Resemblance of religion and pervasive games: A study among church employees and gamers

Samuli Laato; Sampsa Rauti; Juho Hamari

doi:10.1145/3544548.3581056

Resemblance of religion and pervasive games: A study among church employees and gamers

Samuli Laato
, Sampsa Rauti
, Juho Hamari

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

28 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Previous research suggests that the experience and practices related to gaming and extended realities, and religion and spiritualism, share similarities. In this study, we explore how both the employees of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (n=156) and pervasive game players (n=98) perceive and make sense of these connections. We approach the qualitative data from the perspective of Durkheim, who, similarly to how game theorists view games, views religion as a multi-faceted system that incorporates the rules, practices and communities that comprise the religion. From the data emerges the following prominent connection as perceived by both groups of informants: systems of (1) shared premise, (2) resilience and restoration, (3) symbolism, (4) extended reality and (5) day-to-day structuring. A numerical view of the data shows that 42,5% of the participants did not perceive similarities, and examination of these responses suggested that while religion and pervasive games share functional similarities, they are further apart from a substantive perspective.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	CHI 2023 - Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Publisher	ACM
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450394215
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581056
Publication status	Published - 19 Apr 2023
Publication type	A4 Article in conference proceedings
Event	ACM SIGCHI annual conference on human factors in computing systems - Hamburg, Germany Duration: 23 Apr 2023 → 28 Apr 2023

Conference

Conference	ACM SIGCHI annual conference on human factors in computing systems
Country/Territory	Germany
City	Hamburg
Period	23/04/23 → 28/04/23

Funding

This article was supported by the Academy of Finland Flagship Programme under Grant No. 337653 (Forest-Human-Machine Interplay (UNITE)). It is an extended version of the following conference paper: [54].

Keywords

Augmented Reality
Gamification
Metaverse
Pervasive games
Religion
Techno-Spirituality
Video games

Publication forum classification

Publication forum level 3

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
Software

Access to Document

10.1145/3544548.3581056Licence: CC BY

3544548.3581056Final published version, 554 KBLicence: CC BY

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202309268460Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Resemblance of religion and pervasive games: A study among church employees and gamers",

abstract = "Previous research suggests that the experience and practices related to gaming and extended realities, and religion and spiritualism, share similarities. In this study, we explore how both the employees of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (n=156) and pervasive game players (n=98) perceive and make sense of these connections. We approach the qualitative data from the perspective of Durkheim, who, similarly to how game theorists view games, views religion as a multi-faceted system that incorporates the rules, practices and communities that comprise the religion. From the data emerges the following prominent connection as perceived by both groups of informants: systems of (1) shared premise, (2) resilience and restoration, (3) symbolism, (4) extended reality and (5) day-to-day structuring. A numerical view of the data shows that 42,5\% of the participants did not perceive similarities, and examination of these responses suggested that while religion and pervasive games share functional similarities, they are further apart from a substantive perspective.",

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author = "Samuli Laato and Sampsa Rauti and Juho Hamari",

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AB - Previous research suggests that the experience and practices related to gaming and extended realities, and religion and spiritualism, share similarities. In this study, we explore how both the employees of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (n=156) and pervasive game players (n=98) perceive and make sense of these connections. We approach the qualitative data from the perspective of Durkheim, who, similarly to how game theorists view games, views religion as a multi-faceted system that incorporates the rules, practices and communities that comprise the religion. From the data emerges the following prominent connection as perceived by both groups of informants: systems of (1) shared premise, (2) resilience and restoration, (3) symbolism, (4) extended reality and (5) day-to-day structuring. A numerical view of the data shows that 42,5% of the participants did not perceive similarities, and examination of these responses suggested that while religion and pervasive games share functional similarities, they are further apart from a substantive perspective.

KW - Augmented Reality

KW - Gamification

KW - Metaverse

KW - Pervasive games

KW - Religion

KW - Techno-Spirituality

KW - Video games

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ER -

Resemblance of religion and pervasive games: A study among church employees and gamers

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Keywords

Publication forum classification

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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