Influence of Network Delay in Virtual Reality Multiplayer Exergames: Who is actually delayed?

One of the fields where Virtual Reality (VR) is finding a potentially growing market is in the combination of exercising and gaming - also called exergaming. When it comes to competition in gaming, is important to investigate how different levels of delay influence overall quality of experience (QoE) in VR multiplayer exergames. The experimental setup consisted of a VR application coupled with a rowing ergometer, allowing races between the user and an artificially created opponent that is following the player with a similar speed and keeping the race tight. To investigate the influence of the delay, on both user’s and opponent’s side three levels of network delay were introduced (30ms, 100ms, and 500ms) and mixed throughout different conditions. After each session, participants rated perceived flow, sense of presence, and the degree to which they have noticed the delay in their or the opponent’s system. Interestingly, results show different perception of delay and QoE depending on user’s own delay. Participants perceived the opponent’s player as being delayed even if only the player itself had network delay along with significantly lower rating of QoE only when their delay was high.