The Role of Gaming Experience in Cybersickness Susceptibility: Development of A Detailed Survey

Cybersickness, a motion sickness-like phenomenon that happens in extended reality (XR) environments, is a major barrier to adoption of XR. While video gamers have been associated with lower levels of cybersickness susceptibility than non-gamers, the reasons behind this difference are not well understood. Studies may define “gamer” differently, leading to differing results based on definition alone. This study builds upon existing research to explore the relationship between cybersickness history and gaming habits like frequency of play, age of first play, genre preference, and visual styles. A survey, titled Gaming Activity and Motion-sickness Experience & Susceptibility Survey (GAMESS) collects gaming habit trends and sickness susceptibility ratings with the MSSQ and VIMSSQ. GAMESS enables comparisons between current, former, and non-gamers to uncover connections between gaming habits and reduced susceptibility. These connections could explain why gamers are associated with lower susceptibility, which could influence targeted intervention strategies to reduce cybersickness susceptibility of non-gamers.