EXERGAME

Braingaming for seniors

2007-06-05T09:58:00.000+03:00

Exergame-project just accomplished a prelimiary study of braingaming. Thanks to Amo Oy we got NDS consoles and the games: Big Brain Academy and Brain Training to be utilized in user tests. Our consumer researchers organized group interviews with experts, seniors (Enter Ry) and 45+ working age people. The results were very encouraging and rousing! We shall continue more practical research tasks in the fall 2007 hopefully with companies active in the field.

Boxing Box!

2007-06-04T16:48:00.000+03:00

Another type of exergaming: Boxing Box!

Exergaming for tourists

2007-05-31T10:53:00.000+03:00

Another interesting outcome from VTT's Exergame project is out. VTT is about to develop exergame / locative media services together with Finnish tourism industry. User generated content, free and proactive participation, exploratory travelling and experiences are strong trends also in the area of tourism. Finnish tourism industry is developing mobile services for tourist to get more out of the hiking experience in the Finnish forests.

VTT has developed a service to enable the travellers to make their own schedule as well as create plays, stories or routes to be shared with their families (travelogue) or other travellers (playful routing guide). The solution is as simple as PictoGame. One just have to take photos, add text and/or record sounds and make it a game. It can be anything from basic orienteering from one location to another to more complex games.

The prototype is now ready and further development will be started in the fall 2007 with companies.

Exergame approach to floorball training

2007-05-31T10:42:00.000+03:00

Finnish starup A4SP has just released their first exergame product. They approach is a bit different than the typical idea of exergaming. This far majority of the solutions have been either home fitness equipment type of interfaces to console and PC games or alternative interfaces and new ways of interaction such as Nintendo Wii and Playstation EyeToy.

A4SP is developing exergames that improve the performance of team sports participants. At first A4SP product is utilized in floorball training. A4SP product enables measurement and comparison of the results worldwide in a playful way.

There is not yet too much public information available but this certainly is a refreshing and innovative approach to exergaming.

The Next Big Thing

2007-03-12T13:01:00.000+02:00

We have been following the development the trend of Exergames. Thanks to Google Alert (and Fight, Trend...) we have been able to anticipate the rise of the trend. Recently The Economist published an interesting article on Exergames. You'll find a recap of the article from here.

As we know, there are number of alternatives for the "Next Big Thing" and probably there will be several big things coming up. In any case we have to agree that such issues as gesture interfaces for console/PC/mobile, social gaming and ways to allure new groups into gaming are all established in exergames. Also please check out VTT's Exergame seminar materials. Some of the slides are in Finnish. If you want to get more details and more information in general about our findings and the future trends, send me (Sonja Kangas) a message (@vtt.fi).

Building blocks of Exergame genre?

2007-02-06T13:50:00.000+02:00

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

2007-02-01T12:45:00.000+02:00

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.

Technologies enable misuse of exergame services

2006-11-30T15:44:00.000+02:00

Lately we (the project group) have been busy finishing our prototypes and accomplishing the user tests. There were a number of interesting findings from the tests. Basically both youngsters and adults (~50 year olds) were exited about exergames on the basis of the user tests of Figuremeter and Fitness Adventure prototypes. Just to highlight some observations: Young people were afraid of cheating and bullying. They consider a possibility that a school mate could e.g. force you to exercise on behalf of him/her. The teaser could get the benefit out of the exercise. If the exercise would be measured by a pedometer one could just "put the pedometer to a blender and get 10 000 steps in a minute". Such issues are avoidable by technical choices.

Adult users wanted to be entertainment but thought the Fitness Adventure game created by the project team was too naiive. They would like to get dynamic, informational, social and entertaining exercise experiences out of exergames. Our mobile prototypes were especially good for casual exercise, walking to work or school, hanging around the mall and/or light walking.

In relation to 'misuse' and/or challenges with the exergames, I came across Wired News article on 'Nike+ IPod = Surveillance'. According to Univ. of Washington researchers: Ipod+Nike has some security flaws. They claim that tech-savvy abusers could stalk, track individuals' movements or even temp thieves into crime. We (at the Exergame project) have considered ways to activate women to get into exergaming. Many women do not like pulse meters, wristop computers or any of that. I have considered Ipod+Nano to be a nice novelty for the casual exercisers as many women not into technology are into music and listen music while exercising.

Still there seem to be a number of issues to take under consideration and lessons to be learned from current solutions. For me this was "out-of-the-box" thinking in a way. I have been focused on games, technologies, easiness of use, mobile services, motivational issues and consumer segments. That is all valuable information but it is also true that after a single stalker episode, it would take a long time until single women joggers would trust similar service or concept again.

Exergame-project doing co-operation with MoFun @Heureka

2006-10-30T11:48:00.000+02:00

The Finnish Science Center Heureka has put up MoFun Circus installation. Exergame-project does co-operation with MoFun team by providing user study method and analyzing user survey. First survey was done on 25. - 26. October 2006. 60 persons (9-14 years of age) answered the survey. The results were very promising. Most of the respondents liked Circus game a lot and though of it as a sort of a sport. For most of the respondents, playing a game by movement, playing a game together with friends and surprisement were the best things in the game. Youngest children considered the game to be a bit too difficult and that it demands a large space which would make it impossible to play at home.

We will continue the user studies and also consider what type of sport Circus game could be? Would it fit to health promotion in some way? Could it be used to study children's joint action and taking roles? More detailed results will be ready at the end of 2006.

Video games as sport

2006-10-30T11:41:00.000+02:00

Orlando Sentinel reported:
The researchers (Univ. of Miami) have studied the metabolic and physiologic responses of 21 boys, ages 7-10, as they played an action video game called Tekken 3 for 15 minutes. As the boys punched and kicked their way through the game's mock martial-arts battles, their heart rates went up, on average, by 19 percent, their systolic blood pressure rose by a similar amount; and their breathing rates increased by 55 percent. The levels of glucose and lactate in their blood didn't change as they would during real physical activity. Nonetheless, the researchers estimated from the boys' breathing and oxygen consumption that the energy they expended in playing the video game was roughly equivalent to what they would use in walking at a 2 mph pace. They reported their results in the April 2006 Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

At the Tekes funded Virtahepo-project, related study is underway. Lahti AMK is carrying out analysis on Megazone laser tagging. They try to figure out what type of sport active Megazone gaming is. The results will be ready at the beginning of 2007.

Video games for health behaviour management

2006-10-10T16:30:00.000+03:00

Exergames are getting more are more

Futurelab just published their book: Teaching with games. The book 'offers an overview of teachers’ and students’ use of computer games and attitudes towards computer games in schools, identifies factors which impact upon the incorporation of computer games into existing school practices, describes the processes by which teachers plan and implement games-based learning in existing curricular contexts.'

There are several lessons to be learned from edugames. Even though edugames have not been too popular, edutainment/-games have a long history behind them. There are certain similarities with exergames -- ways to support communication, education and co-operation to begin with.

I have got a lot of inspiration from Dr Lieberman's articles and experiments. Another great source of exergame-related studies is Pennsylvania State University. Physical Fitness in Virtual Worlds study and Exergame - a moving video game experience overviews give many clues and inspiring results from the tests.

A virtual gym in Redlands lets kids burn calories the fun way

2006-10-04T11:56:00.000+03:00

The best part about "exertainment" is that it can motivate even the most hard-core exercise haters -- from children to adults."

An interesting article of exergaming. RE.COM HEALTH: A virtual gym in Redlands lets kids burn calories the fun way.

Wired NextFest '06

2006-10-04T11:14:00.000+03:00

Wired NextFest presented "WIRED's vision of a new world" within four days. NextFest provided a possibility to experience the future of exploration, entertainment, transportation, health, communication, design, security, and green living.

There were at least three categories which had some congruity with Exergame projects' focus: Future of Health, Future of Entertainment and Future of Play. Most of the Future of Health solutions focused on hospital/health care solutions and instruments. Hopefully there will be more examples of preventive health care next year. My pick from Health solutions is CosmoBot: a robotic toolkit designed for clinical rehabilitation and special education.

Future of Entertainment as well as Future of Play categories had few innovations that are interesting also from the viewpoint of our project. My pick from that category is Full Body Games by FeedTank. Virtual Canoe could also be lots of fun. The list of exhibitors and pieces can be found from NextFest webste.

Thesis: Design and Evaluation of Physically Interactive Games

2006-09-22T12:40:00.000+03:00

Ms Johanna Höysniemi Doctoral Thesis (July 2006) is very interesting for those into exergames and physical games or physical interfaces in digital games. The thesis is titled: Design and Evaluation of Physically Interactive Games and the goal was to provide an understanding of how physically interactive games should be designed and evaluated in collaboration with the users. Johanna focused on spatial games utilising computer vision and hearing technologies. In her thesis she has analysed physically interactive games -- QuiQui Giant Bounce and Kick Ass Kung-Fu -- which she has developed by herself (part of a development team) .

Fitness friendly entertainment

2006-09-15T10:11:00.000+03:00

Sony "fitness" Walkman NW-S200:
"Players can detect a user's run/walk rhythm and adjust the music accordingly, count steps and calories burned and measure distance covered. "

It is somewhat similar to Nike + iPod Sport Kit.
Nike shoes feature a built-in pocket under the insole specially engineered for the Nike + iPod sensor. The sensor uses a sensitive accelerometer to measure activity, and wirelessly transfers data to the receiver on the iPod nano.

Besides linking sport with entertainment (music as motivation) there are also other types of fitness innovations. According to Mika Yamamoto (Cnet news.com executive editor) physical fitness could be a powerful niche in the Web 2.0 world! This is truly interesting as that statement links two current ICT trends nicely: social media and physical, mobile (fitness) interfaces.

According to Cnet: Web 2.0-oriented sites such as Gimme20, Traineo and PEERtrainer are trying to capitalize on the fitness trend. Sites that are even more finely defined, such as SugarStats.com, target specific health issues (in this case diabetes). The web sites can also be rather rough and ready with their notions, such as RunFatBoy. The service certainly does not allure the users but perhaps "facing the facts" type of approach suits for some.

Exergame live at Nordic Game 06

2006-09-07T10:31:00.000+03:00

Sonja Kangas will give a talk about Exergames at Nordic Game 06 conference, Malmö Sweden on 19th September.

She will talk about the changes in the games business and highlighting some findings from our consumer survey (N=1489) about the possibilities of exergames as well as ways to 'understand the user'. What type of physical interfaces will be introduced, what is interface realism, who are the gamers and who will be playing games in the future, are games blurring with other industries... what possibilities does that offer to developers?

Come to find out! It will be an excellent event!

MoFun - physical game installation

2006-09-07T10:19:00.000+03:00

MoFun alias Marjuska Kaukomies, Sami Laakso, Petri Ruikka & co have developed an exciting physical game installation. Tuned video camera follows movements of a group of users and reflects the activity to the screen (in a form of a pair of clowns holding a trampoline). Clowns try to catch every falling item / animal / thing. The cool thing about MoFun circus game is that a) it calls for co-operation (if you want to master the game, you have to co-operate). B) It is suitable for "all". The youngest players have been 4-5 year olds! Also 3) it is physical; a group of players really have to run around the floor to catch anything that falls... and oh boy, it is soooo much fun! I quess you could name circus game to be one sort of a stealth exercise. The installation is set up at Heureka (Vantaa, Finland)

Health Training seminar at TKK

2006-06-26T11:57:00.000+03:00

EXERGAME-project together with PM&RG group at the Helsinki University of Technology will arrange 'Health Training' seminar in Fall 2006. The aim of the seminar (lasting from September to December 2006) is to innovate ubiquitous, mobile and wearable exergames or wellness technologies. We shall co-operate with a range of experts advising the students about different user groups from special groups to seniors, technologies from wearables to ubiquitous solutions and current findings from consumer research.

More information can be found from the PM&RG web site.

Interface Realism

2006-06-26T11:31:00.000+03:00

My idol superguru Perttu "QuiQui, KickAssKungFu" Hämäläinen has introduced an interesting term: interface realism. He sees that the realism of user's actions and the audiovisual output both contribute to the overall realism of the user experience. This notion is very accurate and interesting especially in games. Juhanna (Höysniemi) and Perttu state in their article "Children’s and Parents’ Perception of Full-Body Interaction and Violence in Martial Arts Game" that 'user interface realism is enabled by the increasing signal processing power of modern computers and it's consequently developing real-time computer vision and hearing technology. New interfaces enable new forms of psychomotor and cognitive learning. You can interact with game worlds and characters with your movements and voice, e.g., practice martial arts with
virtual opponents. You can control a game by singing, which can develop your musical skills.'

Interface realism is one thing that rebuilds the industry of digital games interlinking digital games with other (also more beneficial) applications and new user groups. It is one way of stepping out from the shadow of 1980s computer games with their narrowly defined genres and structures.

Another Exergames Blog

2006-06-26T11:25:00.000+03:00

While this blog is focusing on mobile exergames and VTT's EXERGAME-project, Exergames.com blog is covering the wide area of different physical interface, exergame and software solutions.
See http://www.exergames.com/

Key findings from the consumer study

2006-05-05T15:24:00.000+03:00

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

2006-05-05T15:08:00.000+03:00

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.

Top 3 concept into prototypes

2006-02-23T17:01:00.000+02:00

EXERGAME-project focused on concept design from December 2005 - February 2006. From the hundreds of ideas, 14 concepts were written more in detail. After quick evaluation top 3 ideas were selected and/or combined.

The project will continue with top 3 concepts. We will do market survey focusing on these three ideas and their potential in youth and occupational health 'markets'. We will develop all these three into prototypes and test the ideas with users in summer-fall 2006.

Exergame: Consumer survey

2006-02-23T16:52:00.000+02:00

Exergame-project did a consumer survey (N=1489) in January 2006. Our aim was to get more detailed information about motivation factors, self-efficacy, resources and social attitude towards sport and digital game play. The findings were analysed prorata four scenarios of playful sport activities aka 'exergaming'.

Survey focused on youth (13-18 year olds), 19-30 (young adults), 31-65 (working population) and 66-76 (seniors).

Just to put up a few preliminary findings from the material:
As assumed physical activity was highest at the age group of 13-18 year olds.
Computer gaming and physical activity did not correlate.
Against general assumptions, seniors were active computer game players. 21% of the respondents reported to play games daily. Naturally the games seniors find interesting are very different from the age group 13-18.

General attitude towards exergaming was positive and we get encouraging comments to exergaming scenarios.

More thorough analysis will be published in a report format (VTT Publications).

EXERGAME-project co-operating

2006-02-07T16:25:00.000+02:00

Currently we are co-operating more closely with two partners. This first is a development that started with a title MBM (Movement by Music). The multidisciplinary group is utilising computer vision (ceiling camera) in a social play situation. Probably we will arrange joint user tests in summer/fall 2006.

The other interesting group is laser taggers. We do co-operation with local laser tagging enthusiasts here in Helsinki, Finland. We will do a joint test with a few players and follow their improvement (playing skills, condition, activity level) from March to December 2006.

State of research

2005-12-20T15:25:00.000+02:00

Exergame-project has been running for a couple of months. We have advanced consumer research and future scenario process to enable us to focus our scope. We have discussed about two user groups: 1) youth 13-18 yrs old and 2) worksplace exercise.

The first workshop of Exergame-project was held in the middle of December 2005. As a result of the workshop, we have a lot of ideas about the potential focus areas to develop further in the prototyping phase.

Next outputs of the project will be:
- consumer study
- technology roadmap (state of the art)
- Summary of the 1st workshop
- concept palette
- plan for the market study of selected prototypes

Merry, Merry Christmas to Exergamers around the world!

Chen&Michael: Serious Games book available

2005-11-03T11:34:00.000+02:00

Sande Chen and David Michael's book 'Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform' takes a look at how to utilize the educational benefits of video games, and how a number of serious games now exist that target healthcare and well-being, like the “exergaming” game, Yourself!Fitness, and the biofeedback game, The Wild Divine Project, which combines breathing techniques and meditation with biofeedback.

Also another more hands-on book 'Developing Serious Games' is about to be published soon.

Future Scenarios - done

2005-10-28T12:08:00.000+03:00

EXERGAME project collect ideas of future exergames or technology-boosted exercise from experts (researchers) and potential users. The first step on collecting future scenarios (+5 years) is now done. We will analyse the ideas and select the most potential ones for further development.

In parallel with the scenario process we will start doing user studies. Our aim is to understand potential user needs, find out new ideas or get support to our scenarios / ideas.

The next step after creating scenarios is to innovate concepts. The concept development will be emphasized in EXERGAME workshop in December 2005.

Networking

2005-10-18T12:34:00.000+03:00

Exergame-project has joined "Games for Change" and "Games for Health" networks.

Games For Change brings together non-profits and their partners to explore the use of digital games to advance organizational mission and societal change.

Games for Health to develop a community and best practices platform for the numerous games being built for health care applications. To date the project has brought together researchers, medical professionals, and game developers to share information about the impact games and game technologies can have on health care and policy.

Both projects work under "Serious Games" initiative. Serious Games focus on new ways to combine beneficial purposes with pleasure.

Our intention is to share knowhow and ideas with other researchers and developers of exergames or other types of serious games.

Conferences related to EXERGAME project

2005-10-04T12:08:00.000+03:00

A short list of academic conferences that somewhat discuss about relevant issues to EXERGAME-project.

Pervasive´06 is an international conference held annually which aims topresent significant research contributions in the area of pervasivecomputing technologies, systems and applications.

MobileHCI´06 provides a forum for academics and practitioners to discuss the challenges, potential solutions and innovations towards effective interaction with mobile systems and services. It covers the analysis, design, evaluation and application of human-computer interaction techniques and approaches for all mobile computing devices and services.

Persuasive 2006 is aimed at exploring technology in the service of human well-being, within the broader context of a socially and ecologically sustainable society.

EUC 2006 conference provides a forum for engineers and scientists in academia, industry, and government to address all resulting profound challenges including technical, safety, social, legal, political, and economic issues, and to present and discuss their deas, results, work in progress and experience on all aspects of embedded and ubiquitous computing.

Dimensions of exergaming

2005-10-03T14:07:00.000+03:00

At the beginning of the project we looked at different types of solutions fitting into the idea of exergaming. Exergaming is defined as: "Any activity using equipment that requires the user to be involved and an active participant in either a storyline or some kind of game or action (be it with or against a computer, a posted
score or other players)" [geartrends.com].

There are at least six type of exergame applications areas (with several sub-groups). These are:
1. "cyber" exercise cycle / device
- VR bike, PowerGrid Fitness, Nexfit, Reebok Cyberrider, Tunturi VR bike... (indoor)

2. dance pad (sensory floor)
- sensors recognize 1-N players. E.g. DDR, Lumetila, UbiPlay... (indoor/outdoor)

3. web camera based
- EyeToy (Antigrav & Kinetics), KickAss Kung-Fu, KukaKumma MuuMaassa, Vivid Group... indoor)

4. mobile/wireless
- mobile phones (bar codes, matrix codes, RFID), GPS, AR... (outdoor/indoor), wristops (Suunto, Polar), FRWD outdoor extreme sport computer, etc.

5. wearables
- Whether to look innovations from South Korean "daegu industry" or Finnish company "Clothing+", bio shirts, ubiquitous wearable offices, intra-body communicators etc. are on their way (indoor/outdoor)

6. other
- there is a variety of special interfaces designed for certain purpose, e.g. VR-golf, GameTrack, FightSuit and game interfaces used in commercial games (such as Amped snowboarding game) not to forget innovative media art pieces (indoor)

EXERGAMING thesis by Heidi Karjalainen

2005-09-28T11:37:00.000+03:00

VTT's EXERGAME-project is co-operating with Kemi-Tornio AMKK (polytechnic). Student Heidi Karjalainen is doing her thesis on exergaming there. She focuses on current game interfaces that enable physical control of the game. The most well known game interfaces to date are EyeToy web camera and dance pad (e.g. Dance Dance Revolution).

Heidi Karjalainen does group interviews and online surveys about children's interest towards physical game play. She also discusses about the notion of exergaming. Do people consider it to be a physical sport activity? What ways there are to combine digital games with physical exercise? What's the main target group for exergames?

You may follow Heidi's work at: http://koti.mbnet.fi/hhalttu/paattis/exergaming.htm (in Finnish!)

EXERGAME project has started!

2005-09-12T21:40:00.000+03:00

In the EXERGAME (2005-2006) project we study "wellness gaming" in a broad sense. EXERGAME is a VTT's (Technical Research Centre of Finland) strategic research project. The aim of the project is to create an overall view of wellness gaming / exergaming markets, consumer cultures and technological possibilities.

Our hypothesis is that novel solutions for preventive health care and serious games will evolve within next 5 years. We will be in the forefront of the development.

During the project, VTT researchers shall create scenarios, concepts and prototypes of mobile and pc-based "exergames".

The EXERGAME blog is for those who would like to follow up the EXERGAME-project.
Comments, offers for co-operation and other suggestions are welcome!