Investigating the Effect of Information Display Type on Performance and Experience in Virtual Reality First-Person Shooter Video Games
Andrew William Thompson · 2024
For decades, the first-person shooter (FPS) has remained one of the most popular genres in the video game industry.Since the inception of the FPS genre in the 1990s, many archetypal design strategies have emerged for conveying important information to players during gameplay, including their aiming trajectory, remaining ammunition, and current health level.These traditional design strategies are well-understood by developers and players alike.However, the arrival and rising popularity of consumer-grade virtual reality (VR) gaming platforms has introduced an entirely new way to experience interactive entertainment, which necessitates a reevaluation of traditional information display strategies for all applications, including FPS games.To this end, I conducted two studies to investigate how different information display strategies may impact key objective user performance metrics and subjective experience quality in VR FPS games.My first study compared a selection of aiming, ammo, and health information displays used in isolation within separate gameplay scenarios.My second study compared three different combined information displays each consisting of an aiming display, ammo display, and health display during a realistic FPS gameplay scenario.The first study revealed major performance gains to aiming tasks when participants were presented with an on-screen aiming display, as well as a broad preference for information displays which exist as physical elements within the game world and information display elements which are closely co-located within the player's focal space.The second study revealed that objective gameplay performance was largely unaffected by the information display method, but major differences in reported subjective experience quality were identified.