Leveraging Play in Health-Based Games to Promote Sustained Behavior Change in Healthy Eating and Exercise


Durga Shree Seif El-Nasr Magy Shiyko Mariya Sceppa Carmen Naab Pamela Andres Lisa
2014 DiGRA '13 - Proceedings of the 2013 DiGRA International Conference: DeFragging Game Studies

Games have increasingly become a prominent medium in the area of personal health and are uniquely positioned to empower and engage individuals in managing their own health. However, an important area of challenge in this, still nascent, field of study is the lack of empirical studies of games developed specifically to promote health and examining their effects on an individual’s motivation to change and on health-behavior outcomes. In this paper, we present key findings from an exploratory research study investigating players’ motivation and adoption of a health-based social media and game environment entitled — Spa Play™. We used a mixed methods approach leveraging game telemetry and interview methods to investigate acceptability of the game. Overall, our findings indicate that Spa Play™ was accepted by all players and had a potential to integrate into players’ lives and motivate a health behavior change.