Short paper · 2015

First Person vs. Third Person Perspective in Digital Games: Do Player Preferences Affect Immersion?

Denisova, A., & Cairns, P.

ConferenceCORE conference ranking: CORE A*Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'15), 2015

Teaser figure: mean IEQ immersion of 117.3 in first person versus 107.1 in third person after 15 minutes of Skyrim, with findings that preferred view did not change total immersion. — Open full-size image

In short

It is often assumed that playing in first person is more immersive than third person, but there was little evidence for it. Forty players spent 15 minutes on an early quest in Skyrim in either first- or third-person view, said which view they usually prefer, and rated their immersion with the Immersive Experience Questionnaire.

In games

The game in the study

In the paper

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

2011

Players can switch freely between first- and third-person view, which made it possible to compare the two perspectives in the same game.

How the study worked

Game: Skyrim on the PS3, with the option to change perspective disabled
Task: Complete (at least partially) ‘The Golden Claw Quest’, one of the very first missions in the game
Design: Two groups playing in either first or third person, also factoring in their pre-existing preferences for a particular perspective
Play time: A tutorial in the same perspective, then 15 minutes of play
Measures: Immersion, using the 31-item IEQ

Key findings

Players were more immersed in first person than in third person (mean IEQ 117.3 vs 107.1), a medium-to-large effect.
Players' preferred perspective did not change their overall immersion.
First person raised cognitive involvement and real-world dissociation; challenge was the one component affected by both perspective and preference.

Read and cite

PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version (DOI)

APA citation

Denisova, A., & Cairns, P. (2015). First Person vs. Third Person Perspective in Digital Games: Do Player Preferences Affect Immersion? In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'15) (pp. 145-148).