This week I ran through my introduction with my tutor, and got some feedback on how I could improve on this first part of my essay.
Below are the improvements implemented within my introduction.
Immersion in games is debated to be what makes them so successful. The nature of video games is the promise to take the player to ‘another world’ through gameplay, and therefore the upmost effort in digital worldmaking has only increased as the demand for this aspect within games has grown too. In 2014, an author named Georgios Christou, did a study to back this statement, with the results being “It is found that immersion and appeal are linearly correlated” (Christou, 2014), with the higher the immersion through game type and experience, the higher the appeal rate. This is no surprise, given that video games offer an escape from daily life, transporting players through visual and audio means into a world of fantasy, horror, and anything in-between. To do this though, and to create this immersion and appeal positive correlation, we can investigate the vitality of certain aspects within a game. Environments are the basis of worldmaking within a game, mapping out the areas and the world in which a player is within during their experience. These environments are unique and create a certain atmosphere we can feel through separate games, through lighting, buildings, terrain, and weather. Visual effects offer a more realistic and real visual experience to films, games and tv series, and this impacts worldmaking in many ways, especially within the environments around characters.
Christou, G., 2014. The interplay between immersion and appeal in video games. Computers in human behaviour, 32, pp.92-100.
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I also then started on developing my abstract for my essay this week.
Abstract
In this essay I will be discussing how vital visual effects are in creating realistic and therefore immersive environments within survival horror games. I will be looking at this through the lens of visual effect’s relationship with realism and immersion, and how much this adds to a gaming experience. I have concluded that…
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I soon realised that the abstract would be best to write at the end, to ensure that the conclusion lined up with that in my essay. This is a draft abstract and will shape more as I continue to write my essay.