Recent research suggests that virtual reality (VR) games can engage players in physical activity with high levels of enjoyment. Understanding users’ motivation to engage and enjoy immersive VR exercise platforms is thus important to designers. We designed a VR exercise platform and conducted an experiment with two conditions, one with a static user interface (UI) and the other with an open world environment. Across participants there was significantly (p = 0.03*) greater enjoyment reported in an open world compared to static UI. Enjoyment in both static UI and open world conditions was positively correlated wih user’s psychological needs and experience; autonomy and immersion. Participants’ future play intention was also predicted by autonomy and immersion, but only within the open world condition. Our findings also suggest players can be classified into entertainment-focused and exercise-focused with different expectations and therefore different engagement behaviors with each VR exercise environment. The study highlights the value of informing VR design with measures of psychological need satisfaction.

最近的研究表明，虚拟现实（VR）游戏可以使玩家参与高水平的体育锻炼。因此，了解用户参与和享受沉浸式VR锻炼平台的动机对设计师来说很重要。我们设计了一个VR锻炼平台，并在两个条件下进行了实验，一个条件带有静态用户界面（UI），另一个条件带有开放世界环境。参加对面有显著（p= 0.03 *），与静态用户界面相比，在开放世界中获得了更多的乐趣。静态用户界面和开放世界条件下的享受与用户的心理需求和体验呈正相关；自主权和沉浸感。参与者的未来游戏意图也可以通过自主性和沉浸感来预测，但仅限于开放世界条件下。我们的研究结果还表明，可以将玩家分为娱乐性和运动性，并具有不同的期望，因此每个VR运动环境的参与行为也不同。该研究强调了通过心理需求满足程度来告知VR设计的价值。