Comments on: Compartmentalization v. Immersion in Virtual Worlds

By: Eric Goldman

Eric Goldman — Fri, 27 May 2005 15:18:46 +0000

This is a great point. I think it raises the essential question: what does immersion mean, and how does any player compartmentalization affect that? At minimum, I think we need to understand these psychologies more before we attempt to derive any legal implications from them. Thanks for the comment. Eric.

By: Tess

Tess — Fri, 27 May 2005 02:15:28 +0000

(I came here by way of Greg’s post on TerraNova.)

I simply don’t buy into the notion that immersion and compartmentalization are mutually exclusive. It’s psychologically healthy to compartmentalize one’s play experiences, regardless of immersion. Just because the players of this game didn’t buy into the propaganda that it presented doesn’t mean that they weren’t immersed in the experience. It just means that they’re critical thinkers.

By: Terra Nova

Terra Nova — Thu, 26 May 2005 12:55:45 +0000

Cows, Immersion, and Sports Law

My friend Eric Goldman (who I’ve mentioned before as skeptical of much of

By: greglas

greglas — Wed, 25 May 2005 06:41:42 +0000

Thanks for this.

I suppose that one definition of immersion might be the failure to differentiate between real and virtual objects — that’s awfully close to “delusion” though, isn’t it?

If I get time, I’ll post some thoughts on the relevance of these cows over at TN, and do a trackback.

By: The Importance of...

The Importance of... — Wed, 25 May 2005 06:22:20 +0000

Baudrillard and the Virtual Cow

Eric Goldman points to an interesting and amusing paper on the real world impact of virtual worlds (Compartmentalization v. Immersion in Virtual Worlds). The paper discusses whether a virtual cow farm game (Vacheland.com “cow country” [French]), develo…