Motion games in real sports environments

I N T E R A C T I O N S . A C M .O R G The past decade has brought about interesting developments in combining video games, sports, and exercise. Motion games, also known as exergames or active video games, have become mainstream thanks to technologies like Microsoft Kinect, PlayStation Move, and Nintendo Wii. Unfortunately, commercial games are often optimized for an average customer facing a television in an average living room, which limits the variety and intensity of movements. This is a constraint for effective exercise and hinders the learning of real sports skills while playing motion games. We argue that a way to support vigorous physical exercise and learning sports-related skills is to move motion games away from the T living room to places where sports are actually practiced. This gives the player more space, allows increased movement diversity, and reduces the risk of colliding with furniture. A pleasurable exercise experience also requires appropriate ventilation, which indoor sports centers typically have. However, motion games are not always more entertaining than real practice, and a skill learned in a game might not transfer to a real sport. More research is needed on how to design and implement motion games that are both fun and effective as exercise and motorlearning environments. We have investigated how practicing real skills can be made more motivating in real sports settings. Here, we introduce two approaches: a game played by jumping on a trampoline and an augmented climbing wall that enables getting feedback and playing games on a real climbing wall.