Working out with video games: accidental fitness with VR
“Yesterday’s Skyrim workout.”
Gamers have never been known for physical fitness.
How could they be? Always locked away in a dark basement all day with sugary soda and crunchy chips a gamer has no time for the gym. They are far too busy hitting max level on their newest re-rolled toon, crushing through dungeons, finding fat loot, and endlessly grinding the illusive fishing skill.
A discrepancy exists between the stereotypes of fitness buff and basement gamer, and the rise of eSports hasn’t made it any better. Even though a fitness buff and a gamer show similar levels of dedication to their activity, it’s safe to say more respect goes to gym goers.
Some professional eSports players take care of their health to keep an edge, but the majority of their time is spent sitting in a chair. Professional sports players on the other hand are known for their physical fitness and health, as their physically demanding sports require peak performance both physical and mental.
Worries of sitting too close to the screen is a meme, but sitting is serious business.
While the negative health effects of sitting in a gamer’s chair each and every day are very real. Office workers experience the effects of endless sitting directly, and companies everywhere attempt to help with wellness programs. Something as simple as step tracking competitions are enough to counteract effects of sitting at a desk every day. But what about once workers get home?
One of the fastest growing forms of leisure time, gaming, is done sitting down, perpetuating the already massive issue of our lack in physical activity.
This is all about to change.
Reddit user u/favrengreen shared their fitbit readout from a play session of the recently released SkyrimVR. A massive open world RPG players fight, sneak, and loot their way through snowy mountains, troll filled fields, and deep dark keeps. The game originally released in 2011 for consoles and PC and had millions of players seated and playing for hundreds of hours a piece.
Now, thanks to the improvements of VR hardware players can physically step into the world of Tamriel.
u/favregreen stepped into SkyrimVR for a 4 hour play session. With breaks for food and water of course! But this play session wasn’t your stereotypical seated basement gamer situation. While avoiding trolls and slaying dragons u/favregreen was physically traversing Skyrim. In the real world he was standing in his living room, walking in place in pace with his Dovahkiin double.
The massive worlds Bethesda creates take up many square miles, and while fast travel is an option, their worlds are so well crafted players inevitably find themselves wandering around.
After 4 hours of literally walking through the world of Skyrim, and physically swinging a sword and drawing a bow(Aalbeit a very light sword and easy to draw bow), our Dovahkiin friend tracked well over 1000 calories burned and 10 miles walked. Was he tired afterwards? Likely so, but no complaints are made after a day of adventuring. The players’ minds are too engaged to worry too much about physical activity.
u/favregreen’s post is a sign of the massive change VR brings to the world of gamers.
The ability of VR to immerse a user and engage their senses in gamification is compounded by the fact a user’s main senses are in isolation. A gamer in a chair can look away from a computer screen at any point, a player of VR has the real world blocked out.
Well designed VR experiences not only have players on their feet and interacting physically with the digital world, they cause the player to forget the physical effort required. The player is just playing the game, it just so happens they’re standing up and moving.
Companies and developers are focusing on the intersection of VR and fitness.
BlackBoxVR is building physical locations for a VR based gym using cable machines for adjustable resistance. BoxVR is a game by FitXR popular for its heart pumping boxing action. Doesn’t take too long to break a sweat playing games like that.
Not all gamers want or care to be fit.
Most VR players are at heart just gamers looking to immerse themselves in fantastical worlds. But VR will still improve their physical fitness and in turn their overall health.
Not all players of SkyrimVR will walk in place and track their fitness with tools like Fitbit. But their physical exertion will none-the-less improve tenfold compared to their past sitting game sessions.
A technology poised to disconnect us from reality may be just the technology we need to be more human.
The human body was never meant to spend all day bent over a keyboard. We evolved in a world demanding physical exertion and exploration. The negative health effects of a sitting obsessed world are apparent, back pain and obesity abound. Health knowledge is more accessible than ever, but…
Changing habits is not always easy, especially if the habit change involves moving from a relaxed stagnant state to a state of physical exertion. Check out gym membership numbers between January 1st and February 3rd for a clear picture.
What if you booted up your favorite franchise’s newest VR game installment and forgot all about fitness. A month or two later you may wonder why you need to go clothes shopping again.
The best part? When someone you know asks how you did it.
