A Preliminary Study of World Customizability for Virtual Reality Co-Play

Abstract

Cooperative play, or "co-play", is the act of playing with others in a co-located setting, including co-location of avatars in virtual reality (VR). Customizability is the degree to which play artifacts like props can be changed to suit different needs, a factor of co-play which is easier to support in VR than in the real world. We present the results of a preliminary user study that explores how different levels of customization affect creativity in a two-person VR co-play setting. Using the Creativity Support Index, system logs, and observations, we found that increasing customizability of props used to improvise a story trended toward higher levels of perceived creativity. Our work introduces a new topic of investigation for social VR together with a study methodology and initial results to motivate further investigation.