Towards Immersive Mixed Reality Street Play: Understanding Co-located Bodily Play with See-through Head-Mounted Displays in Public Spaces - UTU Research Portal

A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Towards Immersive Mixed Reality Street Play: Understanding Co-located Bodily Play with See-through Head-Mounted Displays in Public Spaces

Authors: Hu, Botao Amber; Lin, Rem RunGu; Tao, Yilan Elan; Laato, Samuli; Li, Yue

Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery

Publication year: 2025

Journal: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Article number: CSCW498

Volume: 9

Issue: 7

eISSN: 2573-0142

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3757679

Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: Open Access

Publication channel's open availability : Partially Open Access publication channel

Web address : https://doi.org/10.1145/3757679

Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/505572314

Abstract

As see-through Mixed Reality Head-Mounted Displays (MRHMDs) proliferate, their usage is gradually shifting from controlled, private settings to spontaneous, public contexts. While location-based augmented reality mobile games such as Pokémon GO have been successful, the embodied interaction afforded by MRHMDs moves play beyond phone-based screen-tapping toward co-located, bodily, movement-based play. In anticipation of widespread MRHMD adoption, major technology companies have teased concept videos envisioning urban streets as vast mixed reality playgrounds-imagine Harry Potter-style wizard duels in city streets-which we term Immersive Mixed Reality Street Play (IMRSP). However, few real-world studies examine such scenarios. Through empirical, in-the-wild studies of our research-through-design game probe, Multiplayer Omnipresent Fighting Arena (MOFA), deployed across diverse public venues, we offer initial insights into the social implications, challenges, opportunities, and design recommendations of IMRSP. The MOFA framework, which includes three gameplay modes-''The Training'', ''The Duel'', and ''The Dragon''-is open-sourced at https://github.com/realitydeslab/mofa.

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Funding information in the publication:
This research was funded by Holo Interactive.