Effects of environmental clutter and motion on user performance in virtual reality games

With the increasing prevalence of virtual reality, games for this medium have also been increasing in number lately. Several factors affect the balancing of video games. However, effects of environmental clutter and motion on game design for virtual reality have not been well explored yet. Environmental clutter and motion are important in making virtual environments more interesting and closer to real life since real world environments usually include some form of clutter or motion. Total exclusion of clutter and motion may make the virtual environment drab and dull. On the other hand, these components may affect the user performance, making the tasks and the game in general more difficult. This study aims at exploring the effects of clutter and motion on task performance in a virtual reality searching game. A user study was performed with 15 participants. Results indicated that clutter effected user performance negatively, made the users feel more restricted inside the virtual environment and made it more difficult to concentrate. No effect of motion on user performance was observed.