Making A Real Connection: Pro-Social Collaborative Play in Extended Realities – Trends, Challenges and Potentials

Extended reality (XR) has emerged as new cutting-edge technology, encompassing augmented, virtual and mixed reality. Extended reality redefines and elevates the game user experience within immersive and blended environments and opens new horizons, not just for gaming but also for enhancing pro-social connections through collaborative play. This workshop is dedicated to charting the course of trends, identifying and dissecting challenges, and probing the potential inherent in pro-social collaborative play within extended realities. We invite researchers, designers, and practitioners to come together, offering a platform to showcase different approaches. The core objective is to foster the exchange of knowledge and rigorous research findings within this emerging field. By doing so, we aim to build a network and lay a robust foundation for the future implementation of collaborative play in extended reality, paving the way for its seamless integration into the scientific discourse and practice.