A Best-Fit Framework and Systematic Review of Asymmetric Gameplay in Multiplayer Virtual Reality Games

Katja Rogers,Dennis Wolf,Sukran Karaosmanoglu,Lennart E Nacke,Frank Steinicke

doi:10.3389/frvir.2021.694660

Katja Rogers, Dennis Wolf + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2021.694660

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Abstract

Increasingly, virtual reality (VR) design and research leverages gameplay asymmetries, flattening discrepancies of interface, abilities, information or other aspects between players. A common goal is to induce social interactions that draw players without head-mounted displays into a shared game world. Exploring these asymmetries resulted in many artifacts, creating an innovative yet disparate research landscape that showcases points for improvement in coverage of the field and theoretical underpinnings. In this article, we present a literature review of asymmetry in multiplayer VR games, using a framework synthesis method to assess the field through a lens of existing literature on asymmetries in gameplay. We provide an overview of this emerging subfield and identify gaps and opportunities for future research. Moreover, we discuss how research artifacts address prior theoretical work and present a “best fit” framework of asymmetric multiplayer VR games for the community to build upon.

Highlights

Virtual reality (VR) technology has received immense interest from researchers, developers, designers, and the games industry alike in recent years
We argue that a systematic approach and close integration of theory-driven games research is essential to leverage the full potential of asymmetric multiplayer virtual reality (VR) games
While time will bear out the use of the refined framework, we suggest that it has generative, structural, and analytical potential: it could inform the design of asymmetric multiplayer VR games to systematically explore the overall design space, scaffold reporting and description of such games, and guide both future evaluations and literature reviews of such games

Summary

Introduction

Virtual reality (VR) technology has received immense interest from researchers, developers, designers, and the games industry alike in recent years. The immersive quality of VR technologies, in particular head-mounted displays (HMDs), has received criticism for its potentially isolating characteristics, both technologically and socially (Boland and McGill, 2015). This isolation risk has inspired game designs that enhance the VR experience by including bystanders as co-players. Progress in VR has long been entangled with “other” forms of realities resulting in mixed realities (MR; Milgram and Kishino, 1994), which enrich the real world with virtual content as in augmented reality (AR) or augmented virtuality (AV), which “mutually reflect, influence, and merge into each other” (Lifton, 2007) Such mutual interactions between realities is often described as cross-reality (XR; Want, 2009) or blended reality (Schmidt et al, 2019), and increasingly refers to any exchange of information between realities “to [. VR researchers are exploring the questions of understanding how different environments (e.g., public, private) and familiarity among users can affect XR experiences (O’Hagan et al, 2020), how they can provide VR users with an awareness of the presence of those around them (McGill et al, 2015; O’Hagan and Williamson, 2020), and whether bystanders can understand the experiences of VR users by observing them (George et al, 2019)

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