ABSTRACT
Interactive fiction—whether in the form of video game, role-playing game, or board game—allows us to intervene significantly in its diegetic content. As such, it raises fears about the immersion it is supposed to produce, an extreme involvement that could blur the discernment of its users. The traditional criticism of the “perfect illusion” linked to the experience of the theater for the uneducated spectator thus reappears in discussion of these new practices. However, the study of the different forms of agency and environment proposed by these fictions shows that many counter-immersive factors prevent ludic engagement from turning into belief.
