An Experience in the Gather.town: Factors That Promote Immersion in

Systems for the Metaverse

Jose Carlos Duarte

1,2 a

, Leonardo Marques

1,2 b

Bruno Gadelha

1,2 c

and Tayana Conte

1,2 d

Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), Manaus, Amazonas, 69067-005, Brazil

USES Research Group, Institute of Computing (IComp), Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil

Keywords:

Metaverse, Immersion, Interaction, User Experience, Gather.town, Metaverse Plataform.

Abstract:

As UX becomes important in future digital technologies, Immersion is considered an essential UX aspect in

emerging technologies, including Metaverse. Big tech companies have been interested in Metaverse platforms

and services. Because the Metaverse has only recently begun to be studied, We are still on the way to exploring

it, although its concept has been proposed for more than 30 years. We present an investigation into the factors

that promote Immersion in Metaverse platforms using Gather.town. We promote an immersive experience on

the Gather.town platform and then conduct a focus group to capture participants’ perceptions. We performed

a qualitative analysis to identify the factors that most contributed to the Immersion in the experience. Our

ﬁndings provide implications for how the Metaverse platforms should be designed and what factors should be

emphasized to promote a good user experience in terms of Immersion.

1 INTRODUCTION

Since mid-2021, the Metaverse has been gaining

increasing prominence, and large technology com-

panies are interested in platforms and services for

the Metaverse (Lee and Kim, 2022). The 2022

Gartner Hype Cycle (Gartner, 2022) showcased the

top emerging technologies for technology innovation.

Among the top themes addressed was the evolution

and expansion of immersive experiences, mainly re-

garding the Metaverse. According to the organizers,

the Metaverse tends to evolve over the next ten years.

Currently, the platforms designed for the Meta-

verse are differentiated mainly by immersion and re-

alism (Shin, 2019). In addition, they support an eas-

ier communication and interaction process between

people and people and between people and comput-

ers (Lee and Kim, 2022).

Many platforms for Metaverse are Virtual En-

vironments (VE) that try to replicate reality on

digital devices, such as the Gather.town platform.

Gather.town has different forms of communication

(audio, video, and avatar), allowing users to create

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5732-9729

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3645-7606

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7007-5209

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6436-3773

avatars of themselves and change the virtual envi-

ronment around them (McClure and Williams, 2021).

These features contribute to the system providing

more Immersion, improving the user experience.

As User eXperience (UX) becomes essential in fu-

ture digital technologies, Immersion plays a key role

in the design and development of emerging digital

technologies (Shin, 2019). Immersion determines the

degree to which the user feels teleported to an alter-

nate synthetic world (Teng, 2010)

This paper presents factors that promote Immer-

sion in systems for the Metaverse. We performed an

empirical study using the Gather.town platform and

its interactive features, providing the participants with

interactive environments and creating some enigmas

to be solved. We aimed to provide a Metaverse expe-

rience and then discuss it in a Focus Group later.

The results show that the characteristics of the

Gather.town platform, differentiating it from other

online meeting and conference tools, collaborated

to promote a greater sense of Immersion. Based

on a qualitative analysis, we present how partici-

pants’ perceptions of the immersive experience at the

Gather.town support our ﬁndings.

304

Duarte, J., Marques, L., Gadelha, B. and Conte, T.

An Experience in the Gather.town: Factors That Promote Immersion in Systems for the Metaverse.

DOI: 10.5220/0011849000003467

In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2023) - Volume 2, pages 304-311

ISBN: 978-989-758-648-4; ISSN: 2184-4992

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

2 BACKGROUND

2.1 Metaverse

The Metaverse is a rapidly expanding term. Since

2021, big tech companies have been interested in

Metaverse platforms and services (Lee and Kim,

2022). The term “Metaverse” was ﬁrst introduced

by Neal Stephenson in his science ﬁction book Snow

Crash in 1992. Since then, it has continued to be an

idea that is constantly changing (Ning et al., 2021).

Through a survey of the literature, Lee and Kim

(2022) combined prior studies’ conceptions of the

Metaverse, deﬁning the Metaverse as “the permanent

and immersive mixed reality world (including the vir-

tual world as the parallel world of the real world or

the real world of data being augmented) where people

and people, people and objects can interact, collab-

orate and live synchronously under the limitation of

time and space, using avatar, Immersion support de-

vices, platform and infrastructure”. We adhere to this

deﬁnition in our work.

2.2 Gather.town

Gather.town

is an online video conferencing plat-

form that supports conversations and business in a vir-

tual space. Gather.town also tries to replicate reality

on digital devices, seeking to build a Metaverse with

more human virtual interactions (Figure 1).

Each user on Gather.town receives an avatar that

can freely move around the environment. It is pos-

sible to use the camera, and microphone, in addi-

tion to the chat, to communicate with all participants.

When two users are close, Gather enables them to

hear each other’s voices and lowers the pitch when

they are away. Several interaction objects, meeting

rooms, individual silence booths, communication tu-

toring rooms, pet spaces, and game rooms can be built

(Gather.town, 2022).

According to Acceleration Studies Foundation

(ASF) (Smart et al., 2007) the Gather.town can be

considered a Metaverse of type Mirror world - a type

of simulation of the external world that refers to a vir-

tual “reﬂection” model of the real.

2.3 UX in Immersive Interactions

Immersion is mentioned as a key aspect to be attained

in digital systems, virtual reality and games (bases of

Metaverse) (Shin, 2019). Immersion determines the

https://www.gather.town/

Figure 1: Gather.town environments.

degree that the user feels that she is cognitively tele-

ported to an alternative, synthetic world. For Teng

(2010) this degree is expressed in terms of engage-

ment, engrossment, and total Immersion.

According to Brown and Cairns (2004), the ﬁrst

stage of Immersion is Engagement. This is the low-

est level of involvement and occur before any other

level. The lower the barriers to entering this level,

the more the user invests time, effort, and attention.

From engagement, the user may be able to become

further involved and become engrossed. According to

the Cambridge Dictionary

, engrossment is a feeling

of great interest that makes a person give something

all of his attention. That is, “great interest” and “give

all attention” indicate a deeper level of engagement.

Finally, total Immersion is presence. Presence

refers to the extent to which two people interacting

via a technological medium and feel as if they are to-

gether. (Shin, 2019). The concept of presence has

been investigated along with Flow. People in the Flow

shift into a common mode of experience when they

have become absorbed in their activity (Shin, 2019).

Therefore, since we intend to identify factors that pro-

mote Immersion in systems for the Metaverse, we dis-

cuss UX considering the concepts presented in this

subsection in our results.

2.4 Related Work

Lee and Kim (2022) present a case study to verify

user acceptance of the “Iﬂand” Metaverse platform

using the Uniﬁed Theory of Acceptance and Use of

Technology. The results indicate that the platform’s

performance expectation, effort expectancy, and so-

cial inﬂuence signiﬁcantly increased satisfaction, us-

age intent, purchase intent, and word-of-mouth (Lee

and Kim, 2022). The results provide implications on

how to design and what factors to prioritize in plat-

forms for the Metaverse to increase user acceptance.

As with the study by Lee and Kim (2022), our

study is also a pioneer in investigating users’ percep-

tions in the Metaverse. Both studies contribute to how

the Metaverse should be designed, taking into account

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/

An Experience in the Gather.town: Factors That Promote Immersion in Systems for the Metaverse

305

UX factors such as acceptance and ease of use or the

qualities of Immersion in Metaverse platform design.

McClure and Williams (2021) present a study that

aims to investigate the practical utility of Gather.town

in the context of a UK university with rural students

who are unaware of this technology. The objective

was to determine students’ and educators’ perceptions

regarding the tool’s effectiveness in distance educa-

tion. The ﬁndings demonstrated that Gather.town is a

valuable and well-liked tool for students and educa-

tors that can promote distance learning communities,

supplement face-to-face synchronous meetings, and

offer personalized and customized learning.

Latulipe and Jaeger (2022) conducted a study

comparing students’ experience of collaborative

learning in synchronous classes of Computer Science.

Results show students’ preferences for Gather.town

due to its support for peer socialization, sense of

place, agency, engagement, and ﬂuid interactions.

3 EMPIRICAL DESIGN

We conducted the study with 33 computer science

undergraduate and graduate students at Federal Uni-

versity fo Amazonas, 11 women and 22 men Special

Topics in Human-Computer Interaction class. Partici-

pants should access the Gather.town platform and ex-

perience the platform’s interactive features. The goal

was to provide a Metaverse experience further evalu-

ated and discussed in a Focus Group.

3.1 Preparation

The study consisted of using and exploring the

Gather.town platform, in that we planned a gamiﬁed

activity. Each group had to access a speciﬁc room

on the platform and carry out the established tasks.

The gamiﬁed activity we planned involved unraveling

a mysterious enigma. To do that, two groups disputed

each enigma (except moment 4, which involved three

groups - see Figure 2), and the group that unraveled

the mystery ﬁrst won the challenge.

We elaborated four enigmas based on a search in

gray literature as shown in the Figure 2. The level

of difﬁculty is the same for all enigmas.We created

four different rooms on the platform. We hid the clues

using the platform’s features so that the participant

had to explore the environment in search of clues.

To contextualize the subjects, we presented story-

telling regarding the enigma and the task each group

should perform. We aimed to provide all the instruc-

tions necessary to perform the activity. We present

these instructions in the following:

Mission - You are a group of private investigators

hired to unravel a mysterious crime. For this, it is nec-

essary to ﬁnd clues and identify the killer. Your group

will be placed in a virtual setting, which may be an

ofﬁce, a shopping center, or anything else. The clues

are scattered all over the place. Your team must ﬁnd

all the clues and together ﬁnd the killer. However, re-

member, you are not the only group of investigators.

In the same environment, another group is also trying

to ﬁnd clues and unravel the same mystery as you.

So it is a contest between teams of investigators. The

team that ﬁrst solves the mystery wins.

Access the Platform - We will send the link to the

room by email to the groups. You will need to provide

your email address to log in, enter your name, and if

you would like, personalize your avatar. Tou need to

provide access to your microphone and camera. After

that, you can use the platform.

Solving - in the platform, there will be a special and

interactive item (a supercomputer), which a group

member must access and inform their answer. When

submitting, we will inform you if it is correct or not.

3.2 Execution

We split the participants into nine groups with 3 to 4

members. We distributed the groups according to the

number of rooms with enigmas. There were four ap-

plication moments, one for each room with enigmas,

as shown in Figure 2. In each room, in addition to the

teams, a monitor was present, observing and solving

doubts. The monitor was only in the ﬁnal room (the

room where the team should go to report their answer

to the enigma). There was no interference in the exe-

cution of the activity. The monitor support was only

for technical issues that could happen.

Upon unraveling the enigma, all group members

should inform the answer, validating their participa-

tion. We considered only the group’s ﬁrst response

time to determine the team’s resolution moment.

Figure 2: Distribution of enigmas by groups.

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4 RESULTS

From focus group data, we performed the qualita-

tive analysis using some steps of the Grounded The-

ory coding process (Corbin and Strauss, 2014): open

coding (phase 1) and axial coding (phase 2). We car-

ried out both steps using Atlas.TI

qualitative analysis

support tool. In the analysis process, we created codes

related to the group’s comments (open coding). Then,

we grouped the codes according to their properties,

forming concepts representing categories and subcat-

egories. These codes were related to each other (axial

coding). The open and axial coding phases were suf-

ﬁcient to understand the students’ perceptions. We

asked for permission to record the discussion.

4.1 Aspects That Promote Immersion

on the Gather.town

Immersion is one of the main aspects to consider in

understanding if a speciﬁc experience in the Meta-

verse is pleasant for users. In our analysis, the pro-

motion of Immersion in Gather.town is caused by the

factors represented in the network provided in Figure

3. Two points are central: User-Platform Interaction

and User-User Interaction. Both aspects have their

characteristics and sub-characteristics.

User-Platform Interaction refers mainly to how

users used the platform’s features, as was the rela-

tionship and exploration with the virtual environment.

The use is directly related to the Platform Charac-

teristics, which encompasses the Design and Setting

process, the Environment and Avatars Customization,

and the Familiarity of Gather.town with other plat-

forms. Finally, it also refers to the Gameplay dynam-

ics used in our study, which aggregates the tasks users

should do on the platform.

User-User Interaction refers to how users inter-

act and communicate on the platform. The interac-

tion and communication occurred mainly due to the

dynamics of Proximity Chat and the use of Avatars.

These factors led to a process of Socialization and

Interactivity between users and provided a compati-

bility relationship with the Real World. Below, we’ll

discuss how we arrived at each of these factors using

user insights gained through Focus Groups.

4.2 User-User Interaction Aspects

User-User Interaction happened due to two subfac-

tors: the use of avatars and the proximity chat dynam-

ics. We describe these factors in more detail below.

https://atlasti.com/

Avatar: The avatar is a graphical representation of

the user’s character. It is not a playable character but

focuses on how players engage and act as agents in a

ﬁctional world (Klevjer, 2022). One of the main fea-

tures of Gather is the creation of avatars because they

trigger some aspects (how the interaction) to provide

the users with Immersion. The avatar allows people

to move freely in and out of interactive environments.

Furthermore, they allow conversations with other par-

ticipants and explore galleries of digital objects such

as videos and sound ﬁles.

The participants considered the idea of being rep-

resented by an avatar inside the platform positive, as

it allows a sense of identity: “... when I was inside

it seemed like my doll (avatar) was speaking”. In ad-

dition, the participants indicated that they preferred

using Avatar, showing that an avatar is a good self-

representation in Metaverse systems. “If there is an

avatar in this Metaverse, I will want it, most people

at least, will want to be known by their Avatar and

not their video in the real world”.

The preference for interaction through the avatar

shows a positive aspect of the experience. The partici-

pants liked the different sensations that the avatar pro-

vided for interaction. First, the awareness of knowing

that communication was through avatars made the ex-

perience more attractive: “Just thinking that a (sic)

little person there who is moving is a person. For me,

that makes it really cool” and “Not being other peo-

ple for a while is good”, referring to the fact that s/he

feels like s/he is interacting with the avatars and not

with other people. In addition, aspects corresponding

to reality pleased the participants during the experi-

ence: “What I liked most about the interaction was

being able to move fast, run fast, ﬁnd the enigmas and

manage to ﬁnd the other partner quickly to being able

to talk about the track”.

We noticed other aspects related to Immersion in

the participants’ reports. For example, the Presence,

which refers to the real feeling of being close to peo-

ple and/or in the same place, even if mediated by

some technology (see subsection 2.3), was quite no-

ticed during the experience: “There was even a funny

situation where we, the dolls (avatars), were at a ta-

ble talking. We debated who the murderer was, and

there were people from another team”. Furthermore,

another aspect we noted was Flow, which is related to

the loss of the notion of being in a Metaverse or some-

thing parallel to reality: “I really liked the experience,

because of this feeling of running... I felt a lot. Even

my heart raced. It felt like I was really running.”

Proximity Chat. One of Gather.town’s features is

the ability for users to communicate with one another

while their respective avatars are close to one another

An Experience in the Gather.town: Factors That Promote Immersion in Systems for the Metaverse

307

Figure 3: Immersion Factors Network.

on the website. The fact that communication is only

possible when the avatars are close or in the same

“room” within the Gather is a characteristic that refers

to reality, to the way communication happens in the

“real world.” Without avatars, this communication dy-

namic would be the same as on any other platform.

Participants found the idea of communication

“to imitate” reality interesting.As they move further

apart, the tone of voice decreases, reﬂecting what hap-

pens in reality. This idea is reinforced in the report of

some participants: “I found (interesting) that the chat

tried to imitate reality because when we got closer, we

talked, and the fact that they moved away also dimin-

ished [voice volume]”. In addition, communication

being similar to reality causes the illusion that the par-

ticipant is interacting in the real world. This feeling

is positive for Metaverse platforms, where often the

main goal is really to cause the illusion that the per-

son is in the “real world”. Such illusion contributes

positively to Immersion in the Metaverse reaching the

level of Presence when people feel together to the

point of feeling like they are in the real world: “On

the platform, you are obliged to get closer to the per-

son to speak, which theoretically gives you the illusion

that you are in a real environment”.

We noted that the similarity with reality was one

of the main characteristics pointed out by the partici-

pants for the proximity chat to promote Immersion in

their experience: “... for those (people) outside (of the

conversation), it works as if you were approaching a

group at a table in a public space, and then you stop

talking”. In the view of the participants, Immersion

was understood as this close relationship with what

happens in reality: “... I literally invaded the conver-

sation of others. This is very immersive”.

As we pointed out in Avatar’s analysis, the prox-

imity chat was also a feature in which we noticed

important aspects of Immersion. For instance, we

identiﬁed the Presence in the participants’ reports.

They felt so close to reality that they felt together

in Gather.town, to the point of “forgetting” that they

needed to be together to communicate: “About having

to be close to talking - we started talking and forgot

that we had to be close, then suddenly - ”Wow, we

have to go back to be able to talk to the person”. An-

alyzing this quotation, the moment when the partici-

pants felt so immersed in the Gather.town happened

when they reached Presence and Flow, the latter char-

acterized here by the fact that the participant ”forgets

that he had to be close”.

Interestingly, the level of Immersion in this expe-

rience occurred as the platform promoted other as-

pects, such as Presence and Flow. Besides provid-

ing features that bring the experience in the Meta-

verse closer to reality, it is necessary to investigate

whether such features manage to involve users to the

point that they reach levels of experience that allow

achieving the necessary Immersion to make the expe-

rience pleasant. Promoting the Presence, Flow, and

consequently, Immersion is what makes the feature

interesting: “It was really cool, this proximity chat

I also found very interesting” and “because there is

a component that this tool has that the MMO (Mas-

sively Multiplayer Online) do not have, that broke a

glass inside my head, the proximity chat”.

Therefore, we noted that both the Avatar and the

Proximity Chat were features that brought innovation

to the platform and allowed participants to reach dif-

ferent levels of Immersion during the experience. We

identiﬁed the levels of Immersion through the sensa-

tion of Presence and Flow at different times. These

levels of Immersion are why the experience was per-

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308

ceived as very close to the real world and how people

interact outside the Metaverse (see Figure 3). In addi-

tion, both features also allowed socialization and in-

teractivity between people within the platform. In the

following subsection, we will present aspects of user

interaction directly with the Gather.town platform that

also enabled the promotion of Immersion.

4.3 User-Platform Interaction Aspects

The platform features established user-Platform Inter-

action with some of its exclusive features and Game-

play Dynamics that promote Immersion.

Platform Techinical Features. Gather.town have of

features for videoconferencing, such as screen shar-

ing, and some differentiated features. The avatars and

proximity chat are the resources that provide com-

munication and interaction between users. It also

has some exclusive features. For instance, Private

Spaces permit a meeting within the main conference

to those in the same place. Interactive objects (Em-

bedded Objects) allow video streams, images, and in-

teractive websites to be embedded in any object in the

Gather.town space so that users can interact.

The ﬁrst level of Immersion is Engagement, de-

scribed as the user’s initial interactions with the ex-

perience they are participating. Therefore, the plat-

form’s characteristics must be pleasant for the user

from the beginning of the experience to encourage

user engagement. In this sense, the main aspects that

caught the participants’ attention were the customiza-

tion of the environment and avatars, the design and

setting, and the familiarity with other tools.

One of the factors that characterize the systems

for the Metaverse is the ambiance of the spaces. For

example, the “murder at school” enigma, which takes

place in a school, needed an environment close to the

characteristics of a school to make the experience of

solving the enigma on the platform more immersive.

The ambiance ensured approval from the users: “I

also liked the customization of the space. Ours, for

example, was a school and had a meeting room. We

would gather in the meeting room and talk: now ev-

eryone is going to explore, but let us meet in the meet-

ing room in ﬁve minutes”.

In addition to the ambiance, the user must be able

to interact and, as is typical of experiences in the

Metaverse, represent himself in various ways: “One

of the things that I liked the most at ﬁrst was the cus-

tomization of the stick ﬁgures. It had a lot of cool op-

tions. Including, after I found out I had a wheelchair,

I had fun with the wheelchair (laughs)”. Customiza-

tion and ambiance can be considered fundamental to

provide a high-quality immersive experience: “The

fact that it is a customizable, interactive, amazing en-

vironment, and the proximity microphone too. That

was the turning point for me”.

The customization of the environment was a posi-

tive factor. However, it does not exclude that a Meta-

verse platform must be attractive to the user in terms

of design from the beginning. The user’s ﬁrst contact

with the platform needs to be positive, as this will in-

ﬂuence the desire to use it: “For me it was something

that blew my mind when I got there, I was very inter-

ested in this platform.”. The freedom of customiza-

tion of the avatars promoted interest among the par-

ticipants, thus, a greater engagement to explore.

According to the participants, a metaverse plat-

form needs to provide a balance between simplicity

and sophistication. Simplicity is not a negative factor

as long as the platform delivers what it proposes with

high quality and in a simple way, providing different

elements to interact: “The setting is beautiful, I found

the game beautiful like that, even though it’s simple”.

One participant concluded that the sum of the plat-

form’s characteristics was the determining factor for

him/her to consider the experience positive: “Any-

way, I think it was an exciting experience, even with

my reservations, (referring to some points of Immer-

sion break, like the external pop up) it was an exciting

experience this simulation of the work environment

for us to solve the enigmas there was really cool”.

Another key feature identiﬁed for Immersion is fa-

miliarity with other platforms. Several times, partici-

pants pointed out that Gather resembled other games

and immersive experience: “I think the interaction I

liked the most is because the game is very similar to

an RPG, a game that we are already used to”.

Gameplay. Gameplay happens during the player-

game interaction, and this interaction aims to provide

a motivating, entertaining experience for the player.

(Nacke et al., 2010). Involves practicality of use, such

as commands, controls, and Storytelling. Gameplay

is affected by two factors: the features of the platform

and the established dynamics. In our study, dynamics

refers to Enigmas, which involve the arrangement of

clues and the relationship with the environment.

Making good use of the platform’s features in-

terferes with the experience and the quality of the

enigmas, consequently affecting the Gameplay. For

instance, making a good relationship between the

proposed enigmas and the elements available on the

platform can cause positive experiences in users, as

pointed out by a participant in the “Murder at school”

enigma: ’“I found it very interesting and when I found

tombs. I opened the tomb. In front of the small school,

I found the victims. I found it super funny”. Using

platform elements as an inherent part of storytelling

An Experience in the Gather.town: Factors That Promote Immersion in Systems for the Metaverse

309

is essential for increasing Immersion, as reported by

another participant: textit“At some point, I thought I

was going to die (laughs). When I went to test it, I

saw some cars. When I started playing, I thought a

car would appear and kill me at some point, and the

other team would win. I had that feeling all the time”.

In addition, since the platform has many different

features, some participants created expectations. Us-

ing few resources frustrated users, as they expected

a much more interactive environment, regardless of

the arrangements and tracks. One of the participants

pointed out that s/he saw a vast potential in the plat-

form that could be better explored: “I found it a little

easy, although I got wrong the enigma. However, I

found the enigmas too static. I saw a big potential to

make creative enigmas in that platform”.

A speciﬁc aspect of Gather.town that participants

reported was the fact that some interactive features led

to an external link. Participants suggested that to be

more immersive (i.e., not break Immersion), the plat-

form could embed all the interactive elements within

itself. In this sense, the users do not experience a

broken experience: “Many things we had to answer

could be part of the platform itself instead of opening

a pop-up. I think it could have an internal poll within

the game itself”. Other participants agreed, indicating

that the experience would be more immersive.

The aspects presented above of low Immersion

level are directly related to how the Gameplay was

developed, how the interactions were established,

and related to the enigma storytelling. The strategy

adopted to encourage using and provide a good ex-

perience on the part of the participants is an essential

aspect when talking about Metaverse.

In this study, we adopted an enigma-based strat-

egy, which the teams should unravel. Naturally, a

crucial factor that occurred during the experience was

the competition. The study’s purpose was for users to

explore the platform. However, the competition was

very present, and this caused some negative points.

Factors such as the rush to solve the enigma prevented

participants from focusing more on the Gather.town

experience and better exploring the environment we

created: “What participant so-and-so said, which

there was no time to explore, I think because we com-

peted, this rush stuff. Just trying to ﬁnd the clues did

not give me time to focus”.

The element of competition is closely related to

digital games. Considering that the participants in our

study were undergraduate computing students, the fa-

miliarity with these games is high. Therefore, when

faced with the points described above about the break

in Immersion caused by the competition, some par-

ticipants reported several suggestions that would help

improve the experience. For instance, they indicate

the existence of a moderator who could help with par-

ticular parts of the platform, making interaction easier

for users in addition to moderation, they indicated us-

ing mini-games can help improve Immersion.

We can see that the purpose of using a platform for

the Metaverse needs to be very clear. Clarity prevents

a reversal of objectives and differentiates what is a

conference, a workspace, a game. All these software

tend to follow the same path towards Immersion.

5 DISCUSSION

We seek to understand in our research, from the

user’s perspective, which aspects promote Immersion

or how the Immersion aspects could be on the plat-

forms for the Metaverse. Thus, we used Gather.town,

which aims to be part of the Metaverse ecosystem,

and is currently an up-and-coming tool.

A Metaverse of the type Mirror world, as

Gather.Town, has a lot of potential because it some-

how depicts the real world as though it were reﬂecting

in a mirror. That is why it is important to consider the

Immersion aspects. Through the liveiness and clarity

perceived by users, the increase in perceived realism

triggers the feeling of being there, representing Pres-

ence, which means total Immersion. These aspects

increase user satisfaction (Shin, 2019).

In our study, we identiﬁed two central factors that

collaborate to stimulate Immersion: user-user and

user-platform interactions. The ﬁrst one is mainly

characterized by the Gather.town features that provide

communication: avatars, and proximity chat. These

two factors contribute to socialization and interactiv-

ity between participants, in addition to providing a

relationship with the real world, which is precisely

one of the main characteristics of platforms for the

Mirror world type of Metaverse. The avatar was one

of the most commented aspects by the participants

during the Focus Group, proving to be one of the

main aspects of the experience, being preferable to

the video. Proximity chat is a consequence of using

avatars. Combining the avatar with proximity chat

was the main stimulus for the Presence and Flow.

The user-platform interaction is mainly charac-

terized by the Gather.town’s features. We highlight

the customization, whether of the environment or the

avatars, in addition to the platform design and envi-

ronment. Familiarity with other tools is an essential

factor for quick and easy acceptance. The Gameplay

dynamic established for the environment’s utilization

is crucial in producing a positive experience.

Many platforms for online meetings, conferences,

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310

or online classes create static environments for large

groups (McClure and Williams, 2021). Platforms like

Gather.town stand out for presenting features that pro-

vide a more vivid sense of Immersion, promoting a

more satisfying experience for users.

This research contributes to understanding the

participants’ experiences regarding Immersion within

a platform for the mirror world-type Metaverse. Ad-

ditionally, our ﬁndings served as a means of dissemi-

nating information regarding the use of Gather.town

and provided a basis for future studies on various

facets of Immersion in Metaverse systems.

6 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE

WORK

This paper presents an empirical study to verify fac-

tors promoting immersion in the Metaverse. We use

the Gather.town as the basis for the immersive experi-

ences promoted to the participants. In our study, par-

ticipants accessed the Gather.town and experienced

its interactive features. After users’ immersive inter-

actions on the platform, we conducted a Focus Group

session for a deeper discussion about their experi-

ences. We transcribed participants’ statements dur-

ing the focus group and performed a qualitative analy-

sis to identify factors that promote Immersion in plat-

forms designed for the Metaverse.

Our results showed that most participants re-

ported several positive aspects of the Gather.town

experience. The sense of Immersion perceived in

Gather.town in our study was a direct consequence of

a set of factors involving the proximity chat, avatars,

and the design and ambiance of the platform. Our

study showed that participants felt socially connected

while using Gather.town. Interaction features helped

participants feel like they were in a real environment.

We hope our results stimulate interest in further

research on different Metaverse platforms to investi-

gate more immersion factors. We intend to replicate

this study on other platforms similar to the Gather.tow

proposal to compare the results obtained and promote

further discussions concerning the Metaverse.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank all the participants in the empirical study

and USES Research Group members for their sup-

port. The present work is the result of the Research

and Development (R&D) project 001/2020, signed

with Federal University of Amazonas and FAEPI,

Brazil, which has funding from Samsung, using re-

sources from the Informatics Law for the Western

Amazon (Federal Law No 8.387/1991), and its dis-

closure is in accordance with article 39 of Decree No.

10.521/2020. Also supported by CAPES - Financing

Code 001, CNPq process 314174/2020-6, FAPEAM

process 062.00150/2020, and grant #2020/05191-2

ao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).

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