A cup of coffee and some exergaming in South Korea

Five years ago I was in the lead of a research project titled Exergame at the Technical Research Centre of Finland. Back then we estimated that exergames will become a big business within the next 5 years. Our guessing came true. Nintendo Wii is one of the most exposed example of it. Then again I would say that Wii is just a start. I am expecting to see more exergame innovations appearing especially for mobile terminals. Smart phones and iPhone has changed the idea of a cellular phone and with cheaper components phone manufacturers can integrate gyroscopes and measument techniques into portable devices. Naturally things will also evolve in pc and console gaming. Sony and Microsoft (Natal) are behind Nintendo but still already far away in developing their own motion control solutions for games.

Within the last few days exergaming has been on the headlines around the world. In Finland playful Move and Play exhibition is currently on at Heureka science center in Vantaa, Korean Arirang today tv show had an interesting story on Xergames (click the link & register to see the video starting at 40:45). Additionally Nintendo will launch Wii Sports Resort shortly (at Times Square in NY). I also received a press release claiming that: "Kids as young as three years old are picking up the joysticks and clicking away at computers, especially if they have older siblings whom they wish to emulate. It's important to catch kids at an early age to teach them about fitness". My Gym promotes children's fitness centres in the US and provides information regarding nutrition and everyday exercise. Basically My Gym and exergames have the same goal and somewhat similar means to reach the goal -- being: positive feedback, easy access, casual exercise, playful and fun context, self-acting state, instant feedback and measuring performance.

I am happy to be a part (or additional power behind the scenes) of a R&D project focusing on novel exergame solutions. The project is run by MoFun (the creator of Circus game) and Technical Research Centre of Finland. I also heard that social gaming initiative is about to start in Finland. Even though it focuses more on social gaming for adults than actual fitness gaming or exergaming -- I am sure you cannot 100% separate those from each other. I will write more about the initiative as soon as it is up and running.

Mä oon täällä (I am here) online service is finally out

Nuori Suomi (The Young Finland Association) has been working with an online service for children & youth. The starting point of the service is well in focus: the site should motivate people to be active and exercise as well as share their sports related experiences within the community. Street sports and snowboarding are just some examples where filming already is a part of fun. "Mä oon täällä" web site tries to teach youngsters who are more into traditional sport to upload their best moments to the service and see what type of reaction they will get from the crowd.

It will be interesting to see what type of sports will be the most popular and the most common ones at the service. Perhaps the youngsters will take the service to whole new direction? Most often hanging around the mall or doing some tricks with friends is not exercise in the traditional sense but it is casual exercise and everyday activity anyhow. The web site is also supporting small groups who organize their own events. "Mä oon täällä" site can be used as a channel to find interesting sports related events and network with like-minded.

The web site is linked with "World Record School Break" and "Youth 2011" campaigns which will be organized by The Young Finland Association.

Implications towards exergaming at ATEi

Another interesting thing was to find notions towards exergames at ATEi 2008. Don't get me wrong -- that was not really a huge trend there. Most of the "exergames" were different variations of DDRish dance pads. Anyhow it was interesting to see some concept visualisations at the Sega booth of cyber sports promising "Great rides, sports, amusement and more in our all-weather facilities".

Different sporty arcade machines from DDR to boxing have existed for ages already. It was anyhow interesting to see Sega's vision of more overall sports entertainment center. So far DDR, novel fitness controllers for games (e.g. Powergrid fitness Kilowatt games and exerbikes) and Wii Fit have been brought up when talking about novel ways to motivate teenagers to exercise. West Wirginia schools have got a lot of press for utilizing exergames in the school. In the wave of the trend also fitness center for teens was opened in California a few years ago. Though soon they realized that they need to expand their target group and now Overtime Fitness is open for all.

It has also been interesting to see different activity and adventure centers like HopLop in Finland spreading to shopping malls or dedicated rooms. Casual exercise at shopping malls or other hangaround places is worth considering and as far as I understood Sega's Cyber sports just that.

Exergaming from the North

I get to see a bit of Ruska (autumn colors) while wisiting Rovaniemi (near arctic circle). Unfortunately I lost my luggage and did not get it back until in the evening. Due to which my presentation ("Music as play" >> response is the medium -- music, rhytm and/or sound as a way to interact with a game or other kinds of interactive software) was not the best I can offer but people seemed to get something out of it which is of course the most important thing.

I also met some of my fellow students from the dawn of media studies. We had fun when listening artists like Desert Planet, Huoratron and Dj Scotch. Before Tivoli (the bar) we did some exercise. Asko Alanen from Smartus was kind enough to give us a tour at the Smartus Playground. This was the first time I actually got to test the playground and I was pretty excited. There were not that many variations of games but it has a lot of potential. There were still a number of issues to consider starting from usability to interestingness (longevity) of the play. Anyhow we went back to the playground on the next day and talked with the kids playing at the yard. They were really excited even though --evidently-- they had played the games for a number of times already. Motivational factors were similar to other digital games -- to beat one's own record, to top the high score and to have fun. At the moment the most obvious target group is junior level kids but with a bit different approach, design and placement I am sure this could work well with a bit older youth, families or other groups as well.

At the moment SmartUs playgrounds can be only found in distant places in Finland (from the Helsinki viewpoint) and few places in Europe (see Smartus website). If you are into exergaming or novel ways of exercise, "stealth exercise" or related, I recommend to test the playground. It is also effective reminder that one does not necessarily need a mobile phone to do "mobile" or digital exercise. In this case simple plastic card (exercise credit card for kids ;D) is all you need.

GDC - PS3 - and chilling out

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893–1986)

I am a bad blogger. For the last couple of week I have been active in the real world (I have been snowboarding at the alps (Verbier), sleeping 10-12 hours per night, redocorating the apartment and organizing a seminar on serious games/exergames) but passive in the online worlds. At the same time I preach how relevant online presence and dynamic existince is. Oh well...

GDC is approaching, I will be following the main seminar and GDC Mobile. Hope to see you there or perhaps at the IGDA party on Tuesday? Also PS3 will be released in Europe on 23rd of March. There has been a lot of discussion about the compatibility of PS2 games, the (high) price -- of course, blu-ray and whether Playstation remains as the nr1 console in the market or not. I believe that it will remain the market leader even though the situation is different compared to the 1995 (Sony innovatively promoted PS1 as "trendy home electronic device" and did well) or 2000 (included DVD player was a killer idea at that time). PS3 has a lot of good qualities, I am not yet sure if the average Joe is after blu-ray (even though blu-ray movies look great!), but at least the excellent and inexpensive online capabilities, PS3-PSP connection, PSPish interface (I like it!) and extendability (hardware-wise) are potential success factors. I really like MotoStorm but other games did not really surprise or interest me that much. I hope Playstation will understand the importance of casual and social gaming and focus on families of circle of friends as the target instead of (just) hard core gamers. Nintendo Wii definitely has get the message as they are well (and successfully) focusing on the "new potential" of gamers.

Gamers have been laughing at the funny Wii vs. PS3 video (which by the way is surprisingly similar in style than Mac > PC ads by MacIntosh.) Is this a hint in some way?

Yes, and those interested in serious games or exergames, I suggest to check out the material presented at the Exergame and other Serious games -seminar on Tuesday (20. Feb). Some of the slides are in Finnish but hey, this is a perfect moment to start practising, right? ;) (First=general, kuluttajatutkimus=consumer study, teknologiavisiot=technology vision, Fitness Adventure and Figuremeter are the prototypes). And if you are unsure of the pronunciation, click here!