Analysis of Immersive Virtual Reality Vs. Desktop 3D Games
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ANALYSIS OF IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL REALITY VS. DESKTOP 3D GAMES Thesis Presented by Prasad Raut to The College of Arts, Media and Design In partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Science in Game Science and Design Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts December, 2018 ANALYSIS OF IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL REALITY VS. DESKTOP 3D GAMES by Prasad Raut ABSTRACT Virtual Reality(VR) has become popular in the past few years. Due to this, besides video games, VR is now being used in applications designed in fields of education, fitness, healthcare, etc. to improve the effectiveness of those applications. In this research, a comparative study between immersive virtual reality and desktop real-time 3D was made to determine the various attributes and which medium of game was more effective. An analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, gathered by means of mixed methods, was performed on the responses of participants playing these immersive and non-immersive versions of the game and the results are discussed in the paper. Keywords: Virtual Reality, Desktop 3D, Think-Aloud Protocol, Video Analysis, Sentiment Analysis Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Game Science and Design in the Graduate School of the College of Arts, Media and Design of Northeastern University December, 2018 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank my thesis advisor Dr. Celia Pearce for helping me with the qualitative analysis of the study and giving me feedback that helped me extensively with this research. I would next like to thank my thesis instructor Christoffer Holmgård Pedersen for the insightful feedback, words of encouragement, and being available when I needed your help. I would also like to thank Jason Duhaime for helping me use the Usability Lab at Northeastern University and providing me support in setting up all equipment and software for conducting this study and gathering the data. I would like to thank all my participants without whom I wouldn't have been able to collect valuable data for this research study. I also want to thank Jennifer Gradecki, who was diligent in helping me recruit enough participants for this thesis. I would like to thank my classmates and friends in Game Science and Design department who gave me valuable suggestions and advice on my research topic. Their kindness and enthusiasm in supporting my research and their selfless helping provided me with great encouragement on the study. Lastly, I want to thank my parents, Sheela and Sunil Raut, for always supporting me. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 2 Acknowledgments 3 1. Introduction 5 2. Background 2.1 Virtual Reality and Fitness 6 2.2 Treatment of Acrophobia 7 2.3 Desktop Virtual Reality and Learning Outcomes 8 3. Methodology 3.1 The Game 9 3.2 Participants 10 3.3 Think-aloud Protocol and Video Analysis 10 3.4 Survey 12 4. Results 4.1 Analysis of Survey Data 13 4.2 Analysis of Video Data 18 5. Discussion 5.1 Quantitative Data 22 5.2 Qualitative Data 23 6. Conclusion 25 7. References 26 8. Appendix A 28 4 1. INTRODUCTION Virtual Reality (VR) is a technology that has become extremely popular in recent years. Due to the availability of cheap VR headsets which can be bought around 20 dollars, the number of VR games is on the rise (Telegraph Reporters, 2018). To take advantage of this trend, educators are seeking different ways to create attractive applications in the form of interactive games that will motivate and engage students or users in learning different topics (Virvou and Katsionis, 2008). Furthermore, the gaming environments can encourage a constructionist approach to learning. According to Papert (1980), such constructionist approaches motivate children to acquire knowledge through creative and interactive experiences. The objective of this research is to analyze a virtual reality game designed for educational purpose to determine and understand the factors that make them favorable to players. For this study, an educational game was chosen, and a playtest was conducted on two groups of participants to determine these factors. These participants responses were collected by means of mixed methods. The primary goal of this research is to evaluate these findings to reveal the special characteristics that may hold the key to their success among players. 5 2. BACKGROUND 2.1 Virtual Reality and Fitness Virtual Reality (VR) applications can be divided into two categories: immersive VR and Desktop real-time 3D. In Immersive VR, users wear head-mounted displays and are often completely surrounded by enclosed virtual environment, whereas in Desktop 3D user’s experiences are limited to what they see on their desktop or laptop display monitors and what they hear from their speakers (Mills and Noyes, 1999). Throughout this research, we will be focusing on both the Desktop 3D version of the application as well as the immersive VR version using the head- mounted display. The immersiveness of VR applications can be exploited for fitness. Tuveri et. al. (2016) made use of this immersion along with gamification techniques to improve fitness. For their research, they developed an immersive virtual environment and incorporated gamification features in it using Unity 3D game engine. They also created a hardware setup using consumer-level devices such as a regular exercise bike, Oculus Rift VR headset and a Microsoft Kinect device to track users’ movements and replicate them in the virtual environment. They performed a research study for evaluating two different aspects of their game prototype. The first goal was to determine whether the users enjoyed more physical activity with gamification elements while interacting with immersive VR environments. The second goal was to provide a qualitative assessment of the different gamification techniques used by them, according to three dimensions: usefulness, fun and motivation. The results of a user test showed that such gamification elements 6 along with the immersive virtual environment, providing the ability to change viewpoint by moving their heads, increased the user's enjoyment during the physical activity. 2.2 Treatment of Acrophobia in Virtual Reality In their research study of Treatment of acrophobia in virtual reality: The role of immersion and presence, Krijin et. al. (2004) made use of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) for treatment of patients with acrophobia. The immersion of VRET was adjusted by using two different versions, a Head Mounted Display (HMD) for low immersion and a Computer Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) for high immersion. The results of this study showed that the VRET was more helpful than no treatment, whereas no significant differences in the effectiveness of VRET between HMD and CAVE were observed in the study. The VRET systems in both versions proved effective in treatment on anxiety, (behavioral) avoidance and attitudes towards heights. From his study, it can be concluded that immersive virtual reality can be used in software applications which are created for the purpose of treating negative emotional functions. 7 2.3 Desktop Virtual Reality and Learning Outcomes The study conducted by Lee et. al. (2010) examined how desktop real-time 3D not only influences but enhances learning. The results of the study provide a guideline for VR software developers to improve and strengthen the learning effectiveness of Desktop 3D applications implemented for learning purposes. Different relevant constructs like usability, presence, motivation, cognitive benefits, control and active learning, reflective thinking, learning outcomes, and student characteristics were analyzed to investigate how Desktop 3D enhances learning. The results backed the indirect effect of Desktop 3D features to the learning outcomes, which was mediated by the interaction experience and the learning experience. Learning experience which was individually measured by the psychological factors like presence, motivation, cognitive benefits, control and active learning, and reflective thinking strongly affected the learning outcomes in the Desktop 3D-based learning environment. Desktop 3D-based learning could provide students with different learning styles and spatial abilities. This research contributed an initial theoretical model of the determinants of learning effectiveness in a desktop 3D-based learning environment. 8 3. METHODOLOGY To compare the effectiveness of immersive VR, Titans of Space 2.0 was selected for the research study. It is a virtual reality educational game based on the Solar System. For conducting this research study, the game was played by two different groups of participants, one group played the game using Oculus Rift VR headsets and controllers and the other group played the same game using regular desktop computers with keyboard and mouse. The use of various mixed methods mentioned below was made to collect data for analysis. 3.1 The Game Titans of Space 2.0 by DrashVR LLC is an immersive VR space education app created for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift VR headsets. Recently, it has also been launched for Google Cardboard VR using Android and iOS. Titans of Space 2.0 (Figure 3.1) is a VR game that allows people to journey through our solar system. This game is useful for educational purposes since you can use it in conjunction with teaching students about the composition of each planet, the revolutions around the sun, how many moons each has as well as gravity among so much other important and useful information (DrashVR LLC, 2016). Such teaching methods become more interesting when the students can view and interact while learning about the solar system. What started out as a game can help students reach a higher level of engagement than traditional learning. 9 Figure 3.1 Titan of Space 2.0 gameplay. 3.2 Participants: A total of 26 participants over the age of 18 years volunteered for this study. During the study participants were alternatively selected at random to play either the VR version of the game or the desktop version for a duration of 15 to 30 minutes.