Giving Up the Controller

How Virtual Reality Could Make Us Healthier and Happier

In the United States one in three American adults is clinically obese. It’s a stat we’ve heard hundreds of times yet despite decades of diets, exercise fads, and gadgets, we simply cannot get our weight problem under control. Experts blame everything from large portion sizes to fast eating times, but the truth is that part of the blame has to be shared with our increasingly sedentary society.

As screens have come to dominate our lives both in work and play, we no longer have to move about to conduct our daily business. So who would have thought that videogames — specifically virtual reality games — might be our saving grace?

Getting Moving in VR

With the mounting hype around virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlaystationVR, it seems likely that virtual reality is about to take the world of video games by storm. There are literally hundreds of VR games slated for release in the next year and even more in development. Those of us who have already tried these headsets cannot get enough of the fully immersive experience that virtual reality provides.

But the truth is, the headset is only a small part of an immersive experience. The first thing many people do when they try on a VR headset for the first time is reach out and try to touch the virtual objects they are seeing. It’s an automatic reaction, something ingrained in us since we were children. When we see something cool or interesting, we want to interact with it.

You mean I can’t eat this virtual cheesecake?

The major headset manufacturers have all realized how important this kind of interaction is to immersive VR experiences and have worked to make sure users can interact naturally with the virtual world. Oculus is releasing Touch, a motion-tracked controller that even allows for basic finger gestures, around six months after Rift comes out. HTC is taking it a step further by bundling its motion-tracked controllers with the Vive upon release. Sony is relying on existing Playstation Move controllers as the main way people will interact with PlaystationVR.

But interacting with virtual experiences is only the beginning — we also want to move around in them. The first step is called roomscale, essentially allowing people to walk around their living rooms while wearing VR headsets. This allows a person to move around a virtual environment as big as the room they are standing in. Although HTC is the only headset manufacturer to explicitly support it, Oculus has said that a roomscale setup is possible with its hardware.

I guess I’ll finally have to clean up the place. Image courtesy of Nate Bolt.

Still, to truly get moving in VR, you’ll need specialized equipment. Omnidirectional treadmills allow a person wearing a VR headset to run for hours in any direction. Specialized shoe sensors allow you to walk in place to move you around a virtual environment. There’s even specialized VR exercise equipment like VirZOOM and Icaros that allows you to bike or even fly in VR. While none of these tools are being pushed by the headset manufacturers quite yet, the thousands of dollars poured into Kickstarter campaigns and presales show just how much demand there is for anything that allows you to move around naturally in VR.

If all of these investments both by the headset manufacturers and by the public are any indication, it’s that people want their virtual experiences to be fully immersive. That means they want to be able to run, jump, punch, and kick as easily in the virtual world as they can in the real world.

Virtual Exercise

So what does all this mean for our obesity problem? Prior to virtual reality, videogames were generally seated experiences. Although the Wii and Kinect encouraged movement-based play, the vast majority of games are still played sitting down with a traditional controller.

Goofy face not required.

With virtual reality, this will no longer be the case. Why push a button to swing a sword when you can slay the dragon with your own hands? Why maneuver with a joystick when you can dodge, dip, dive, and duck to evade your attackers? The simple fact is that the more motion a game includes, the more immersive the experience and therefore the more engaging the game.

We already know video games can be addicting, encouraging their users to spend hours in virtual worlds. With virtual reality, they can spend those hours running, jumping, swimming, and fighting. Exercising will no longer be a grind at the gym but an epic quest to save the world. Games could even be designed to encourage a full workout without ever leaving the comfort of your living room. The best part is, most people wouldn’t even think of it as exercise.

Look Ma! I’m killing zombies AND losing weight!

Although you wouldn’t believe it in today’s screen obsessed world, human beings are meant to be active. Our bodies evolved to deal with the daily necessities of hunting and gathering. Any frequent gym user can attest that we can get addicted to the endorphins from exercise. Combine that addiction with our love of videogames and the immersiveness of virtual reality and you get a potent combination. Hopefully it will be just the medicine we need to get us off the couch and moving about.