Notions of exploring and living the events, being “inside” the digital images and participating in simulations, date back to 1997 when TV viewing was compared with the use of Internet (Sánchez 1997). The technological advances of Virtual Reality (VR) headsets and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies are progressively enabling us to get closer to the digital images with a higher degree of realism and with the possibility to interact via more natural interfaces.
From my book chapter Characteristics of Game Transfer Phenomena in Location-Based Augmented Reality Games in Augmented Reality Games I recently published by Springer.
Professor Vladimir Geroimenko, editor of not one but two-volume book on AR, Augmented Reality Games I and II, did an amazing job of editing and collecting the work of 70 authors from 20 different countries. Volume I focuses on understanding the Pokémon Go phenomenon, and volume II explores AR in the context of education, healthcare, medicine and digital art.
My chapter explores sensory perceptions, cognitive mix-ups and slips of actions associated with augmented reality (AR) technologies, such as in location-based AR games.
The first aim of the chapter was to provide an overview of the GTP research conducted on location-based AR games.
See the table below for a peek of a comparison of the prevalence of GTP in non-AR games and in Pokémon Go.
Having in mind the key characteristics of AR games (playing through interactions in in the real world and digital images that are overlaid on top of physical contexts), the second aim of the chapter was to highlight the peculiarities of GTP in location-based AR games:
- GTP do not only manifest after playing as most commonly have been reported in non-AR games, but also while playing,
- A two-way transfer of effects from the virtual to the physical world and vice versa,
- GTP triggered by the outputs from a multipurpose device as these games are played on smartphones.
In my chapter, I divided the two-way transfer of effects between the physical and the virtual world into: events, actions and interpretations/conceptualisations of objects from both worlds.
Examples of GTP experiences I collected via an online survey on Pokémon GO were supplemented by a study by Sifonis’s in Ingress. See the Figure for comparison of transfers of experiences in AR games and non-AR games.
Related references
Ortiz de Gortari, A. B. (2019). Characteristics of Game Transfer Phenomena in Location
Based Augmented Reality Games In V. Geroimenko (Ed.), Augmented Reality Games:
Understanding the Pokémon GO Phenomenon: Springer International Publishing.
Sifonis, C. M. (2018). Examining Game Transfer Phenomena in the Hybrid Reality Game,
Ingress. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 1-12.
Ortiz de Gortari, A. B. (2017). Empirical study on Game Transfer Phenomena in a location based augmented reality game. Telematics and Informatics, 35(2), 382-396.
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