HCI Lessons From PlayStation VR HABGOOD, Jacob <http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4531-0507>, WILSON, David, MOORE, David and ALAPONT, Sergio Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/16656/ This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version HABGOOD, Jacob, WILSON, David, MOORE, David and ALAPONT, Sergio (2017). HCI Lessons From PlayStation VR. In: Proceeding CHI Play '17 extended abstracts. New York, ACM, 125-135. Copyright and re-use policy See http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive http://shura.shu.ac.uk HCI Lessons From PlayStation VR M.P. Jacob Habgood Sergio Alapont Abstract Steel Minions Game Studio Steel Minions Game Studio PlayStation VR has quickly built up a significant user- Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield Hallam University base of over a million headsets and its own ecosystem South Yorkshire, UK South Yorkshire, UK of games across a variety of genres. These games form [email protected] [email protected] part of a rapidly evolving testing ground for design solutions which can usefully inform HCI design for David Wilson virtual reality. This paper reviews every PlayStation VR Steel Minions Game Studio title released in the first three months of its lifecycle in Sheffield Hallam University order to identify emerging themes for locomotion. South Yorkshire, UK These themes are discussed with respect to the lessons [email protected] learned as part of the on-going development of an Environmental Narrative game for PlayStation VR as David Moore part of the Horizon 2020 REVEAL project. Steel Minions Game Studio Sheffield Hallam University Author Keywords South Yorkshire, UK PlayStation VR; virtual reality; locomotion; motion- [email protected] sickness; Horizon 2020; REVEAL. ACM Classification Keywords H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems: Artificial, Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are augmented and virtual realities. not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for Background components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or This paper reports on work by the Steel Minions game republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior studio at Sheffield Hallam University which is a licensed specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from PlayStation developer, and receives support from Sony [email protected]. Interactive Entertainment under the PlayStation First CHI PLAY'17 Extended Abstracts, October 15–18, 2017, Amsterdam, Programme. This scheme provides the studio with Netherlands © 2017 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication access to PlayStation development hardware and tools, rights licensed to ACM.ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-5111-9/17/10…$15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3130859.3131437 and the studio has already designed, developed and published several commercial products on the PlayStation Store. The studio has been working with PlayStation VR (PSVR) for over a year and has two commercial titles currently in development. The REVEAL Project This research was conducted within the context of the Horizon 2020 REVEAL project: a collaborative Innovation Action involving games industry partners, museums, schools and universities. The project is developing frameworks to facilitate the rapid development of VR-based Educational Environmental Narrative games (EENs) for PlayStation 4. The problem Figure 2: An EEN game set in the home of Edward Jenner. of motion sickness in player locomotion is well documented [1, 7, 11]. However, first-person PlayStation VR perspective player locomotion is essential to The PSVR headset (figure 1) is comparable to the Environmental Narrative games (e.g. Dear Esther and Oculus, and is designed for use in a sitting or standing Gone Home) which are sometimes even referred to as position without walking. PSVR supports rotational and “walking simulators”. REVEAL aims to develop an positional tracking in 3D space, and all players have inclusive VR locomotion system which is accessible to access to at least one Dual Shock 4 controller (figure 3a). These track 3D position and orientation, and are novice users in museums and school contexts as well as typical PlayStation users in the home. Therefore, the designed for use with two hands. Optional PlayStation Figure 1: The PlayStation VR final game must be both simple to use and free from Move controllers are available which track position and headset (a) external view the most extreme effects of motion sickness. orientation separately for each hand (figure 3c). (b) internal view. © Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. As demonstrator for the REVEAL technologies, the Steel SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF PSVR TITLES Minions studio is creating an EEN game based around There is a significant body of academic literature on the the life of Edward Jenner, the Edwardian country doctor topic of virtual reality locomotion which can be used to credited with the invention of vaccination [3]. The inform good design [1, 4, 7, 11, 14]. However, a body game is set within a reconstruction of his family home of commercial work also has the potential to inform The REVEAL consortium partners in Gloucestershire, England (now a museum) and good design. While it is rare for commercial works to be are Sheffield Hallam University, explores the controversial aspects of Jenner's discovery the subject of rigorous empirical evaluations [15], Utrecht University, CNR ITABC, (such as experimentation on children) as well as the market forces often have a similar effect in highlighting VRTRON, UTC Sheffield and The classic story of smallpox, milkmaids and cowpox [16]. successful design solutions. The effect of ‘natural Jenner Trust. The final game will be published on the PlayStation selection’ on game design has fed academic theorizing Store as a digital product. in the field of educational games, for example [2]. Virtual reality gaming may still be at a nascent stage direct control of the camera position as viewed by the where dominant solutions have yet to emerge, but they principal game avatar, and excluded games where the provide a rich gene pool from which to distil promising camera follows a pre-defined path for most of the game ideas and approaches. To this end a systematic review (i.e. “on rails”). This produced a list of 28 games which of existing locomotion solutions for PlayStation VR was were all obtained and played to explore the emerging undertaken to inform the design and development of themes for player locomotion in PlayStation VR titles. potential movement mechanics for REVEAL. Locomotion Themes in PlayStation VR Inclusion Criteria The following section describes the different locomotion Our inclusion criteria encompassed all PSVR titles techniques used in our sample, grouped according to (digital and physical products) released in PlayStation’s themes and ordered by frequency. European publishing region, during the first three months following the headset’s launch (on October 13th None 2016). Examination of the PlayStation Stores for the It is important to note that 23 of the PSVR games in other two publishing regions indicated that almost our sample (45%) contained no independent camera identical PSVR products were available in North movements of any kind. Although no comparable data America, while a number of unique titles were only was recorded for 'non-VR' games, fixed camera available in Japan. As it would be difficult for the positions are far less common in 3D games which aren’t research team to obtain and understand Japanese designed for virtual reality. This suggests that game products, this region was excluded from our analysis. designers are conscious of the potential issues with Initially, only PlayStation 4 tiles badged as “PlayStation motion sickness and player locomotion, and many VR required” were included, and only if they weren’t choose to avoid it completely by designing VR games also badged as “Apps” (rather than games). However, which provide VR head-tracking, but no locomotion. these initial criteria only yielded 37 results and so the Flight range of release dates was expanded up to 24th January Seven games were classified as using flight-based 2016, when 14 new PSVR products were released on locomotion in our sample, as they allowed continuous the same day. Some titles previously excluded for only independent movement in three dimensions (including being badged as PlayStation VR “compatible” rather in the ocean). In the real-world, the perception of than “required” were now included if they contained motion in flight is often dependant on the relative locomotion as a core element of the game. This Figure 3: PlayStation Controllers. moment of other objects around you. It's not surprising Dual Shock 4, from above (a) and produced 51 games (38 digital and 13 physical) which then that flying close to ground level in VR (e.g. Eagle front (b). PlayStation Move was deemed an appropriate sample for the review. Flight) tends to introduce more problems with motion controllers (c). © Sony Publicly available gameplay videos and/or free demos Interactive Entertainment Inc. sickness than in outer space (e.g. EVE: Valkyrie). were then used to establish which of the games Many flight-based games incorporate the additional included ‘player-controlled locomotion’. Our definition complication of requiring continuous movement and only included games which provided the player with rotation in three dimensions. While research suggests team—particularly when moving and rotating at the that there isn’t a dominant axis around which virtual same time. Some of the games included a degree of scene movement is more tolerable, it does suggest that automatic turning based on the relative direction of the more axes of rotation will induce higher levels of head with respect to the direction of travel (i.e.