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The relationship between medicine and video games is growing tremendously. In the field of medicine, realistic simulation and games have risen in popularity, and in turn, gamification has transformed the game elements into a non-gaming world for human engagement like motivation and performance. It is not surprising that game-based learning has branched out in the realm of the medical world. The person’s psychological state determines the effectiveness of education during training. This study aims to examine how the usage of immersive technology impacts users’ tendency to access immersive resources for learning during an emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic. Augmented reality (AR) apps have grown to be a popular tool in education nowadays. The purpose of using AR applications is to impart knowledge during the COVID-19 pandemic. An investigation was conducted to test the effectiveness of immersive technology in learning by developing a game-based experimental model and testing it on 100 non-randomly selected users of various ages. This study shows that users are open to new teaching approaches, including AR applications, in response to the challenges presented by the pandemic. AR applications provide a potential solution to the difficulties associated with education by providing an immersive and interesting experience that enhances learning-based results. This demonstrates that while using AR apps, an individual’s viewpoints and sense of control over their learning are more essential in influencing their conduct. By integrating AR apps into learning systems, immersive education may enhance users’ engagement, motivation and overall learning experiences.

Convenience sampling was chosen as the method for data analysis. One hundred users from a leading private university in the northwest part of India participated in this study. This gave a minimum sample size of 79 participants. To analyse the user experience (UX), a UX questionnaire was adopted. In this research paper, the researcher explores the importance of immersive games that emphasise awareness and experience through a series of questionnaires to assess the effective awareness of COVID through immersive technology, because the immersive element plays a major role in the quality and success of awareness through COVID-19 fighter video games as an interactive learning platform.

Results showed that most people do not know how to deal with an infected person in a critical situation; either they feel scared or deal without taking precautions. COVID-19 fighters are empowered with a virtual patient, which players can interact with. Once the user finishes the FPS game, he must find out the source of viruses that will be an AR-based virtual patient. The first step of the instruction will ask the user to give the mask to the infected person; in the second step, it will ask the user to sanitise his body. In the third step, it will ask to hospitalise.

The research offers empirical evidence on the effectiveness of augmented reality-based game approaches to increase reality in basic education to boost the awareness of individuals. The report also gives an example of good cross-cutting education materials that provide the player with a very valuable tool for understanding knowledge of covid awareness by playing the COVID-19 fighter game.

Augmented reality (AR) adoption has boomed globally in recent years. The prospective of AR to seamlessly integrate digital information into the actual environment has proven to be a challenge for academics and industry, as they endeavor to understand and predict the influence on users' perceptions, adoption intentions and usage. This study investigates the factors affecting consumers’ behavioral intention to adopt AR technology in shopping malls by offering the mobile technology acceptance model (MTAM).

This conceptual framework is based on mobile self-efficacy, rewards, social influence and enjoyment of existing MTAM constructs. A self-administered questionnaire, constructed by measuring questions modified from previous research, elicited 311 usable responses from mobile respondents who had recently used AR technology in shopping malls. This analysis was performed using SmartPLS3.0.

Grounded on the findings of the study, it was found that, aside from factors such as mobile usefulness, ease of use and social influence, the remaining independent variables had the most significant impact on adopting AR technologies. Considering the limitations of this study, the paper concludes by discussing the significant implications and insinuating avenues for future research.

To better investigate mobile AR app adoption in Pakistan’s shopping malls, the researchers modified the newly proposed MTAM model by incorporating mobile self-efficacy theory, social influence, rewards and perceived enjoyment. However, the extended model has not been extensively studied in previous research. This study is the first to examine the variables that affect an individual’s intention to accept mobile AR apps by using a novel extended MTAM.

This paper aims to provide an integrated legal and marketing perspective on the imminent trademark challenges and opportunities for sports organizations operating in the metaverse.

The approach is a legal commentary that explores the ways in which the current legal framework, especially in the context of trademarks, might need to transform to offer robust protection for sports brands in the virtual marketplaces emerging within the metaverse.

Our analysis reveals that the traditional legal frameworks for trademarks are often inadequate to address the unique challenges posted by the metaverse, such as the issue of virtual goods replication and the global accessibility of branded content. The findings indicate that sport organizations must adopt proactive strategies to monitor and enforce their trademark rights effectively within these expansive digital environments. Moreover, legislative bodies may need to consider reforms or new regulations specifically tailored to the complexities of trademark protection in the digital realm to prevent dilution and misuse of sport brands.

In light of legal and branding issues related to metaverse-based trademarks, this paper is dedicated to examining the legal principles and foundations necessary to enhance the protection of sports brands within the virtual marketplace of the metaverse.

Social avoidance disorders can be disruptive to the individual as they begin to over-manage their lives, at times avoiding social and work commitments. A potential therapeutic approach is exposure therapy and a virtual reality (VR) treatment approach, gameChange VR, has been developed. This provides an opportunity to test their fears in virtual environments. This study aims to investigate the feasibility of using this VR approach to treat people with social avoidance problems within a secure mental health setting.

Nine participants completed the gameChange VR sessions. Participants received 30-minute VR sessions for up to six weeks using selected scenarios at five levels of difficulty. Patients’ comments and behaviours were noted and clinical staff also provided feedback on their observations of patients’ use and experience with VR.

Overall, patients felt that the gameChange VR helped them to build their confidence and reduce their overall anxiety as they became more comfortable with the equipment. Both patients and staff generally found the intervention easy to use and the staff reported an overall high level of engagement among the participants. The key issues raised largely related to technical and safety issues.

While a previous study was carried out using gameChange VR with an outpatient cohort, this was the first using an inpatient group in a secure mental health setting. It has demonstrated that the intervention is viable in this setting, although further studies are required to identify the specific patient population that would benefit optimally from the therapy.

This research paper aims to conceptually explain the dark side of the metaverse from customers’ perspective in the hospitality and tourism industry.

A comprehensive analysis of the existing academic and practice-based literature on the metaverse, including its related concepts such as social media and e-commerce, was undertaken to conceptualise the metaverse dark side.

This research posits a theoretical framework highlighting five pivotal dark sides of the metaverse that is physiological, psychological, legal, security and privacy and societal issues. Each identified concern is examined to unveil various potential consequences, providing a comprehensive understanding of the challenges posed by the metaverse for customers in tourism and hospitality.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study stands out as the first of its kind to illuminate the adverse aspects of the metaverse from the viewpoint of tourism and hospitality customers. The arguments offered herein not only serve to raise awareness but also facilitate understanding of the darkverse among policymakers, government and metaverse business organisations. This awareness is crucial for the efficient and effective implementation of this novel innovative technology to enhance the customer experience in tourism and hospitality.

Augmented reality (AR) technology presents novel opportunities for marketers to captivate consumers, enhancing their experiences with brands. Although recent research underscores consumers' favorable responses to AR within retail contexts, there remains a paucity of studies examining the specific factors motivating these responses, i.e. reasons for, such as the appeal of entertainment, trendiness, customization, interaction and augmentation quality. Conversely, reasons against AR acceptance, such as perceived lack of realism, skepticism or perceived deception, are also underexplored.

Guided by the behavioral reasoning theory, the current study delves into consumers' personal values and beliefs, their reasons for and reasons against using AR apps and how these factors influence their engagement and relationship performance with AR apps. The data were collected from 343 AR app users to test the developed theoretical framework.

Results reveal that while perceived value compatibility does not influence reasons for using AR apps, it negatively influences reasons against using AR apps and positively influences connectedness to AR apps. Interestingly, openness to change does not significantly influence users’ connection to AR apps, and no association was found between reasons-against and connectedness to AR apps and relationship performance. However, a positive relationship was observed between users’ connectedness to AR apps and their relationship performance.

By offering these insights, this study contributes to a foundational understanding of the behavioral intricacies and dynamic interaction patterns within the rapidly emerging AR user base.

Augmented reality (AR) provides consumers with added value by allowing them to experience products via mobile devices. An increasing number of brands have adopted AR apps, but little is known about how consumers respond to AR app attributes or what motivates them to use luxury brand AR apps. To fill this gap, this study aims to use the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to examine how AR app attributes (i.e. interactivity and virtuality) and customer-based brand equity (CBBE) (i.e. brand awareness and brand image) of luxury brands affect consumers’ behavioral intention to share about the app and use it for future purchases.

Participants were recruited using a quantitative online survey (n = 214) and asked to use the Gucci mobile AR app before completing the survey. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data. All measures were adapted from existing literature.

Findings indicate that AR app attributes lead to positive consumer experience, in turn, creating behavioral intention, while CBBE partially leads to positive consumer perceptions. Post hoc analysis confirms that consumers’ perceived values mediate the relationship between AR app attributes and consumers’ attitudes toward a luxury brand AR app.

Theoretically, this study expands the application of the S-O-R model along with brand equity to AR adoption and luxury retail by demonstrating the intricate mechanism of how AR app attributes and CBBE promote consumers’ behavioral intentions toward luxury brand AR apps. Practitioners may create more interactive and immersive virtual product demonstrations and focus on establishing the overall brand image.

This study aims to examine how the telepresence of tourists using immersive technology affects responsible travel behaviour at natural heritage sites by exploring the role of feelings.

This study proposed a conceptual model that was empirically tested. Data was collected through online and offline surveys from 672 respondents who used AR/VR while visiting the natural heritage sites. PLS-SEM was used to analyze the data using SmartPLS 4.0.

The findings of this study highlight how feelings are processed as information when tourists are exposed to immersive technologies. These feelings, in addition to perceived value and destination attractiveness, affect responsible travel behaviour.

This study adds to the literature by offering insights concerning the tourists’ feelings related to responsible travel that can be evoked by getting involved in the virtual worlds. The findings suggest how managers can use immersive technology-based campaigns to promote responsible travel at natural heritage sites.

The literature does not elucidate the role of feelings and its dimensions (emotions and metacognitive experience) in explaining the effect of immersive technology in evoking responsible travel behaviour in the context of tourism. The current study addresses this gap and extends prior research by theorizing that feelings-as-information is the missing link between why tourists behave in a certain way, given a specific immersive stimulus.

With the rapid diffusion of the metaverse into all aspects of businesses and the education industry, scholars have predominantly focused on examining its projected benefits and harms, yet have overlooked to empirically explore its unpredictable nature, which offers an exciting realm of unexplored challenges and opportunities.

This research adopts a qualitative research design in the form of 24 interviews from a single EdTech to investigate the possibility of unexpected developments resulting from the integration of the metaverse into its solutions.

Three noteworthy observations have emerged from the analysis: technological obsolescence, resource allocation imbalance, and monoculturalism.

This research pioneers an empirical exploration of the latent outcomes stemming from metaverse adoption within EdTechs, while also introducing a novel theoretical framework termed “meta-governance,” which extends the Edu-Metaverse ecosystem.

Inclusive growth in the education sector is still a major challenge in some countries because of limited access to technologies and internet connectivity, among other reasons. However, as a technology, augmented reality (AR) is expected to be widely used in the field of education in the future. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the use of AR for inclusive growth in education as well as identify the challenges, particularly in countries like India and Tanzania.

This paper applies a systematic literature review by analysing and synthesising relevant documents, mainly journal articles, books and conference papers. Descriptive statistics and cross-tabulation were used for the analysis. Content analysis was used to evaluate the contents of the reviewed literature.

For the use of AR, it is important to have adequate digital infrastructure, access to universal internet or broadband facilities and the digital empowerment of citizens. Major challenges to inclusive growth in education include the lack of trained teacher educators and students’ preference for practical or project-based curriculum.

Practitioners in both countries may consider the use of AR for inclusive growth in education.

This paper specifically examines the use of AR in higher education and the related challenges based on a review of two countries, namely India and Tanzania.