question of whether the games have gotten better gets replaced with the more concrete question of whether the graphics are more photorealistic.

Chasing the outside world is an expression of insecurity. The art should be valuable enough in itself not to need to resort to imitation.

This ideal will, of course, never be true. Art is always valued by the effort it took to make. This is why the art in the gallery that most demonstrates time and skill is the one most valued by those who are not immersed in the art world. This is why the default value of AI art is zero.

Taking this further, appreciation of immersion in games is a skill in itself, much like learning to appreciate a jazz solo or a dance choreography. The game asks that you notice when it serves you a particularly stunning panorama or skillful animation. The player learns to pay attention to these details. To break out of your own thoughts long enough to notice minutiae is difficult enough in the real world. It is much harder in the middle of a game designed to chain you through decision points and yet we ask players to routinely demonstrate a mental poise that they would not believe of themselves.

Players have been trained to value diegesis for the sake of diegesis. Thus, we have audio logs that not only beggar disbelief in their placement and functioning but are also a terrible means of storytelling suited only to the most naked of expositions. They cannot even be used as unreliable narrators, so desperate are they to appear as the truth.

I am reminded of the Surrealists who would expend tremendous thought on work that they could claim came from a place of no thought at all. Such is the player at every moment, constantly outside of their experience in the game so that they can have an experience that they can claim to be entirely immersed within the game. The Surrealists produced great work and so too does immersion. You can build a cathedral on a contradiction.

Art has always been about sacrifice at an altar. Temples are about the expense of the material for their construction and the further material sacrifice to keep them alive. Victorians read in order to demonstrate that they had the leisure time to read.

This is why games with long playtimes are valued. They allow for greater sacrifice from the player. Thus, players will start optional dialogue that they skip through. They chase optional items that they will then resent for clogging up their inventory. It is, in part, the desire to wring the most value from a purchase, to consume the entirety of the content obtained. However, it is also the desire to immolate time on an altar that has already devoured money. How else can the player prove that they have both to spare?

This may all read as though I am asking for less sacrifice from the player or that I believe this sacrifice is wasteful. That is incorrect. I do not ask for less sacrifice, I ask for more. I am not satisfied with your money and your time. I want your thought as well.