Shared-screen social gaming with portable devices

Abstract

Mobile phones are designed as personal devices, and thus mobile games often lack the social element present in other game platforms, e.g., in console games. In this paper, we present an interaction method for social gaming with portable devices. The interaction method combines displays of multiple devices to form a shared screen visible to all players. We conducted an experiment with 40 participants to compare the social setting between our method and a typical console game environment. The results show that the amount of oral communication was significantly higher in the mobile device setup. The results on subjective experience were inconclusive, but revealed that players' perceptions of a social situation were affected by various factors such as ergonomics, distance, support for spectators, and symbolic meanings of the seating arrangement. Our findings help to understand the design space of social co-located gaming, and show that mobile phones are a potential platform for such games.