Remote Work in the Metaverse: How Software Development Teams Experience Gather.Town
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5753/jserd.2025.6034Keywords:
Metaverse, Gather.Town, Developer Experience, Software Development Teams, Remote Work, Flow State, Practitioners RecommendationsAbstract
The remote work model is becoming increasingly established in software companies, driven by the demand for flexibility and the advancement of communication technologies. Despite its benefits, this shift brings challenges, such as asynchronous communication, reduced opportunities for spontaneous interactions, and social isolation. To overcome these obstacles, some development teams are adopting metaverse environments, such as Gather.Town. In this context, this research investigates the impact of using metaverse environments on the experience of members of remote software development teams, as well as the factors that influence their adoption and abandonment. We conducted surveys and interviews with 13 practitioners from five software development companies who have used or are currently using Gather.Town. The study addressed aspects such as ease of use, communication, collaboration, sense of presence, social interaction, and flow experience, as well as adoption challenges and reasons for abandonment. Our results indicate that metaverse environments can facilitate collaboration in remote software development teams by promoting social interaction, enhancing the sense of presence, and enabling more efficient communication. This helps mitigate some of the limitations of traditional remote work, such as social isolation. However, participants also reported challenges, including distractions caused by playful elements and difficulties with privacy during sensitive interactions. Organizational restrictions were also identified as a barrier that limited the adoption of the platform. This research demonstrates that the use of metaverse environments can enhance communication and collaboration in remote teams. When properly aligned with the team's needs and workflows, these environments offer a more integrated and engaging work experience.
Downloads
References
Al Harthy, B., Al Harthi, A., Arianpoor, A., and Zaidan, A. S. (2023). Impact of metaverse at workplace: Opportunity and challenges. In International Multi-Disciplinary Conference-Integrated Sciences and Technologies, pages 54–68. Springer.
Andres, H. P. (2002). A comparison of face-to-face and virtual software development teams. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 8(1/2):39–48.
Bailey, D. E. and Kurland, N. B. (2002). A review of telework research: Findings, new directions, and lessons for the study of modern work. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior, 23(4):383–400.
Bellotti, V. and Bly, S. (1996). Walking away from the desktop computer: distributed collaboration and mobility in a product design team. In Proceedings of the 1996 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, pages 209–218.
Biocca, F. (1997). The cyborg’s dilemma: Progressive embodiment in virtual environments. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 3(2):JCMC324.
Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2021). One size fits all? what counts as quality practice in (reflexive) thematic analysis? Qualitative research in psychology, 18(3):328–352.
Corporation, R. (2024). Roblox corporation. [link].
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). If we are so rich, why aren’t we happy? American psychologist, 54(10):821.
Csikszentmihalyi, M., Larson, R., et al. (2014). Flow and the foundations of positive psychology, volume 10. Springer.
Diab-Bahman, R. and Al-Enzi, A. (2020). The impact of covid-19 pandemic on conventional work settings. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 40(9/10):909–927.
Dourish, P. and Bellotti, V. (1992). Awareness and coordination in shared workspaces. In Proceedings of the 1992 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work, pages 107–114.
Dourish, P. and Bly, S. (1992). Portholes: Supporting awareness in a distributed work group. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages 541–547.
Dyba, T., Kampenes, V. B., and Sjøberg, D. I. (2006). A systematic review of statistical power in software engineering experiments. Information and Software Technology, 48(8):745–755.
Ford, D., Storey, M.-A., Zimmermann, T., Bird, C., Jaffe, S., Maddila, C., Butler, J. L., Houck, B., and Nagappan, N. (2021). A tale of two cities: Software developers working from home during the covid-19 pandemic. ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol., 31(2).
Gather.town (2023). Gather.town. [link].
Hartmann, T., Wirth, W., Vorderer, P., Klimmt, C., Schramm, H., and Böcking, S. (2015). Spatial Presence Theory: State of the Art and Challenges Ahead, pages 115–135. Springer International Publishing, Cham.
IEEE Computer Society (1990). IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology. IEEE, New York, NY, USA.
International Society for Presence Research (2023). Presence defined. Accessed: 2024-05-30.
Kim, J. (2021). Advertising in the metaverse: Research agenda. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 21(3):141–144.
Lee, H. J. and Gu, H. H. (2022). Empirical research on the metaverse user experience of digital natives. Sustainability, 14(22):14747.
Lee, Y., Jung, J.-H., Kim, H., Jung, M., and Lee, S.-S. (2023). Comparative case study of teamwork on zoom and gather.town. Sustainability, 15(2).
Likert, R. (1932). A technique for the measurement of attitudes. Archives of psychology.
Lo, F.-y., Su, C.-Y., and Chen, C.-H. (2024). Identifying factor associations emerging from an academic metaverse event for scholars in a postpandemic world: Social presence and technology self-efficacy in gather.town. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 27(1):19–27. PMID: 38197841.
Lucchesi, I. L. (2019). Avaliação do estado de interesse e do estado de fluxo por meio de jogos digitais educacionais no ensino da matemática. PhD thesis.
Morrison-Smith, S. and Ruiz, J. (2020). Challenges and barriers in virtual teams: a literature review. SN Applied Sciences, 2(6):1–33.
Mortensen, M. and Hinds, P. J. (2001). Conflict and shared identity in geographically distributed teams. International Journal of Conflict Management, 12(3):212–238.
Mystakidis, S. (2022). Metaverse. Encyclopedia, 2(1):486–497.
Nakamura, J. and Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2002). The concept of flow. In Snyder, C. R. and Lopez, S. J., editors, Handbook of Positive Psychology, pages 89–105. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
Olson, G. M. and Olson, J. S. (2000). Distance matters. Human–Computer Interaction, 15(2–3):139–178.
Pallavicini, F., Pepe, A., and Minissi, M. E. (2019). Gaming in virtual reality: What changes in terms of usability, emotional response and sense of presence compared to non-immersive video games? Simulation & Gaming, 50(2):136–159.
Palos-Sanchez, P. R., Baena-Luna, P., and Silva-O’Connor, D. (2023). Exploring employees’ beliefs regarding the potential benefits of virtual worlds for group cohesion: gather town. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 82(16):24943–24965.
Park, H., Ahn, D., and Lee, J. (2023). Towards a metaverse workspace: Opportunities, challenges, and design implications. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 1–20.
Parker, K., Horowitz, J. M., and Minkin, R. (2022). Covid-19 pandemic continues to reshape work in America.
Ralph, P., bin Ali, N., Baltes, S., Bianculli, D., Diaz, J., Dittrich, Y., Ernst, N., Felderer, M., Feldt, R., Filieri, A., de França, B. B. N., Furia, C. A., Gay, G., Gold, N., Graziotin, D., He, P., Hoda, R., Juristo, N., Kitchenham, B., Lenarduzzi, V., Martínez, J., Melegati, J., Mendez, D., Menzies, T., Molleri, J., Pfahl, D., Robbes, R., Russo, D., Saarimäki, N., Sarro, F., Taibi, D., Siegmund, J., Spinellis, D., Staron, M., Stol, K., Storey, M.-A., Taibi, D., Tamburri, D., Torchiano, M., Treude, C., Turhan, B., Wang, X., and Vegas, S. (2021). ACM SIGSOFT empirical standards released. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 46(1):19–19.
Reference, O. (2024). Oxford reference. [link].
Ribeiro, A. and Monteiro, L. (2015). A indução afetiva em cenários de realidade virtual: avaliação da sensação de presença. Psicologia Clínica, 27(1):139–160.
Ritonummi, S., Siitonen, V., Salo, M., Pirkkalainen, H., and Sivunen, A. (2023). Flow experience in software engineering. In Proceedings of the 31st ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering, pages 618–630.
Roh, T., Xiao, S., and Park, B. I. (2024). What makes metaverse users immersed in the flow state in an emerging market? An application of affordance theory and ISSM. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 81:104012.
Spatial.io (2024). Spatial - About. [link].
Sriworapong, S., Pyae, A., Thirasawasd, A., and Keereewan, W. (2022). Investigating students’ engagement, enjoyment, and sociability in virtual reality-based systems: A comparative usability study of Spatial.io, Gather.town, and Zoom. In International Conference on Well-Being in the Information Society, pages 140–157. Springer.
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research. Sage Publications.
Takatalo, J., Häkkinen, J., Kaistinen, J., and Nyman, G. (2010). Presence, involvement, and flow in digital games. Evaluating User Experience in Games: Concepts and Methods, pages 23–46.
Telecom, S. (2024). SK Telecom - Metaverse. [link].
Voinea, G. D., Gîrbacia, F., Postelnicu, C. C., Duguleana, M., Antonya, C., Soica, A., and Stănescu, R.-C. (2022). Study of social presence while interacting in metaverse with an augmented avatar during autonomous driving. Applied Sciences, 12(22):11804.
Vollstedt, M. and Rezat, S. (2019). An introduction to grounded theory with a special focus on axial coding and the coding paradigm. Compendium for Early Career Researchers in Mathematics Education, 13(1):81–100.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Ayumi Aoki, Marcia Lima, Eriky Rodrigues, Leandro Galvão, Tayana Conte
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
