From Augmented Reality Location-based Games To the Real-world Metaverse

The real-world metaverse can provide users with a hybrid experience blending the physical with the virtual through augmented reality (AR) technologies. In academia, the research of the metaverse is in its infancy, with prior works focused on technological and computational aspects of the concept. Still, a firm understanding of the lived user experiences of hybrid spaces is a significant gap in the literature. Further, Location-based games (LBG) have been started to be viewed as proto-metaverse applications with the potential to transition into real-world metaverse applications; however, little work explores how developers and researchers may facilitate this change. This report presents my research proposal to address the two lacunae mentioned above. First, I discuss state-of-the-art and present my research agenda. This is followed by presenting some initial results from my previous studies and discussing my future work.