Key findings from the consumer study

Digital games are popular amongst youth. Only 2% of boys and 12% of girls state that they do not play digital games at all. Majority of boys (67%) play digital games daily or almost daily where as 20% of girls play games daily or almost daily. Also adults and seniors play digital games. Majority (76%) of 19-65 year olds play digital games but only 15% play games daily. 52% of seniors (over 65 year of age) play digital games, 22% of them play games daily. The attitude towards exergames was positively neutral (see the image).

The trend of 'social games' as well as the utilization of the Internet have notable effects to the changes in digi-gamers' target group. In 1990s the discussion of games focused on quantity: boys played digital (video) games, girls or seniors did not. At present the discussion has shifted onto discussion about quality. Boys are more "game-literate" and have a clear picture what to expect from a digital games (usually PC or console game taking 40+ hours of play, fit into one of the established game genres). Many girls and seniors have played digital (video) games on the Internet or played games that were installed to their PC together with Windows OS (Solitaire, Minesweeper and Tetris). There are numerous minigames on the net one can play for free.

The EXERGAME consumer study disclosed that playing digital (video) games do not decrease youth interest towards sport. Digi-gamers were also active in others areas of life (e.g. sport). Neither were digi-players more obese than other young people.

Source: VTT Exergame project (Taloustutkimus January 2006)

Technology state of the art and roadmap

At the EXERGAME project we have collected understanding about the potential of exergames from three viewpoints: a) consumers (consumer study, user tests and interviews) b) market (market study) and 3) technological development (state of the art and technology roadmap).

On the basis of the knowhow about the possibilities, we started creating two prototypes in April 2006. The prototypes will be developed during the summer and evaluated in fall 2006. Summary's of the reports will be published in www.vtt.fi/exergame web site.

State of the art document focused on LBS and current mobile solutions which call for some physical activity from the users.

Technology roadmap was utilizing critical paths approach (see the image). Critical paths provide a way to depict how technology enablers evolve from one stage to another and how they are linked with each other.