Comparative Analysis of Sensory Engagement, User Control, and Comfort in Virtual Reality and non-Virtual Reality Games

Virtual Reality (VR) is rapidly growing as a major gaming platform. Prior comparative research on VR and traditional gaming has utilized mostly quantitative methods to investigate how VR differs from traditional screen-based gaming. Studies have shown that VR produces higher levels of presence than traditional gaming, but this does not always result in a positive player experience. Therefore, this study will seek to find why these events occur instead of stating that one platform is better than the other.
The study was conducted with a custom stealth-traversal game prototype, "Ascend," with identical game content across both platforms. 

Each participant played both versions in a balanced play order and completed a semi-structured interview to share their experience. All of the participant interviews were transcribed and then analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis by Braun and Clarke (2006).

All participants reported higher levels of presence when playing the VR version. Nine of the ten participants preferred the VR version, even though all participants felt that it was less comfortable than the other platform. Three key theoretical contributions resulted from the findings of this dissertation.

First, a comfort-enjoyment dissociation was found where participants preferred VR, even though they recognized its limitations in terms of comfort. Second, VR was able to transform simple routine actions into engaging experiences by providing the means of physically performing an action over abstract controls. Third, the distinction between individual interaction excellence and system coherence was evident through the words of a participant who stated every VR interaction to be better, but still preferred the other version because of locomotion issues.

Limitations include a small sample size of 10 participants, focus on a single genre of video game, and session duration on each platform ranging from 15 to 40 minutes.
Despite limitations, the results of this study show the value of qualitative methods to identify experiential patterns that may go unnoticed by standardized quantitative measures.