Fused Spectatorship: Designing Bodily Experiences Where Spectators Become Players

TL;DR

This paper introduces 'Fused Spectatorship', a novel method where spectators' bodily control is temporarily transferred to an EMS system, blending watching and playing in digital game experiences.

Contribution

It presents a new approach to enhance spectator engagement by integrating bodily control through EMS, with experimental validation and design guidelines.

Findings

Participants could not distinguish between watching and playing.

Four spectator experience themes identified.

Four fused spectator types with specific behaviors.

Abstract

Spectating digital games can be exciting. However, due to its vicarious nature, spectators often wish to engage in the gameplay beyond just watching and cheering. To blur the boundaries between spectators and players, we propose a novel approach called "Fused Spectatorship", where spectators watch their hands play games by loaning bodily control to a computational Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) system. To showcase this concept, we designed three games where spectators loan control over both their hands to the EMS system and watch them play these competitive and collaborative games. A study with 12 participants suggested that participants could not distinguish if they were watching their hands play, or if they were playing the games themselves. We used our results to articulate four spectator experience themes and four fused spectator types, the behaviours they elicited and offer one design consideration to support each of these behaviours. We also discuss the ethical design considerations of our approach to help game designers create future fused spectatorship experiences.