Co-presence and beyond: Spatial configurations of communication in virtual environments

Users of electronic communication tools in the form of stationary computers, laptops, mobile phones or similar devices interact both in physical and in virtual spaces, and the two worlds are often not clearly separated. The electronic device is part of the physical surrounding, and the physical surrounding impacts in multiple ways on the communicative activities on these devices. The virtual communicative spaces themselves are multi-layered and provide levels of constructed (interactional) spaces. In this contribution, we survey a large range of research that has been carried out on spatial configurations of communication in virtual environments with a special focus on immersive virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft, Minecraft or Second Life. On the basis of the existing research, we develop both a model for the spatial configurations of virtual game worlds displayed on a computer screen that is situated in a physical environment and a model that accounts for the interactive doing of space. Users sitting in front of their (physical) computers interact with each other via characters and their avatars in virtual worlds. This poses specific problems for establishing co-presence through co-orientation, which is a prerequisite of co-ordination and co-operation in the game world. As an illustrative case study, we analyze a Minecraft UHC teamplayer game as an example of a collaborative video game play in which players have to co-ordinate their actions. They use their avatars and virtual objects within the spatial configuration of the shared virtual environment to establish a quasi-physical and virtual co-presence, which allows them to co-operate successfully and to jointly perform the tasks set by the game