Towards understanding how to design for social play in exertion games

Players invest significant physical effort when playing exertion games. In addition to improving physical health, exertion games are also believed to facilitate social play amongst players. Despite these advantages, our understanding of how to design these games to successfully support social play is limited. In this paper, we present a qualitative analysis of player data from “Table Tennis for Three”, a mediated exertion game for three players, that contributes to our understanding of how the design of an exertion game facilitates social play. We use the concept of “space” to frame our findings in order to create themes that can be used to analyze existing and to design future exertion games. We hope our work can support researchers gain an understanding of this exciting new field, while also help designers utilize the many benefits of exertion games.