Good morning.
My name is John Porter III.
I'm under Dr. Andrew Robb at Clemson University.
And today I'll be presenting an analysis of longitudinal trends
in consumer thoughts on presence and simulator
sickness in VR games.
It's a long thing, it's a long title.
But don't worry.
We'll get through it.
So the television, the radio, movies, the cell phone,
and the console.
What do all of these pictures have in common?
One, they are the initial infant versions of themselves.
Two, they have somehow globally entwined
within our everyday lives.
And three, they're all used for some sort of social or gaming
interaction.
So our question was, does VR fit these other criteria?
We think so.
So our research question is, in terms of research perceptions
as users have become more accustomed to consumer VR--
now that has been released to the general public--
what longitudinal trends are we seeing?
And how are they changing over time?
To answer this we used Reddit, which I found out yesterday
a lot of other people are using to find research.
So I'm very excited.
So for those of you who aren't sure what Reddit is,
it's a very popular social discussion website
ranked very highly both in the US and worldwide.
Has a large amount of users and active communities
where people can have conversations
about different topics that they're very interested in.
The one we chose to select our research focus on is the /r/
Vive.
For those of you who aren't familiar with what a Vive is,
it is a VR headset.
One of the more popular ones that
was released in April 2016, which
is when we began our Reddit post search, all the way
to two years after.
We selected the Vive because of all the different affordances
it had, and how popular it was based on other VR headsets
at the time.
During our search we chose three topics to look into.
VR sickness, which is the virtual reality
version of motion sickness, and immersion, and presence.
For the sake of time, and also because of the themes that we
found that were correlated, immersion and presence
will be reduced into just one topic.
So we chose VR sickness because it is pretty much
what we found to be what makes VR not enjoyable for players
as compared to other consoles that they can play.
Because obviously it makes people sick.
And it usually happens because players can see movement,
but then since they aren't experiencing movement,
they suffer some type of physiological sickness.
Presence and immersion is the opposite.
We found that it is what makes VR more enjoyable than maybe
some other consoles, because of all the different things
you can do and how it makes you feel
when you're in a VR headset compared
to playing things on a screen.
So all the data collection.
We had a large amount of Reddit posts
that we read through to get through all these topics,
and through that two years.
So we were only able to sample them for every three months
that we could try to collect an accurate
amount of longitudinal data.
In that three-month interval, we read about an average
of 30 posts per topic.
So that's three topics, equalling to about 800 posts,
a little over 800 posts.
All with comments ranging in each post anywhere between 1
to 300.
So it's a lot of comments, a lot of posts.
And as we read posts, they were constantly compared and coded
using thematic content analysis to strengthen our major themes
and sub themes.
So without further ado, let's get into the data we found.
For the sake of time, because I have two years' worth of data,
I just put it into early posts and later posts.
The early posts is about the things
that we found within the first year or so,
and then the later posts is about the things
we found in the second year.
So in regards to presence, one of the major things
we found in the early post is hardware affordances
can lay the foundation for presence
both positively and negatively.
So with vertical FOV, motion controls,
these are the things that the Vive itself
has over other headsets that increased presence more
for players over time.
Whereas having missing frame rates, or flickering or dead
pixels, and just the general dislike of the lens at the time
reduced the presence.
So depending on what type of hardware you're using,
you can greatly affect the users' presence.
Even though the negative things, most users did
agree that it was self-made error from improper setup.
The other thing we found was that looks aren't everything,
but failed expectations are.
So if a user sees your game, they
don't really care as much if it's realistic or very fancy,
and graphically sound, but more concerned
if things work the way they intend to work.
So if everything looks nice but things
are not working like they think it should in that world,
then that's when players lose presence dramatically.
So for example, Minecraft doesn't look realistic,
but players enjoy it because it actually works the way
that they feel it should.
In the later posts this is extended,
where users felt not just that things in the world
should work as they should, but also the interactions
themselves.
So if a player tries to pick up something, or something
drops to the floor and it ends up going through the floor,
that'll dramatically pull them out
of their feeling of presence in the game,
because the things that they're trying to interact with
are also not working as they should.
And this also extends to having important signifiers,
because if players have to guess and figure out things
that they can and can't interact with,
it will also greatly reduce their presence.
I know I'm talking more negatively about things that
will reduce presence, but if you follow these things,
then it'll actually increase it more so-- or at least keep it
level--
if they're already feeling present.
So let's go back in time to early posts
again from the view of motion sickness.
We found that users often wondered why were they
experiencing motion sickness?
How did they stop motion sickness?
Where's it coming from?
And the users' discussion that we found came to three things
in the end.
One, they blamed the developers, because some of the developers
were moving the players' point of view
around without the players' consent, which
made them considerably sick.
Two, self-made error.
They realized that some of them just
weren't following the instructions that
came with the Vive when they opened it.
So they weren't actually setting it up properly,
which sometimes caused motion sickness.
And three, some, most agreed that it's just
something-- a part of life.
People just get in VR, they get motion sick,
because maybe you need to practice more,
and then eventually you won't have motion sickness anymore.
And the other major thing in motion sickness
in the early posts was the large amount
of debate over what type of locomotion techniques
should be allowed.
In the beginning it was always teleportation,
where users were actually very comfortable with teleportation
because it made less people sick.
But as we saw over time, people started
to get more upset with that because they
felt they were limited.
So there was a large amount of debate that rose over time.
In the later posts, we found that users actually
became more mature in their understanding of motion
sickness, and eventually understood
that it's just better to give more options to the users.
So if they have more options of different locomotion techniques
they can use, it makes everyone happy,
because some people enjoy teleportation,
while some enjoy other forms of locomotion--
of movements and such--
where some people can get sick and some people
don't, and it's just as simple as that.
And finally, in the later posts, we actually
notice that users were becoming an active part of the solution
to motion sickness, where they were helping
to advise other users in the post discussions
about how they got motion sickness, and how
they were able to overcome it, and the like.
Also offering suggestions to developers on how to help
improve the current locomotion techniques
so that it can expand to a broader audience.
So my takeaway points for things that the developers should
try to consider when making VR games
would be, one, that although novice users can and will
adapt to the new hardware and software,
they will be excited about the nuances of VR
but eventually that will wear off.
They are like children.
You start in VR, everything seems
really flashy and interesting.
But as you get accustomed to it, the flash wears off.
And now they want to get more to the nitty-gritty
of interactions and more important topics.
So just be aware.
One of the most important things I can say
is that clear signifiers and expected outcomes
can greatly impact presence and acceptance of your game.
If players can't easily find out or figure out
what they can and can't interact with,
and things aren't working as what they expected should,
it will immediately impact their presence.
And they may just get rid of your game
and start negatively talking about it to other people.
It's best to try to offer as many multiple locomotive
options as you possibly can.
I know that's a hard thing to try
to integrate in a game-- just integrating one is probably
enough.
But if you can, try to integrate two.
Just because some people might not like that one,
and if you can add more variety in your game,
then it's the best, the better.
And my last is, keeping up with these social channels
is going to be very beneficial to designers, we think.
Because in the Reddit posts, and maybe some other social areas,
it's a good place for developers to find short- and long-term
design goals, and also to let the users get
an insight into where they're currently thinking they're
heading with their game.
And then the users themselves can let you know things
that they feel will be good or bad in the early stages
of iteration.
That way you can get it fixed before you actually
send the game out, and get more immediate feedback.
And that is it.
So I'd like to give a special thanks to my advisor,
Dr. Andrew Robb, Clemson University,
NSF grant for funding my research,
and the Clemson Human Factors Institute for providing
my travel.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Hello, hi.
Hello.
This is [INAUDIBLE] from [INAUDIBLE]
so the hosting university.
Thank you for your talk.
It's interesting.
But I was wondering a couple of things.
On the one hand, I think it would be useful always that
when you pose these sort of studies you make sure that you
define head-mounted-display-based VR,
because virtual reality can have many system configurations.
So it can be misleading as to how broad this study is
being dealt with.
So head-mounted display doesn't actually
mean VR or VR doesn't mean head-mounted display.
So just-- that's an extra comment.
But I was also wondering, have you contrasted all these
with other scientific journals and papers
that have been posed on presence and motion sickness?
Because Reddit tends to have a lot of people
that speak out of the top of their heads,
and there's journals such as Presence--
Teleoperators and Virtual Environments,
which have discussed all these topics
like broadly since the '90s.
And there's a huge amount of literature on that.
So for example, with regards to motion sickness,
it's quite clear nowadays that it's
because a misalignment between different sensory inputs.
So for example, having only visual input of motion,
and not correlating with physical proprioception
and kinesthetic perception of the motion.
So those things are something that we already know,
and that I thought it would be interesting to bring up
in your study.
On the other hand, with respect to presence,
I was also a bit surprised that in a context
of [INAUDIBLE],, in which we are currently in,
which we try to very often make fantastic worlds
that are not simulation, that all your analysis of presence
is very based on simulation.
So if something falls off your hand virtually,
and it falls through the floor, it
ceases your sense of presence.
Well, but if that's the way I want to build my fantastic
world, because strange things happen,
because strange things are fun--
When we design play activities-- playful activities, well,
where does presence come in in that moment?
Is it important to have presence?
Is it not?
But moreover, there are many studies
which say that presence should not be linked to simulation.
So I would like to know your position about all this.
OK, a lot to unpack.
Let me just, let--
[LAUGHTER]
--me just, let me, give me a second.
I want to make sure I answer all your questions.
The first is you are completely correct.
Head-mounted display is not the equivalent of VR.
I apologize.
I just wanted to make sure that--
well, regardless.
But the second was, presence and motion sickness
in the literature as compared to what I found here.
The purpose of this paper was to get
an idea of how the user in the consumer base
is looking at presence and simulator sickness
through their lens so that we can have an understanding of--
Because you're correct, I have read literature
on presence and simulator sickness,
and I know the different nuances of where we're at currently
as researchers.
But with this, it's more to find out
what the average Joe, the consumer,
believes or sees presence and simulator sickness,
and getting an understanding of their aspect.
Because eventually-- because, I mean, ultimately
we're building these games, we're building it for them.
So to get an understanding of where
their mindset is as they go into VR we thought
would be very beneficial.
Also there's actually a large amount
of researchers and developers and people
that do understand the differences between presence
and immersion, and simulator sickness versus VR
sickness in these Reddit posts.
So all these Reddit posts aren't just
from people that have no idea.
There's also a large amount of people
that are very experienced in these topics that
are having these discussions.
And your last question--
Well, no, no.
You've answered it.
Oh.
Yeah, but actually what I'm trying to put through
is that maybe by addressing these issues in this manner
we're just reinforcing those misconceptions.
Not only in the people out in the street, the lay people,
but also scientists that haven't read all that--
Yes.
--that we have read, right.
So I think it would be important to change those perspectives.
Yes.
Because they are completely wrong, actually.
Yes.
Thank you.
No problem.
I'll be around if you have more questions.