As E3 approaches...

6-21-08: As E3 approaches, I'm excited because I'm hoping to rub shoulders with the likes of EA and Ubisoft, 2 companies who have recently been quoted as saying that, "Health games are here for the foreseeable future." (Tony Key, Senior VP of Sales and Marketing, Ubisoft) and EA Sports president Peter Moore said, "Health and fitness is an area where I want to see EA Sports be a leader...I think we can play in this space."

(You can read the full article here: MSN Tech and Gadgets)

Wow! What an opportunity for Games for Health, people! If you're going to E3, we should plan a strategy so when we meet these company leaders, we can help them "play in this space" of games for health. We know what we want and need!

Again, I'm saying this as a healthcare professional, not a gamer, because I'm not a gamer! (A frequent confession I make since many think I'm a hardcore gamer, being the exergaming evangelist and all. I still don't own a game console, with the exception of the DS Light, thanks to a friend at Golin Harris. ;-) I'd like to be more of a gamer, but right now, playing video games is in the same category as golf--I love to do both, but just don't have the time right now!

Those of us in healthcare, fitness, and sports medicine, are looking for new tools to motivate people to eat right and exercise, reduce their stress, and quit smoking. We saw examples of games at our recent Games for Health conf., and hopefully at next year's conference, we'll see even more samples of games for health!

So we need to start NOW in helping these game developer companies head in this direction. Maybe EA Sports and Ubisoft will open up a "Games for Health" division which would bring in healthcare/fitness professionals to work with game developers so that they could develop some really cool games for health.

If you aren't able to make it to E3, but have some ideas, please don't hesitate to contact me. I'm planning on going to all 2 or 3 days, having taken off work from my day job at the clinic to go to these sessions. I have no idea how the new E3 format is compared to when it was more open, so we'll see what I can do there.

Will update on this post-E3. so stay tuned!