Exercising can be tedious.
Video games are fun.
What if you could combine them?
Playing games while wearing a virtual reality VR headset with a motion-sensitive controller in each hand can be taxing.
Pistol Whip makes you step from side to side and squat frequently as you gun down foes and dodge bullets.
The Thrill of the Fight is a virtual boxing game that works up a real sweat.
In Supernatural and Beat Saber, you punch and slice moving targets in time to pumping music.
But does any of this count as proper exercise?
The answer is yes, though with caveats.
One way to evaluate VR exercise is a measure called Metabolic Equivalent of Task, MET.
Someone at rest expends about one Met.
Walking is three Mets.
Playing football, ten.
Anything over six Mets is considered vigorous exercise.
Researchers at San Francisco State University determined that playing the thrill of the fight,
which is in fact exhausting, was a 9.3 Met activity.
Other work, published in JMIR Serious Games,
found the flow and boxing modes in Supernatural also counted as vigorous exercise at around eight mets.
In yet another study, published in Games for Health Journal in 2024, participants played a sedentary video game,
two VR games, and walked on a treadmill, each for ten minutes, while having their oxygen consumption measured.