SGS Feature: 'Dance Dance... Revolution in Fitness!'

Today's main feature written for Gamasutra sister site Serious Games Source, which deals with games created for training, health, government, military, educational and other uses, presents a write-up from the Games For Health 2006 conference. In the Games For Health session, Dr. Debra Lieberman from UC Santa Barbara presented a fascinating summary of research studying the health effects associated with the phenomenon of 'exergaming' dance video games such as Konami's Dance Dance Revolution and RedOctane's In the Groove, and dealt with some of the future exergaming trends: "...Dr. Lieberman mentioned other dance exergames, such as Pump It Up: Exceed, DanceAlong, Para Para Paradise and some Mario, Sesame Street and Disney offerings. She also mentioned other, non-dance game interfaces, such as Sony’s EyeToy, which inserts the player’s image into the screen via a camera and captures the player’s interactions with events on the screen. The future, she predicts, will include game-oriented fitness centers, wireless mobile computer games, cell phone games, wearable computer games and tablet computer games, all of which will support more active and outdoor forms of gaming. And what about future research on DDR and dance games? These include studies of developmental differences, transfer of skills from games to other environments, studies of motivation to be physically active, new interfaces (including virtual worlds) and improved workout modes with more metrics and the ability of trainers to monitor and even change parameters on the fly." You can now read the full Serious Games Source feature on the subject, including plenty more excellent information on exergaming-related surveys and trends (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).