Are Exergames Exercise? A Scoping Review of the Short-Term Effects of Exertion Games

Background: Exertion games are video that require exercise. They widely presented as health interventions, to encourage sedentary populations take exercise at levels recommended by professionals. Objectives: We consider whether acute sufficient engender exercise-related benefits, and in what conditions occurs. Methods: In this article, we performed a scoping review of empirical research examines exertion game play engenders exercise, searching Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed. Results: From 3171 search records, found 243 studies short-term games. While some observed moderate exertion, players many fail meet levels. Few encouraged vigorous seen sports. Variation results for across different suggests motivation is highly dependent on nongame contextual factors. There evidence make more enjoyable or reduce perceived but suffer the methodological problem comparison with boring control conditions. Conclusions: Exergames have only been comparable such walking, jogging, dancing under very specific circumstances. To improve must study designs focus understanding better circumstances likely bring about genuine exergame