Exergaming in Australia?
I’d be thrilled to swap stories with any other Australians who are actively involved with Exergaming methodologies. Should you/they be involved in research, school/education systems, medical and rehab. applications, personal instruction or commercial gym businesses, it would be great to swap thoughts on Exergaming from a local perspective.
Since arriving back home from living in Europe for 10 years, I can already see substantial differences in how we (Australians) seem to grasp the fitness alternatives offered through Exergaming, particularly in comparison to ‘tech savvy’ countries such as Finland. I’d be very interested to hear what others have experienced and how our cultural and social habits deal with Exg.
March 6, 2009 - 6:47 am
Greetings mate! Nice blog! Are you connected in with the rest of the exergaming world and network? We have a pretty good network of exergamers–video gamers, researchers, clinicians, academics, etc.
How are things there in Australia as far as exergaming is concerned? What is the scene like in the tech/video game world there? What about the medical/healthcare scene? Are they looking at exergaming as a credible intervention?
Fortunately, things continue to grow here in the States. The largest private foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is funding another round of research to the tune of $2M. Healthcare is really opening up to exergaming. At last year’s Games for Health conference, the major sponsor was not a video game or tech company, but an insurance company–Humana!
So we continue to push the envelope here in the States and Europe to get exergaming at the forefront of healthcare, at least from my end of things. Next week, I’m speaking at a healthcare conference on obesity and diabetes, showing how exergaming is the newest intervention.
We look forward to you and your exergaming colleagues to join us in the growing exergaming universe. We have a great list serve, and several yahoogroups, face book groups and various networks where we communicate. Feel free to join us!
You can see more about me on my blog (though I haven’t updated it recently–need to get on that!), exergamingevangelist.blogspot.com. And also on my side company’s website, http://www.xrtainmentzone.com.
All the best!
Ernie
March 10, 2009 - 3:07 pm
Thanks Ernie. Much of what I and Exergaming Finland have done and continue to do, is contained in the ‘About Brett’ and ‘Our Direction’ tabs. If you can tolerate my procrastination, then have a read, it should ‘eventually’ shed some light on our goings on.
I’ve followed you and Extrainmentzone for years now, and I would love to congratulate you and your team on the direction your headed, bravo! I have to contact you for more info on the list serve. I have a little more time of late to see what the ‘rest of the world’ is up to. I’m particularly interested to know what’s happening locally as well, but it doesn’t seem there is much if anything happening in Australia, sadly!
Regards, Brett.
March 10, 2009 - 11:19 pm
Hi Brett!
Apologies for not writing sooner, things have been rather busy of late! Do not worry; exergaming IS happening in Australia!
Take a look at http://www.gamercize.net/aus.htm – you’ll see not only that Gamercize has reached Australia, but there’s a lot going on. One great event was the demonstration of Gamercize and Wii Fit on the Today show under fitness gadgets.
Outside of the home exergaming market, there are several trails going on with organisations/school districts etc and some research on skills development too!
There are several exergaming evangelists down under, most of them on Twitter, follow @ActiveGamer and I’ll give you the introductions in the twitterverse!
Cheers!
Richard Coshott
CEO and Founder
Gamercize
March 11, 2009 - 2:15 pm
Thanks Richard and thanks again for the RT twitter! I checked out your Oz representation by the way. Nice to see the morning show pick it up, has there been anymore media coverage since ? I would love to meet up with local exergaming aficionados, so I’ll take your advice and start connecting up in the ‘Twitterverse’
March 18, 2009 - 12:44 pm
Hi,
I am in Melbourne, researching exertion games over a distance, and am associated with Distance Lab in Scotland, whom you mentioned. My research work from a computer interface perspective is at http://exertioninterfaces.com
I am in Melbourne, at the University of Melbourne, shoot me an email if you want to catch up.
Cheers,
Floyd
March 18, 2009 - 2:54 pm
Hi Floyd. Thank you so much for contacting me back. I’m trying to access as many likeminded Aussies as possible with the idea of pooling our collective info to improve our ventures here in Oz. By the way, did we have some correspondance sometime ago, early 2008 perhaps? I certainly remember corresponding with someone from exertioninterfaces? My email has been “misplaced” so I cant search back…just curious.