On immersion: Empathy in game design

Gameplay
#1

I hust happen to read an interesting blog on empathy in game design which cast a new light on all our discussions about immersion, about 1st person vs 3rd person and about how we personally engage in a story-driven video game. It’s a follow up blog on another blog of the same author in which he explained why he personally wasn’t immersed in Beyond: Two Souls).

Let me explain what this article is all about and why I think it’s crucia to understand the concept of empathy both as a game designer and as a gamer:

The article is based on a very simple observation. The author noticed that people can experience and evaluate story-driven games (here Beyond: Two Souls) completely differently. He asked himself why that is the case and he concluded that it’s based on our own personal take on how we enjoy games and how we personally feel empathy in games.
"Empathy is the capacity to recognize emotions that are being experienced by another sentient or fictional being."
Empathy is the core mechanism that makes story-driven games work as emotional engaging experiences (as well as every other medium like movies or books of course). But how does this change the way we feel personally immersed in such a game?

The problem is that there are different types of empathy and different takes on how to play a game and feel immersed. On a very simple level there are two destictive types of empathy, cognitive empathy (understanding anothers perspective or mental state) and emotional empathy (being involuntarily affected by another’s mental state). These types of empathy define the way we experience a story. But our personal ratio between these two basic types of empathy also defines how we experience a story. Some people are more emotionally connected others are more mentally connected. That defines the very basic way we feel immersion. It’s crucial to understand that in order to also understand why some people prefer 1st person gameplay and other people prefer 3rd person gameplay. It’s about the way each person feels empathy for the game, if they want to “be” the game character (what would most people identify as real role-playing) which is connected to a strong cognitive empathy or if they they want to “protect” or “take care” of the game character which is connected to strong emotional empathy. Of course most people probably feel both types of empathy in good story-driven games, but their personal ratio between them decides whether they feel they are well immersed or not.

That’s another quote from the blog:

“For example, it’s easier to induce emotional empathy when a game is in third person perspective. We can actually see the character we are supposed to empathize with, so we are more aware this is not “us” and thus our brain is a bit more inclined to increase the level of emotional empathy.
Another example: the more the protagonist is synced with the player’s own beliefs and desires, the smaller levels of cognitive empathy are needed to get the player immersed in the experience. If the character is mentally alienating to the player, people who cannot reach the highest levels of cognitive empathy would not be able to enjoy role-playing such character. This is why silent, amnesiac (or at least baggage-free), or player-created protagonists work so well in role-playing games.”

So what does that tell us? It tells us that it’s too short sighted to say that 1st person it the best immersive perspective we have. It’s probably even wrong to call virtual reality the best tech for immersion available (in a near future). The problem is that this is both true and false. It just depends on you personal ability to feel empathy. A great 1st person game which let you be the game character might be a great immersive experience for people with a great sense of cognitive empathy while a great 3rd person game which let your take care of your game character might be a great immersive experience for people with a great sense of emotional empathy.

Let’s take Kingdom Come: Deliverance for example. The game is clearly marketed as a first person role-playing game so it caters primarily to people who enjoy role-playing in most of their games and enjoy becoming the lead game character. But we humans are not black or white creatures. It’s not an either-or thing, we always have both, cognitive and emotional empathy (just sociopaths have none). So also people with a great sense of emotional empathy are attracted by this game because they still also have cognitive empathy. They can “live” with the 1st person perspective and the concept to become the character but they often wish features which are more connected with emotional empathy like the possiblity to see their own character sometimes (and his nice armor) and to see his surroundings.

It’s a misconception to think that people who prefer 3rd person games want less immersion in their games. They are just immersed on a different level or follow another route to immersion. It’s hard (and not always reasonable) to cater to everything as a game designer but you should at least respect that humans are complex beings and therefore their cognitive and emotional connections with a game and the experiences they gain while playing can greatly differ. That’s the reason why story-driven games (best example are still the kind of “interactive novels” like The Walking Dead or Beyond: Two Souls) and open world 1st person games (take Skyrim) are often that disputatious with a reputtaion ranging from bad to good among gamers (and critiques). But even then you can’t just say that 1st person caters to person one and 3rd person caters to person two. Even within these “perspective genres” there are certain elements that cater to one type of gamer much more to the other. It’s more a question on all levels of game design. The camera perspective is perhaps the easiest one to notice but it’s not done with that.

In the blog gamers are categorized (of course only as an approximation and not seen as a solid fact) in five different groups you can cater to as a game designer:

“…Tamagotchi: high emotional empathy, prefers to affect the narrative either as omnipotent invisible being acting on the desires and beliefs of the protagonist or as a blank slate protagonist acting on the desires and beliefs of fleshed out NPCs. Autonomy is less important to them as long as their actions will produce results positively affecting the protagonist or NPCs.
…Writer: high cognitive empathy, can role-play anyone but it’s easier for them if the protagonist is close to their beliefs, desires, and knowledge of the world, or if the protagonist is a blank slate/self-created one (will replace the protagonist with themselves); providing them with autonomy and agency is crucial, as they wish to execute on and experiment with the perspective taken.
…Distant Witness: low emotional and cognitive empathy, does not really care about emotional side of the narrative or its cohesiveness, but requires a broadly understood spectacle to maintain interest.
…Actor: anything goes, but requires relative agency and autonomy to not hurt the cognitive empathy and fleshed out protagonists or NPCs to not hurt the emotional empathy.
…Plasticine: most common type, fluid emotional and cognitive empathy that can be manipulated by the designer to the desired levels.”

To understand that there are different types of players and different types of empathy should help both game designers and players to discuss games on a more reasonable way without the usual prejudices like “I feel immersed so everyone else has to feel the same.” or “This game was a great story-driven experience. I don’t know why others don’t like it. They must be mad.” They can also help developers to examine to which kind of people their game exactly appeals and why and how could they possibly market their game best or even appeal new groups of gamers.

Like always your preferences in gaming depend on your own tastes, experiences, wishes and expectations. But on a more psychological level these elements can be summarized as types of empathy, at least for story-driven games (competitive games (sports games, multiplayer games, story-free puzzle games,…) are a different issue with different attitudes of course).

I strongly recommend you reading the original blog since I only delivered a very short summary of its content and I’m also not a native English speaker. The second article is also a good read and explains why the author even began to look into the topic of empathy in game design. In connection, both cast a sophisticated and well thought light on the topic of immersion and player engagement in story-driven video games. There are also additional and even more in-depth articles linked in the blog which should help you to further explore the topic if you’re interested.

As always feel free to discuss and share your thoughts on the topic, but please in a civilized and reasonable manner (this topic contain mostly the point of view of the blog author). :wink:

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#2

There are games with much empathy but low immersion. And there are games with much immersion but low empathy (maybe IL-2 for example).
I think empathy can be good for immersion, but you can also have immersion without any empathy.

Thats what I’m thinking in the moment, but maybe I will be convinced if I read the long post a second time…

#3

Hm, I don’t know if we’re both on the same level here: in my point of view we always feel some kind of empathy since empathy is a basic mosaic of human thinking and feeling and we all think and feel all the time so there is no way that there is no empathy. Immersion is imo the level of how well you are personally involved into a game. It’s a strange creation which is highly subjective and therefore can’t be easily described. It’s maybe the best to stay true to the natural meaning of the word which is a synonym of “diving into”. Immersion is according to that the level how deep you are as player in the game.

But I think the reason for your disagreement is more or less a misunderstanding. I didn’t talk about how a well designed game leads to immersion by empathy. I talked about how you personally even define immersion for yourself. What leads to immersion for yourself in a video game? What elements should be there to define an immersive experience for you?

Imo there are of course many elements that could be important. But on a more condensed level you can say that the basic design of a game already defines whether the game will be really immersive for you or not and it’s the type of empathy in game design which leads to that outcome. You personal ratio between cognitive and emotional empathy defines not only how you play games but also what games you possibly like in general.

I suggest you may read the original blogs. I’m curious if you still disagree with me then and if yes, of course also why… :wink:

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#4

Pretty damn good read that. Thank you.

Edit- Oooh, and by the creators of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter as well, can’t get any better :smiley:

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#5

I lack empathy in real life so I don’t think it’s particularly important for immersion in a game. I think people are looking for an emotion/realtionship simulator? Please don’t. I just want to be a badass in the medieval period. Don’t ruin that by making people are crying and sobbing and shit. That has no effect on me.

Thanks

#6

I don’t think you even read my post or the blog and just stated something what you think would fit to the word “empathy”. That’s sad tbh.

This topic is nothing about an emotion/relationship simulator, not at all. I think you misunderstood the basic concept of human empathy and its effect on gaming.

2 Likes
#7

That’s funny. Today (maybe 6 hours ago) I actually took an exam in “media psychology”. The topic was (among other things) about cognitive and emotional media effects. But not about empathy in video games. :smile: I was just engaged with psychology the last days.

Your post is well written and contains lots of interesting aspects. Thanks for that. There are lots of threads about the matter of 1st or 3rd person perspective. For me it isn’t that important to enjoy a game. I get mostly immersed by a good story and the atmosphere in the game (The Witcher made a good job concering this matter). I get even more involved in a well written book. Maybe it’s due to the fact that you have to imagine the world by your own. In games it gets presented by graphics. While reading books I think I look from outside at the character (in my imagination). So, am I more the guy with emotional empathy. Is this even comparable to the empathy in video games?

#9

I would say: Immersion is the level how deep you are as player in the avatar.

Therfore:
Immersion means: Avatar = I
Empathy means: Avatar = another being

But thats just an opinion. I also like yours and therefore I’m unsure …

#10

I think it’s worth exploring why you prefer certain elements in game and if there is any consistency in your wishes and expectations. I only took 1st person and 3rd person because it’s a very vivid example. As I said, the human being is complex and in most cases simple models can only approximate the real world.
Empathy is not a rock solid element of our being, it’s more in constant movement, depending on our experiences and our moods.
Back to 1st person and 3rd person and immersion in gaming I think it’s also worth asking what we ourselves expect from a story-(and character-)driven video game: do we want to become the main character or do we want to “watch” him in order to care about him? That more or less the basic question whether we prefer 1st person or 3rd person. The decision itself is based on our level of empathy (which can change, so it’s only a time-critical decision). That doesn’t of course mean that the respective game will be immersive. It’s the other way round. If the basic concept of the game is “against” our basic preference we’re much more likely to value it less than we would with another concept. We probably constantly search for possiblities to pull the design of the game in the direction we like, the direction in which we promise ourselves a better immersive experience. Of course some people can also be quite indifferent if they have a more or less balanced level of empathy. But that also means that they probably constantly search for possiblites to be pleased in both ways…
.
For your book question: books are indeed different because you have to imagine all the stuff that happens. But even in books there are for examples different perspectives, similar to 1st and 3rd person in games. But books work on a different level since we don’t have the possiblity to change the outcome of the story or define our own actions. We just “viewers from the outside”, we have neither the possiblity to become a character not to take care of one (that’s a special feature of interactive experiences). We can just read and follow. We have no chance to adjust some kind of “feature” in a way that caters more to our own taste and our own level of empathy in a book. Fiction books naturally cater to all kinds of empathy in order to engage the reader (at least good books do). :wink:

#11

My statements (aka the statements of the blog) of course just work with my definitions. They’re not set in stone (that’s why I explained them) and most likely everyone has different meaning for them, more or less. Maybe you could replace them with words you see better fit in order to maintain the meaning behind the whole topic but that’s up to each individual. :wink:

#12

That was really interesting. I too recommend reading the original blog, because frankly - your summary didn’t really convince me. But you’ve fueled my interest enough to make me read the blog, I give you that. But I also had the misconception that emotional empathy has a better quality than cognitive empathy, which made me defensive. After reading the blog I maybe value cognitive empathy even higher.

At first I thought that this is all bullshit because I consider myself strongly affected by other peoples emotions but rather count myself as a “writer” type of gamer.
For example I’m a person who we call “Fremdschämer” in german, it roughly means that I’m ashamed for another person instead of feeling “Schadenfreude” (coincidentally a german loanword), no matter how much I despise that person.
After reading the blog I realized that that might be not because I feel emotional empathy, but because I automatically slip into the skin of every person I meet, being cognitively empathic.

Oh this isn’t a scientific article by the way, so I’ll take my insight with a grain of salt.

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#13

Yup. I feel a lot can be achieved if we throw more thought into why people prefer what they prefer in their games, and, after all, using this knowledge properly is what leads to companies like Blizzard selling millions copies of just about anything. Still, videogames are a relatively young medium, so serious research on the subject is extremely sparse and then even good designers rely on ‘that special something’ they can do without quite knowing what it is. We need more people wondering why this and that works.

Nope :stuck_out_tongue: I love how inconsistent people are.

I do believe that comparison to any media is pretty much impossible. Even tho entire tone of a book is drastically different depending on the choice of first and third person storytelling, it’s still watching someone else do stuff - I don’t think there’s ever been a form of media that allowed you to do whatever you wanted to, aside from your imagination of course that has been used very nicely by Pen and Paper games.

#14

Reading the original blog is indeed the better option, I fully agree. :wink:

It’s also sad that there are only very few really scientific articles on topics like that. Video games are still not a well covered scientific subject. :frowning:

#15

To empathize with the character he needs emotions, a background story and comprehensible reasons for his actions. In books this is usually given. But in games I need that too to build an emotional binding to the character, otherwise it just feels like controlling the guy. The perspective and also appearance of the character is negligibly. In many games, the character is quite exchangeable, then I don’t empathize with him. It does’t mean that I play only games with a good story. I also enjoy a lot of other games as well.
Maybe I talk a lot of bullshit. Because it’s difficult to analyse your own gaming behaviour. Next time I will watch myself while playing.

Another consideration: As there is already a difference between books and games, i think our empathy behavoiur is also very different to reality and real persons. Just saying, because @Fimbul mentioned a real life example -> Fremdschämen (btw: die meisten hier in diesem Thread sind glaube deutsch)

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#16

“Another consideration: As there is already a difference between books and games, i think our empathy behavoiur is also very different to reality and real persons.”

I think so too. I may be emotionally empathic in “real live” but the thought of actually feeling for a virtual entity is absolutely mind blowing to me. The blog takes frogger as example: An emotional empathic person would feel like the frog - “poor little froggy” - as if the frog was a real living beeing, while a cognitive empathic person would feel in place of the frog, imagining to be the frog. Because I know the frog is merely a sprite that changes it’s position and vector according to an algorithm, feeling for the frog is absolutely incomprehensible for me. It is actually more obvious to me to imagine myself in the situation and feel my own feelings. So just because it is like that doesn’t mean I’m less capable of emotional empathy, it’s just not logical in this situation.

#17

Thanks for sharing! :smile:
This was very enlightening. I have a much higher understanding, of why I find certain games cool now.

#18

Interesting post, thanks for sharing. I wish there were a study or something showing that these conclusions/ideas are probably correct.

For me I like 3rd person because I tend to drive better then I do in 1st person, but I still enjoy both types. I do wonder if it actually has an ‘empathetic’ effect on me.

#19

Thanks for sharing this, it was a great read.

#20

That was an interesting read. I think its why I’m happy that the game is in 1st but the dialogue is in 3rd. I get the best of both worlds that way.

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#21

Really interesting read, Specially enlightening, personally, because now I started to have an actual understanding of the thought process that I go trough when playing games, and why my reactions are the way they are. Also, it’s a topic I pretend to touch upon on my study group (game developing-oriented) on our next session.

And on the topic of perspective for KCD, I think what they showed thus far (Third person view for dialogues, first person elsewhere) is pretty much what I, personally, find enough for complete immersion. I also think that some people seems to expect the main character to be that tabula rasa baggage-free that we can “write” ourselves over, but I don’t think it’s the case. Not that it’s a full fledged character with his every detail set in stone, since it gives us so many options… It’s somewhere in between, he’s not “whatever you want him to be”, and he isn’t somebody who just popped up and have no connection to the very land he’s in… That way, I think they can cater to all those five types of gamers (based on empathy) cited…

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