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Fitness game, exergame, and gamercise (portmanteaus of "exercise" and "game") are terms used for video games that are also a form of exercise. Fitness games rely on technology that tracks body movement or reaction. The genre has been used to challenge the stereotype of gaming as a sedentary activity, and promoting an active lifestyle among gamers. Fitness games are seen as evolving from technology aimed at making exercise more fun. History The genre's roots can be found in game peripherals released in the eighties, including the Joyboard, a Atari 2600 peripheral developed by Amiga and released in 1982, the Power Pad (or Family Trainer) a peripheral for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), originally released by Bandai in 1986, and the Foot Craz released for the Atari 2600 in 1987, although all three had limited success. Konami's Dance Dance Revolution (1998) was cited as one of the first major fitness games; when it was ported from the arcade to PlayStation, it sold over three million copies. In the 2000s, a number of devices and games have used the exergame style to much success: the EyeToy camera has sold over ten million units, while Nintendo's Wii Fit has sold in excess of 21 million copies. By June 2009, health games were generating revenues of $2 billion, largely due to Wii Fit's 18.22 million sales at the time. The term exergaming entered the Collins English Dictionary in 2007. The genre has been promoted as a way to improve users' health through exercise, but few studies have been undertaken to measure the health benefits. Smaller trials have yielded mixed results and have shown that the respective traditional methods of exercise are superior to their video game equivalents. Design considerations for fitness games include the need to balance the physical effectiveness of the exercise with the attractiveness of the gameplay, with both factors needed to be adapted to the abilities of the player, referred to as 'dual flow' 1980s Fitness games contain elements that were developed in the virtual reality community during the 1980s. The pioneer in this area was Autodesk, which developed two systems, the HighCycle and Virtual Racquetball. The HighCycle was an exercise bike that a user would pedal through a virtual landscape. If the user pedaled fast enough, the virtual bike would take off and fly over the landscape. Virtual Racquetball tracked the position and orientation of an actual racquet that was used to hit a virtual ball in a virtual environment. This environment was shared with another user equipped with another tracked racquet, allowing the two users to play each other over phone lines. In both systems, the users could wear the VPL eyephones, an early head-mounted display (HMD), that would provide more immersion for the user. The first true attempt at what would later be called Exertainment was the Atari Puffer project (1982). This was an exercise bike that would hook up to an Atari 400/800 or 5200 system. Forward speed was controlled by pedaling while steering and additional gameplay was handled by a handlebar-mounted Gamepad. The machine was nearly ready for production with several games (Tumbleweeds and Jungle River Cruise) when Atari declared bankruptcy and the Puffer project was abandoned. The Joyboard for the Atari 2600 was also released in 1982, by the Amiga Corporation. In Japan, Bandai dabbled in this space with the Family Trainer pad, released in 1986 for the Famicom (the Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System). In 1988, Nintendo acquired the North American rights to the pad, and marketed it as the Power Pad in North America. The first fitness game system released to the market was the 1986 CompuTrainer by RacerMate Inc. Designed as a training aid and motivational tool, the CompuTrainer system allowed users to interactively ride on their own bicycle through a virtual landscape generated on an NES or Commodore 64 by connecting their bike trainer unit directly to an external port on the game cartridge. Two trainer units could be connected at a time for 2 players to race virtually on screen while also displaying data such as speed, power, pedaling cadence, heart rate, and distance. As riders raced virtually, the cartridge sent a signal back to the CompuTrainer unit to dynamically change the bicycle's actual resistance based on what was happening on screen in real time with incline, wind, and drafting. The product had a price that was far too high to be considered as an entertainment product, but was affordable by dedicated athletes. RacerMate released the "Racermate Challenge I" cartridge on the Commodore 64 and the "Racermate Challenge II" cartridge on the NES. RacerMate made the CompuTrainer until 2017, where its latest version runs using Microsoft Windows compatible software with extensive graphic and physiological capabilities. About the same time as the Computrainer, Concept II introduced a computer attachment for their rowing machine. This has become their eRow product and is used for both individual motivation as well as competition in "indoor rowing leagues". 1990s During the 1990s, there was a surge of interest in the application of virtual reality to high-end gym equipment. Life Fitness and Nintendo partnered to produce the Exertainment System; Precor had an LCD-based bike product, and Universal had several CRT-based systems. The Netpulse system provided users with the ability to browse the web while exercising. Fitlinxx introduced a system that used sensors attached to weight machines in order to provide automated feedback to users. Three issues combined to ensure the failure of these systems in the marketplace. First, they were significantly more expensive than the equivalent models that did not have all the additional electronics. Second, they were harder to maintain, and were often left broken. Lastly the additional expertise required to operate the software was often intimidating to the users, who shied away from the machines out of fear that they would look foolish while trying to master the machine. Until 1998, nothing significant happened in the field of videogame exercise. Hardware was still too expensive for the average home consumer, and the health clubs were gun-shy about adopting any new technology. As high-performance game console capabilities improved and prices fell, manufacturers once more started to explore the fitness market. In 1998, Konami's Dance Dance Revolution was released. Pump It Up, a dance game similar to Konami's, was released in 1999 by the company Andamiro. 2000s In 2000, UK startup Exertris introduced an interactive gaming bike to the commercial fitness market. Fitness games came to the mass media attention at the Consumer Electronics Show when Bill Gates showcased the Exertris Interactive Gaming Bike in 2003, and the following year the same show hosted a pavilion dedicated to video game technology that also worked as sports and exercise equipment. The 2005 release of the EyeToy:.... Discover the True Potential Fitness popular books. Find the top 100 most popular True Potential Fitness books.