"My Audience Gets to Know Me on a More Realistic Level": Exploring Social VR Streamers’ Unique Strategies to Engage with Their Audiences
Guo Freeman, Yang Hu, Ruchi Panchanadikar, Amelia L Hall, Kelsea Schulenberg, Lingyuan Li
Abstract
Social Virtual Reality (VR) platforms are increasingly transforming online social spaces by enhancing embodied and immersive social interactions. A growing body of HCI research has focused on various interaction dynamics within social VR spaces. However, how social VR users also endeavor to share their activities outside the social VR platform, such as on 2D live streaming platforms, is an increasingly popular yet understudied phenomenon that blends social VR and live streaming research. Based on eight interviews with experienced social VR streamers, this paper empirically investigates social VR streamers’ streaming practices and strategies to engage with their audiences as compared to non-VR streaming. We provide one of the first empirical evidence of how social VR streaming can creatively combine immersive VR activities with interactive live streaming. This informs future research on understanding and designing future platforms to better support these complicated social dynamics blending both virtual and physical worlds.