Design influence on social play in distributed exertion games

  • Authors:

  • Florian 'Floyd' Mueller;Martin R. Gibbs;Frank Vetere

  • Affiliations:

  • The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia;The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia;The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Exertion games are an emerging form of interactive games that require players to invest significant physical effort as part of the gameplay, rather than just pressing buttons. These exertion games have potential health benefits by promoting exercise. It is also believed that they can facilitate social play between players and that social play can improve participation in exertion games. However, there is currently a lack of understanding of how to design games to support these effects. In this paper, we present a qualitative case study that illustrates how networked environments support social play in exertion games and how this can help to gain an understanding of existing games and support the design of future games. This work offers a preliminary analytical and descriptive account of the relationship between exertion and social play in such a game and highlights the influence of design with the aim of utilizing the attributed benefits of exertion and social play.