Building blocks of Exergame genre?

Ian Bogost from Georgia Institute of Technology proclaimed that: "Those interested in exergames should be particularly interested in establishing new ritual practices unique to videogames. Guitar Hero and Wii Sports are successful examples of ritual-bound physical games, but they borrow their rituals entirely from other domains. "

Social rituals might be just what is needed but I think this comment also highlights the variety of important issues when building up a new game genre or form of sport. What type of activity exergaming is anyway. Should we consider exergames as games or novel type of physical activity? What type of social rituals will create exergame culture?

Please check out more about this from Serious Games Source.

Exergame project will continue until June 2007

Last year we did a lot of background studies and finished two Exergame prototypes. The prototypes will be further developed at an spin off company and another projects. In 2007 (January - June) we will continue working with youth but also focus on seniors because 66+ year olds were bring forth interesting notions - weak signals if you prefer - at the consumer study.

We will also do networking -- and I would like to urge any one of you (universities and companies) to drop me a line if you are interested in some sort of cooperation. We will be at the GDC07 in San Francisco (5th - 9th March 2007), network with CITRIS network at the Silicon valley as well as Sendai / Tohoku University in Japan.

We see that there are certain technological trends that are global as well as similar needs and ideas rising. One way to cultivate the ideas further is to cooperate!

Our first workshop will be held in Espoo, Finland on 20th February 2007. Miniseminar on mobile exergames and other forms of serious gaming will focus on technology trends, user needs and ways to utilize digital entertainment to motivate to do sport and to share information or advertise in new ways.We will bring some research findings (from Exergame-project), current solutions (In the Groove dance pads for 8 players and Nintendo Wii) as well as future visions (VT's mobile exergame prototypes). You are warmly welcome if you happen to be around :)
More information: Exergame web site.