Measuring Immersion Through Applying Cinematography to Story-driven Videogames

Abstract

Cinematographic features such as cutscenes are known to be used by videogames to engage players. Story-driven videogames is the genre which usually requires these features and uses them as a tool to make players feel empathy for characters and storylines. However, there is no study yet which proves to what extent these features can improve an immersive experience.

In this thesis, a comparative study was conducted to verify this claim. Two versions of the same story-driven game scene were developed but only one contained cinematographic features. These features were introduced into the scene with an implemented tool named Timeline Node. Participants played the versions and responded to a questionnaire which was developed to quantify the immersion and the empathy felt by players whilst playing the game. Even though several studies have studied immersion in videogames previously, our study contributes to the researched topic by creating a precise questionnaire that can be used for any story-driven videogame.

The questionnaire allowed us to analyse the data from participants. By analysing the statistics of both groups, it was discovered that the group that played the version with cinematographic features had an increment on the immersion of 14.17% and an increment of the empathy felt by 10.49%. In addition, a significant correlation was found between the empathy felt by participants and how immersed they were in the game. When players experience a lot of empathy, the immersion felt is increased.