Exergaming 101 - Active Gaming Explained

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+ Richard Coshott 2 years ago
Slide 1:

This presentation will give you the background into exergaming. Most of you will have heard about exergaming, or active gaming, from media reports most likely into Wii or Wii Fit. This is the tip of the iceberg as journalists struggle to engage with this new concept. Exergaming is commonly recognised in Dance Mats, Sony Eyetoy, Wii Sports, Gamercize and also a variety of racing game bikes. Those are the products, but what of the concept, where did it come from, what can it do and why should you be using it?
+ Richard Coshott 2 years ago
Slide 2:

First off, lets get some background into the lifestyle and environmental changes that have built not only the space for exergaming but have made this new concept almost a necessity. This is a picture of a local play park serving a very large estate community taken at about 6:30 pm on a warm mid-week day. The facilities look great, only thing missing from this picture is the kids.
+ Richard Coshott 2 years ago
Slide 3:

Some twenty or thirty years ago “play” used to mean a group of children kicking a ball about in the park, role playing cowboys and indians or any one of a thousand outdoor activities. The common theme of all traditional play is fun, but it requires physical exercise; be it running, climbing obstacles or kicking a ball. The exercise effort is not the purpose of the activity, it is incidental – you can’t play soccer without running, but the point of the game is not to run, it is to play and have fun. Technology provides the entertainment of choice now, with ipods, cell phones, video games and the internet becoming the primary focus for free time.

There are many reasons why traditional play has declined; fear of crime, drugs, increased traffic, less areas to play, parents working more and too many more reasons to cover here. The concerns of parents are directly affecting not only children’s actions, but also their own perceptions of the risk of outdoor play. Actions of choice are governed by human psychology mostly based on Risk and Reward. The risk of outdoor play is perceived to be large.

As for the rewards? There is little change in rewards of outdoor play, but there’s a new player now – the video game. Video games eagerly provide rewarding entertainment in exchange for a little bit of hard earned cash. The reward of outdoor play has not diminished, but video games are far more rewarding as play and have almost no perceived risk. In reality the risk of gaming play is actually far greater than imagined. While media perception focuses on violence in gaming, the true enemy of society is the inactive nature of gaming, that is so engaging it borders on addiction.

The lack of incidental exercise leads to a loss of fitness and consequently weight gain to obesity.
+ Richard Coshott 2 years ago
Slide 4:

For incidental activity to get back into play, it needs to be a part of new play - video games. How is this accomplished?
+ Richard Coshott 2 years ago
Slide 5:

Exergaming is a very simple concept.

Gaming is fun, from children to adults gameplay is becoming a part of modern life. You may be surprised to learn that over the last five years gamers have racked up an estimated 1 million years of gameplay on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 worldwide. Combine these two consoles with all the others in circulation and you can get the real scale of the video game industry - a total of over 265 million game titles were purchased last year in the US alone, that’s nearly one for every man, woman and child in the country. 97% of teenagers either own of play videogames, girls almost as much as boys. Video games are fun and here to stay.

Exercise, incidental or planned, increases fitness. Increased fitness will naturally lead to weight loss in the overweight through a more active lifestyle. For those already engaged in effective weight management, increased fitness gives more physical ability to better achieve in physical activities.

Exergaming takes the fitness aspect of exercise and combines it with the fun factor of video games, this is the definition in the basic sense, but there’s a bit more to it for an exergame to be effective. More on that later, the important thing to realise at this stage is that exergaming addresses the problem of lost exercise in play.
+ Richard Coshott 2 years ago
Slide 6:

Games and exercise sounds easy doesn’t it? For exergames to work in delivering health benefits they need to satisfy a number of basic criteria to be effective. So, what are the boxes to tick?
+ Richard Coshott 2 years ago
Slide 7:

For any form of exercise activity to be effective the user has to be enjoying it - that way they will spend enough time engaged to realise health benefits. Exergames must have sound foundations, here’s the cornerstones and what they mean.

Engagement. In order to provide exercise the activity must be one that people will engage in. To do this the fullest spectrum of gaming genres need to be catered for. 80% of teenagers play 5 or more genres of video game, this means some love racing games, others are far more involved with strategy games, only by making all of these available can exergames engage the largest population.

Accessibility. The exercise element of an exergame should not discourage anyone based on their current physical ability. This is achieved by detaching the physical performance from the video game performance, making the exercise incidental and allowing those with lesser ability to access exergames as a rewarding activity. If an exergame is based on physical ability, rather than physical activity, then the population with the most to gain could easily be discouraged.

Sustainability. Making sure people are engage and can participate with their own ability is a start now, we need to make sure they can sustain their interest. Exergaming is only as good as the video game behind it, and if gamers get bored they will go back to inactive gaming. Being able to change the game used for another game mirrors the behaviour of video gamers, who typically move on to a new game every 2 or 3 months. An exergame has to follow this formula of success that has sustaining inactive gaming for many decades.

Gaming has now grown to the point that the population supports a wide social community. Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii consoles all offer online gaming networks, and exergames need to support these environments, not just technically, but also in terms of cost of purchase and space. Exergames need to be low cost and take up minimal space to get a social group of exergamers active in one facility.
+ Richard Coshott 2 years ago
Slide 8:

Exergaming, at first glance, is seen as a replacement for traditional physical education. This is simply not the case, and to use exergaming in this way does use it to the fullest potential.
+ Richard Coshott 2 years ago
Slide 9:

The most obvious use of exergames is by copying the way video games are used most commonly – unstructured. For adding extra physical activity into the curriculum this can be a simple as an after school exergaming club. For adult users, placing exergaming equipment in gyms or leisure centres offers the capability for someone to jump on, be active and have fun at the same time. Unstructured does not mean unsupervised, the presence of a qualified profession to answer questions, monitor safe use of the equipment or even partner up in a two player game is invaluable for the user experience.

An obvious use of exergames is to treat it like as any other fitness equipment, in a designed and structured session. Some exergames are very useful to provide a warm up before more vigorous exercise. Think of any scenario where you use multiple activities in one session and you have the opportunity to include exergames, engage the hard to get moving and generally raise participation.

The use of exergaming in competition has proved very popular. This year we held the first international exergame tournament between England and the USA over Xbox LIVE and broadcast on the web and live news TV. Don’t worry, you don’t need to be that ambitious – exergame competition can be accomplished with a single game on a single PlayStation 3 in a two player configuration. 1-on-1 events have been very popular, especially in a “winner stays on” competition format. In schools a team based approach works well, where team members earn points for in game performance and exercise achievement towards their team total. Using multiple stations and games adds extra interest - but keep half the team spectating as supporters. This adds encouragement, especially to those children who are very skilful with video games who would not normally achieve in physical competition.

Reward based exergaming is a powerful tool. The lure of video games in a setting that does not normally allow such pastimes can be justified by adding the exercise element. One school is using exergames in the academic classroom, when children finish their assignments well and in good time they can exergame. Imagine the parents reactions if this was inactive gameplay!
+ Richard Coshott 2 years ago
Slide 10:

Being diligent and intelligent people, we now have a shortlist of exergames that have the ability to deliver exercise to our target population in a fun and sustainable way, but how can we employ this new technology?

Comments 1 - 10 of 14 previous next

This presentation will give you the background into exergaming. Most of you will have heard about exergaming, or active gaming, from media reports most likely into Wii or Wii Fit. This is the tip of the iceberg as journalists struggle to engage with this new concept. Exergaming is commonly recognised in Dance Mats, Sony Eyetoy, Wii Sports, Gamercize and also a variety of racing game bikes. Those are the products, but what of the concept, where did it come from, what can it do and why should you be using it?

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Exergaming 101 - Active Gaming Explained - Presentation Transcript

exergaming 101 Richard Coshott CEO and Founder Gamercize
where did exergaming come from?
changes in play
- creative physical activities
- includes incidental exercise
- computer and video gaming
- makes play inactive
how does exergaming work?
gaming with exercise
- games are fun
- exercise gives fitness
- exergaming is defined
- addresses a problem
what attributes does an exergame need?
exergame cornerstones
- engage – variety of games
- access – varying abilities
- sustain – changeable games
- social – online multi-player
how can exergames be used with youngsters?
opportunities for phys-ed
- unstructured play
- structured training
- exergaming competition
- reward based
what do exergames do for the adult generation?
grown up exergaming
- next-generation lifestyle
- office based exergaming
- next-generation consoles
- exergaming tournaments
why are exergames being adopted?
gateway effect
- increased physical ability
- improved sports skill
- boosted self confidence
- natural progression in activity
reach the next level www.gamercize.net tm