Small-Scale Exertion in Sports Video Games

Sports video games should be inherently competitive, but they fall short in providing competition between player skills. The translation of real-world physical activities to a game controller and the emphasis on statistical simulations in traditional sports video games leads to a limited opportunity for expertise development, individual differentiation, and fatigue. These are three very important aspects of real-world sports that are lacking in sports video games. One possible solution to these difficulties is to use small-scale exertion. This method requires the design of an input mechanic that requires only the use of hands and fingers (or feet). We created two small-scale exertion sports video games (Track and Field Racing and Jelly Polo) and ran four studies to compare our small-scale exertion games to traditional rate-based sports video games. Qualitative and quantitative results suggest that using small-scale exertion increases the amount of expertise development, individual differentiation, and fatigue in sports video games. Results also suggest small-scale exertion controls are more engaging than traditional rate-based controls. By using small-scale exertion to add physicality into sports video games, we are able to increase richness, competitiveness, and realism in order to create a game which is competitive, in terms of player skill, and sport-like

Brute force as input for networked gaming

Bodily activities such as sports have many physical and mental health benefits. The associated physical interactions are often of an exertion character and facilitate the use of brute force and intense physical actions. On the other hand, computer interfaces so far have mainly focused on interactions that use limited force and often ignored the existence of extreme brutal interactions that can be encountered in everyday life, in particular in contact sports. We present our initial investigations on the concept of "Brute Force" interfaces in HCI and describe work-in-progress on a prototype that aims to facilitate brute force interactions. We hope with our work we can aid designers who want to leverage the physical and mental health benefits of such physically intense behaviors that people do exhibit in their live