Gamification Mechanics for Playful Virtual Reality Authoring

Abstract

An increasing number of companies, businesses and educational institutions are becoming familiar with the term gamification, which is about integrating game elements into a non-playful context. Gamification is becoming more important in various fields, such as e-learning, where a person needs to be motivated to be productive. The use of Virtual Reality (VR) is also being researched in various application areas. Authoring of VR content is a complex task that traditionally requires programming or design skills. However, there are authoring applications that do not require such skills but are still complex to use. In this paper, we explore how gamification concepts can be applied to VR authoring to help authors create VR experiences. Using an existing authoring tool for the concept of VR nuggets as an example, we investigate appropriate gamification mechanics to familiarize authors with the tool and motivate them to use it. The proposed concepts were implemented in a prototype and used in a user study. The study report shows that our participants were able to successfully use the gamified authoring prototype and that the participants felt motivated by various gamification aspects, especially visual rewards and story elements.