Playing Together while Apart

Abstract

Sharing recreational experiences with loved ones can improve wellbeing, experience enjoyment, relationship quality, and feelings of closeness. Despite these benefits, study participants report numerous barriers to shared recreation with loved ones. Among others, these include differences in recreational preferences and safety measures associated with the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In this paper we examine how loved ones use, and wish to use, technology to play together while apart. We take into account reported barriers to shared recreation and present the Planet Runner technology probe, a two-player digital-physical game which mediates a shared interdependent asymmetric recreational experience involving the outdoors. We share early findings from an exploratory study and conclude by highlighting design considerations for asymmetric games intended to mediate shared remote play experiences involving the outdoors. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Ubiquitous and mobile computing systems and tools; Human computer interaction (HCI); Interactive systems and tools.

Playing during a crisis: The impact of commercial video games on the reconfiguration of people’s life during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…This study not only advances our understanding of the escapism phenomenon and how it can be enacted during a crisis through play, but also contributes to research on the usage of video games during difficult life moments, which has mostly focused on the emotional and social benefits of games (Reinecke et al, 2012;Bowman & Tamborini, 2015;Collins & Cox, 2013;Russoniello et al, 2013;Banks & Cole, 2016;Iacovides & Mekler, 2019Ji & Nishino, 2020Haqq & McCrickard, 2020), by pinpointing also their positive spatial and temporal impacts. In other words, this research shows the "richness" and "complexity" of commercial video games when they are used to escape from reality and describes the complex interplay occurring between playing and the different unsatisfying aspects of people's everyday life, like the sense of time and the daily routines, the social interactions within and outside the household, the emotions of tension, fear, and gloominess, and the everyday movements and sense of space.…”

“…Within HCI, in line with previous research on video game and crises, particular attention has been devoted to the development of ad hoc designed video games, thought of as a good way to cope with stress and to maintain social bonds during the pandemic: Haqq & McCrickard (2020) designed a game that enables partners to play together while apart; likewise, Ji & Nishino (2020) developed a "healing game", whose objective is to elicit a calm, relaxed emotional state. Researchers also studied how specific kinds of games have been adapted to the new conditions engendered by COVID-19.…”

“…This process of appropriation (Dourish, 2003;Lally, 2002) refers to the users' ability to adapt the use of technologies to the changing contexts, in ways that were not foreseen in their original designs (Quinones et al, 2013). As we have seen in the background section, most HCI research on video games and crises was addressed to develop novel designs for ameliorating disaster response (Chittaro & Sioni, 2015) or for supporting resilience and psychological recovering of people hit by the disaster (e.g., Ji & Nishino, 2020;Haqq & McCrickard, 2020). By contrast, the exploration of how to harness technologies that are already available during a crisis has been mostly limited to social media, which were used to monitor the crisis's evolution (e.g., Goolsby, 2010;Gomide et al, 2011), understand how people make sense of it (Shahid et al, 2020), or promote a more efficient crisis communication (Reuter et al, 2017).…”

“…However, the hypotheses about the positive role of video games were not put to test through empirical studies. On the other hand, HCI researchers mainly designed novel digital games specifically addressed to support social connection and stress management (Haqq & McCrickard, 2020;Ji & Nishino, 2020).…”