https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ-EY9gTsgU&index=77&list=UUCODtTcd5M1JavPCOr_Uydg
Basically, this video talks about why many gamers get sucked into, or "immersed" as one would say, into the world of a video game.
In my experience, I've been taken into many games simply because their worlds were interesting: the setup intriguing, the characters relatable, the mystery begging to be answered, and the world simply too beautiful or the music too entrancing to ignore. And then, once you take control and start making things happen in the world through the game's mechanics, it's all done its job, and you become the player in the fiction, not the viewer. It's because of all the design tricks that go into a game that most games successfully draw the player in and make them want to start and follow the journey, and in many cases command how the story progresses and resolves itself.
And this doesn't just happen with games either. You go to your favorite music concert and get swept up in the moment and energy. The lights dim and the curtain gets pulled back in a theater to tell you you've entered their world now, and that you should lose yourself in that world in order to enjoy it (the same applies to movie theaters). Every form of entertainment has their methods for pulling you in and making you believe in what's being presented before you, and video games are no different. And unless you're a super cynic or completely jaded to every form of entertainment out there, then it has happened to you at some point in your life whether you were consciously aware of it or not.
So what does everybody think of the "magic circle" concept? Does it apply to you, or are you too privy to these methods that you can't allow yourself to just lose yourself anymore like when you were a child? What are some games that really took you in and made you believe in the world being presented to you, regardless of how ridiculous it might seem outside of the context?
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