What Distinguishes a Traditional Gaming Experience from One in Virtual Reality? An Exploratory Study

Despite the rapid and significant growth of virtual reality based video games, scientific studies have not yet been conducted to highlight the outstanding differences of this kind of immersive video games as compared to the more traditional kind (i.e. not immersive, for instance tablet or console games). Peculiarly, very little information is provided about the players’ experience during a virtual reality game. On the basis of these observations, the paper presents an exploratory study aimed to compare the players’ experience while performing a video game in an immersive (virtual reality) and in a non-immersive (tablet) condition. In order to address this objective, 10 participants, within the age range of 18 to 35 years old, were asked to play Smash Hit, a first person game in which the player is provided with an inventory of metallic spheres with which to aim and break glass obstacles. The video game was played by participants on to different display modalities: immersive (virtual reality) and non-immersive (tablet) condition. Psychometric (self-report questionnaires assessing emotional responses and usability of the video game) and physiological (heart rate) measures were used as quantitative dependent variables. The experimental design and results of this exploratory study will be presented and discussed.