What is an immersive gamer?

Immersion is a collective term for all the things within a game (or movie, or book, or theme-park attraction,) that contribute to the suspension of disbelief. The things that help you forget you are playing a game. When you play a shooter game, and numbers scroll off the top of your character's head every time you lose life, that breaks immersion. It reminds you that this is just a game. If there are circles on the ground around your character and his or her party, or a conspicuous heads-up display (unless of course, you're playing a cyber game and have robot eyes, or feedback-enabled goggles or something,) or funky sound effects every time you use a tool or draw a weapon- all those things remind you that this is just a game.  An immersive gamer seeks to remove or avoid as much as possible anything that will have this reminding effect, and will seek out games and mods which eliminate such distractions.

Immersion gaming is not about realism- although realism can strongly contribute to immersion, in fact, in a sense, realism and immersion are complimentary sides of the same coin. Immersion is about what you DON'T want to see or experience, whereas realism is about the things you DO want to see or experience. While immersion contributes to realism, and vice versa,  they are distinct concepts, and immersive gamers span the spectrum as to precisely how much realism they desire from their gaming experience. Some just don't want basic game mechanics to distract them. Others want to walk from place to place on the game map in real time, and experience the very blisters on their virtual feet.

I fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, myself, and often drift around inside it, prefering more or less realism from my game on any given day.

The single biggest reason for wanting to immerse this way is for the sake of roleplay. For the hours during which I am playing a character within a game world, I want to be that person, in that place. You might say it's much like method acting, in that respect, but of course, it's generally for our own pleasure, rather than the benefit of others.

Immersing in a game changes it fundamentally. The objectives change. You are no longer trying to win, to level up, to earn achievements- instead, you, as the character you play, are trying to survive, to overcome an enemy, to solve a mystery. Beating the game becomes irrelevant. Being the game becomes everything.