Effects of controller-based locomotion on player experience in a virtual reality exploration game

Entertainment and in particular gaming is currently considered one of the main application scenarios for virtual reality (VR). The majority of current games rely on any form of locomotion through the virtual environment while some techniques can lead to simulator sickness. Game developers are currently implementing a wide variety of locomotion techniques to cope with simulator sickness (e.g. teleportation). In this work we implemented and evaluated four different controller-based locomotion methods that are popular in current VR games (free teleport, fixpoint teleport, touchpad-based, automatic). We conducted a user study (n = 24) in which participants explored a virtual zoo with these four different controllerbased locomotion methods and assessed their effects on discomfort, presence, enjoyment, and affective state. The results of our study show that free teleport locomotion elicited least discomfort and provided the highest scores for enjoyment, presence, and affective state. With these results we gained valuable insights for developers and researchers implementing first person locomotion in VR experiences.