Like in the Good Old Times, but Virtual - A Case for Simulating Co-located Multiplayer Games in VR

In this paper, we present ongoing work on simulating the social setting of co-located multiplayer games in virtual reality (VR), to transfer the rich sociability associated with physical co-location to online gaming. We developed a VR application that allows two physically remote users to play games together on a virtual couch. Based on our initial experience in two small user tests, we assume that the VR version induces a social experience similar to the co-located gameplay. We will test this assumption in subsequent user studies. We also outline the theoretical and methodological relevance of VR-simulated couch-coop multiplayer games for researchers and practitioners.