Wellness Gaming: An Emerging Trend

In any business people are always looking for the next big thing. What is the key to unlocking millions of potential customers? In gaming, the key just may be what is being dubbed “wellness gaming”. Wellness gaming is a very specific genre that is aimed at sharpening the mind and body. It’s been said before that casual games are good for the mind, just as working a crossword puzzle can help an elderly mind stay sharp. But these games take it to a different level. The wellness gaming panel I attended today at Casual Connect had a few different philosophies. The panelists were Kanal Sarkar of Lumos Labs, Ted Spooner of Respondesign, Michael Cole of Fit Brains, Colin Garvey of CogniFit, Amy Jo Kim of Shufflebrain, and Alvaro Fernandez of SharpBrains.

The wellness gaming industry is on the verge of a serious boom. Projected revenue by 2015 is $2 billion. Wellness gaming has already been adopted by the US Army, professional sports teams, and other large organizations aimed at getting their constituents mentally focused. Insurance companies have taken great interest in the genre as a way to help boost their insured’s health and safety, especially among the elderly driving population. The question I had was, are these games actually fun?

The answer is kind of- and they’re working to improve that. Fit Brains and Lumos focus on science first and entertainment…last. That’s great for the wellness part, but as they’ve learned, not so much for the “fun” part. The good news? They’ve started employing game developers to make the games more fun. Focusing on science is certainly not a bad thing, but if you’re going to market the product as a game, then fun has to be a priority. Shufflebrain, on the other hand puts the focus on entertainment first, and science second. According to Kim they focus on games that “are good for you because they’re engaging.”

Ted Spooner of Respondesign has been in the industry long enough to see how the trends are starting to change. Respondesign introduced their first “fitness game” (designed to get you off the couch) in 2006. It was a hard market to enter, as there was very little traction. There were no big brands in fitness gaming. Enter the Wii Fit and the whole genre is burgeoning. Spooner says the Fit has helped bring the fitness gaming industry to remarkable revenue levels, and they’re not going to be declining any time soon. They’ve met a bit of a challenge. It happens to be e from an  unusual suspect. “The audience gets the idea of fitness gaming. It’s the industry that has struggled,” he said.

Cole’s group is focusing on a different type of wellness. “More and more people are having senior moments,” he said. As the population slowly ages, there becomes room for these games that focus on brain stimulation. His big money maker has been in the insurance/auto industry helping elderly drivers maintain a safe driving record by having them play driving games. Kim’s focus is also very targeted. “A lot of women don’t play games because they don’t want to waste their time,” she says, after it’s noted that 85% of wellness gamers are women. These games resolve their guilt towards gaming. It becomes more than just a game, it becomes a lifestyle brand.

What are the challenges? Fernandez noted the most crucial point: if the right balance isn’t struck between science and entertainment the games will never be adopted. Spooner feels that working with main-stream companies is a way to get around some hurdles. Respondesign partnered with McDonalds a few yeas ago (I know, not your first thought of “fitness” or “wellness” but he had a point) to put game discs as collectables every time a Chinese chicken salad was purchased. He said it was an amazing success and they still get calls today for people didn’t get to collect all four and are looking for that missing game.

So what’s the future like? You can bet on more money being poured into wellness and fitness gaming. The fitness industry is a $20 billion dollar industry. Spooner noted that until now, it’s never been digitized and therefore there was no major competition. “It was a no brainer to invest in console fitness gaming,” he said. He, again, gave Nintendo credit for ushering in this genre that turns big numbers and has made it a legit business to invest in. Keep your eyes peeled for these games to become a lot more mainstream, and appealing to big audiences.

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