GamerSize Science-Quest for the Perfect ExerGame

As 2008 draws to a close, it is time to pause, take a breath and reflect. A review of my year in ExerGaming will follow in a future post, but first I have been searching for a theme to try and draw my rich and varied experiences together. A collection of thoughts, words and ideas kept coming to the fore: mobile, immersive, miniature, wireless, networked, social, audioscape, tactile.

I had previously written a post “When Worlds Collide” and it suddenly jumped out at me when reading an article in Wired Magazine - “The New Reality”. Simply put, the virtual worlds of the web and video games have become mainstream in a variety of many interesting and exciting ways (e.g. iPhone, Wii and Guitar Hero). Virtual reality is no longer the holy grail. These tactile technology mashups between virtual and physical worlds have brought immersive experiences to the masses.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but whilst there are many and varied problems facing the world today, there is one particular problem that has not received sufficient attention. It is the fact that our planet is now loosing its SPIN at a much faster rate than was predicted and is even beginning to wobble.
Scientists reckon that problem is due to the fact that people are not walking about on foot as much as the used to do and would have in the process helped to keep up the planet’s SPIN. Motor cars are particular disruptive in this regard, not only do they stop people from creating SPIN, but their high speed, tight cornering and rapid breaking all contribute to the wobble effect.
We urgently need to get people back on their feet and start generating SPIN again. Can we SPIN the planet? Yes we can!
For further information see my entry for the forthcoming Social Innovation Camp.

Video games have long been inspired by conventional sporting activities. Indeed, it could even be said that “Pong” was the first “e” Sport. Now their is an immense range of eSports games available from driving simulators through to team management simulators. In a recent newspaper monthly sports magazine a number of tops sports starts were revealed as fans of armchair sports. It was also suggested that the ability to live out fans dreams of managing their team to the top might be useful training for the real thing and questions were raised about whether or not professional video gaming constitutes a sport.
Obviously some eSports games are also ExerGames in that they use a controller that requires body movement in order to play the game. Now all manner of add-on accessories are available for the controllers to make them more realistic for the sport in question (e.g. rackets, bats, clubs). I even noticed that you can now get a specially designed “kit bag” to carry them all in!

ExerGaming - defn 3. A possible stepping-stone to conventional sporting activities.

Adrenaline or Epinephrine is a “fight or flight” hormone. Not only does it have a major role in stress reactions, but it is also well known to exercise physiologists. It has significant roles in enhancing the flow of blood to the working muscles and in mobilizing energy stores to support the increased metabolic demand.
In more general terms, the “fight or flight” response is characterized by a heightened level of arousal, a narrowing of attentional focus and an increase in levels of aggression.
Passing through cyber-space, I was somewhat surprised to come across a reference to a patent for a function to control video game play that mimics the above physiological response - a so called “adrenaline feature”. You can read all about in US Patent 6923717.
What it translates into, is that if you bump up the adrenaline level of your game character, then they will tend to act more aggressively, but with the downside that they will be more likely to overreact.
Since in ExerGaming, we are of course concerned with real people physically exerting themselves, we already have a built in “adrenaline feature”. Anybody wish to volunteer some examples of when you have “overreacted” in an ExerGame?

Thanks very much to everybody who took the time to vote for my entry in the the recent Handheld Learning awards. On this occasion it was not to be. Maybe next time…
However, only today have I received an invitation to writer a paper on the research for a new education technology journal!

Any visionaries out there? What will ExerGaming look like in just over 6 years time? Will it replace conventional sports and physical activity? Will it be everywhere or only in specialist facilities? Will it be predominantly mobile? Will it be any place and any time? Will it be super big machines or small wearable sensors? Will it be augmented reality or even virtual reality?

Personally, I tend to think it might be many of these things. It would be great if a group of people could just get out their mobile phone/personal digital assistant/well-being monitor and play an ExerGame right there in the moment. Perhaps even challenging other groups of people across the globe.

Whatever you dream of how ExerGaming will look like in 2015, drop me a comment or two please. I have an interview tomorrow with a reporter looking to do a feature on ExerGaming with a futuristic outlook.

I first conceived the idea of a “Personal Activity Platform” a few months back when thinking about how a player could move between different ExerGames and take a playing profile with them. In my case it would be something like “right arm is better than left so work him more on the left, pretty fit so crank up the intensity, rhythmic coordination is a bit off so don’t make music games too hard“.

After hearing a presentation which described the development of smart cards for use with arcade games I revisited the idea. Ideally, mobile phones would be the platform of choice. I then began to think how you could also tap into the potential supporting and motivating power of social networks.

What you end up with is some form of multifunction tool that helps motivate and track your daily physical activity and also facilitates the playing of different ExerGames.

I included this idea in my talk to the EU Platform last month and suggested that it ought to be considered alongside physical and social infrastructure initiatives to promote physical activity. Furthermore, it could be achieved in a relatively short period of time and for a lot less money too.

Clearly, the idea needs a lot more development, but I would like to ask for suggestions as to what features and functions you think should go to make up the “Personal Activity Platform“?

Mobile ExerGaming is the obvious next step for ExerGaming and it is something I have been actively exploring for some time now. However, now I am asking for your help to help put Mobile ExerGaming on the map.

Most of what I currently get paid to do is teach students. I am an enthusiastic embracer of educational technology. Last year I was involved in a small proof of concept project to utilize a mobile phone as a platform to deliver audio specific educational information in an accessible format.

The basic idea behind the project was to label objects with 2D barcodes (Quick Response codes) and when recognized by a camera phone, call up a media server to deliver a streaming audio file to the phone.

What has that got to do with ExerGaming? Well, think “Interactive Treasure Hunt” and you will begin to get the idea.

To cut a long story short, the project is a finalist in the 2008 Handheld Learning Awards. It is one of three in the Special Needs - Innovation category. Scroll down to the bottom of the Awards page and click on “In-Class Utility, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh“. (You can check out the other two finalists too).

The winner will be decided by SMS Txt voting. If you want to help boost the profile of Mobile ExerGaming then Vote for In-Class Utility by Txting

INCLASS   to   +447786203140

Texts are charged at standard network rate and standard international rate outwith UK (this is NOT a premium number - see below for full details).

Voting closes at midnight (GMT) on Thursday 9 October.

Thank you very much for your support….

If you want more information you can read the full paper here which was an Award Winning paper at ED-MEDIA 2008 World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications in Vienna.

Note:

Vote for In-Class Utility. Txt INCLASS to : +447786203140

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To vote simply send the keyword to +447786203140. Shortly after you will receive a response, your vote has then been cast.
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On the flight back to Edinburgh last night I spoke to an accountancy alumna from my the institution where I work and who knew one of my former students. We started by discussing the possibility of using points- based incentive schemes to effect behavioral change (hot topic at the moment) since she was after all a bean counter!

We soon moved on to ExerGames, which she latched onto, being an avid “Wii Fitter”. Since she was also a gym regular, I was keen to establish if she had experienced any in a gym setting. “No“, was the answer, but not being a fan of group classes, she was always on the look out for something that “KEEPS YOU MOTIVATED“.

ExerGaming - defn 2. Something that keeps you motivated.

Traveling back to Scotland from the Leisure Industry Conference in Birmingham, England last night I had to check my hold bag through the oversize channel. This was due to it containing a Gamercize Stepper kindly given to me by CEO Richard Coshott.

“Are there any gases, chemicals or electrical items in your luggage, sir?” asked the security man. “Yes“, I replied, “A Stepper“. The security man continued, “And you also have a couple of video games controllers?“. “Ah yes“, I confirmed. “IF YOU DON’T STEP, THE GAME CONTROLLER WON’T WORK!”

“I see…Thank you sir and have a nice flight.”

So there you have it, part 1 of my series on the definition of ExerGaming. In case you missed it:

ExerGaming - defn 1. If you don’t step, the video game controller won’t work.