Thirteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society

Abstract

The paper relies on surveys conducted on a random sample of university students who were asked to play an interactive online movie, Surviving The Crime. The result of the survey showed that “avid gamers” found the interactivity (or the game play) too basic to be immersive while regular moviegoers found the interactivity distracting. The problem was that while most who surveyed had positive comments on the narrative, production values and acting, the majority indicated that they were less likely to repeat the experience and would prefer watching a traditional movie or play an FMV game. The paper concludes that for interactive movies to succeed and have more chance to immerse viewers in the experience they need to include simple interactive mechanisms that can enable non-gamers to stay immersed in the story while watching the movie thus ensuring that the “movie fan” viewer can immerse more in the interactivity without loosing the narrative. At the same time for the gamers to engage with the narrative in interactive fiction the interactivity needs to allow for a more complex mechanisms so as to be more challenging to match the level of skills required from a full motion video games thus achieving flow.