2021 ,
5
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Multimodal Technol. Interact. 2021 ,
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Figure 1. Historical overview of selected platforms by target player age range and platform initial
launch year. Pink denotes platforms developed by ed-tech technology companies, and purple de-
notes entertainment technology companies.
2.3. An Analysis of 10 Representative VW Platforms Reflecting on the core features that emerged from the initial round of analysis and
building upon prior research, we selected a total of 10 platforms (Table 2) for a detailed
analysis of social design features. These 10 platforms included five platforms developed
by entertainment companies (
Fortnite, Habbo Hotel, Neopets, Roblox, and Minecraft ) and five
platforms developed by ed-tech companies (
Whyville ,
Poptropica ,
Animal Jam ,
JumpStart 3D , and
Secret Builders ). These 10 popular platforms were selected based on a rubric that
we developed to cover a wide variety of genres that are popular across different develop-
mental age groups and have been discussed in prior literature and industry research. As
our study is focused on prosocial behaviors, we drew player profiles from prior literature
that are shown to support collaborative, social, and creative play. We also included three
broad developer groups to cover platforms developed by users as well as corporations
and smaller title owners. Based on these rationales, the inclusion criteria for the 10 core
VW platforms include:
•
Diverse youth across age groups based on developmental age groups [32,64]: young
children (3 to 5 years), children (6 to 10 years), and tweens and teens (11 to 18 years)
•
A diverse range of game genres as described by Heintz & Law [65]: action, adventure,
simulation, building, puzzle-strategy, role play, open world, etc.
