Microsoft announced a partnership in December between its gaming–platform Xbox and the sleep, meditation and relaxation app Calm so that the popular app could lull its users to sleep with soundscapes from video games. Initially, two sounds were introduced, one from the game ‘Sea of Thieves’ and the other from ‘Halo Infinite’, which users can use through the app as background sound for sleeping or generally for relaxation during daily activities. This is part of the technology company’s effort to show Xbox users that it cares about their mental health and to prioritize wellness in gaming. According to Xbox’s research from last year, as many as 54 percent of respondents said they use video games as a form of entertainment to relieve stress.
Numerous scientific studies and examples of corporate practice have shown that spending some time immersed in video games is beneficial. Agile players in video games decided to gift their gamers a bit more wellness, so besides Xbox, Sony with its PlayStation has also shown that it is diligently working on detoxification, fitness, and reducing stress for its users.
Mental health is in, a topic that has been discussed for some time, so it is no wonder that this somewhat newer market sector, where Generation Z, known for prioritizing mental health, is increasingly dominant, is developing towards ensuring the health of its stakeholders and actually wants to create a safe space for play and relaxation.
When is it too much
– From the perspective of the video game industry, there are several high-profile games that track players’ habits and notify them if they have played too many hours in a day. The most well-known examples of the take a break mechanic are from the game ‘Guild Wars’ and the strategic series ‘Anno’. There are also studies, such as the Pine studio from Samobor, which put significant effort into building a healthy community, which involves actively working to combat toxic and unpleasant commentators in the community, which is important to them since players of their ‘Escape Simulator’ have collectively spent several million hours in the game over the past year, explains Aleksandar Gavrilović, CEO of Gamechuck and secretary of the Croatian Game Development Alliance (CGDA).
Gavrilović notes that such examples are rare and that due to a lack of legislation, they depend solely on the goodwill of the producers, and, as he claims, there are producers who actively employ psychologists and sociologists to exploit players’ feelings and habits.
– The most well-known example is the use of insights from psychology related to gambling addiction to extract large sums of money from players through loot boxes and other microtransaction mechanics. As a result, players of certain profiles often go bankrupt, for example, those with genetic predispositions to obsessive behavior, adds Gavrilović.
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That it is good to spend some time immersed in video games has already been shown by many scientific studies and examples of corporate practice. However, there are still no regulations that would encourage game producers to monitor and warn players about their gaming time.
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Belgium, he claims, was the first to regulate this part of the industry back in 2018, and in the meantime, the Netherlands has also initiated legal steps to regulate video games, with its most well-known case being the lawsuit against Electronic Arts for ten million euros due to loot box mechanics, or enticing players to spend additional money in the game, in the FIFA series.
– On the other hand, there are still no regulations that would encourage game producers to monitor and warn players about their gaming time, he concludes.
Education of Gamers
For this reason, gamers are still traditionally viewed as individuals lacking physical fitness, but this prejudice is slowly but surely being eradicated, and at least according to Gavrilović’s words, classic celebrity professions such as actors or footballers are being replaced among the younger generation by streamers and e-sports athletes, who are the opposite of classic gamer stereotypes. This has also been confirmed by the Croatian Esports Federation (HeSS), which stated that amateur gamers are still not sufficiently educated when it comes to caring for mental health, as well as nutrition, which players must pay attention to in order to become professionals.
– When we talk about the gaming scene at a professional level, we find a completely opposite situation. Professionals have experts from various fields at their disposal, such as psychotherapists, nutritionists, and managers, who monitor their development and strive to guide them in the right direction, say HeSS representatives.
According to HeSS, gamers are subject to this stereotype because physical fitness does not directly affect performance in the game, but when a person neglects their physical condition, psychological issues arise over time, which is why it is important for players to engage in physical activities, according to their abilities and time, in order to maintain concentration, reaction speed, and all other elements required by e-sports.
– It is necessary to work hard on educating gamers to understand how important it is to lead a healthy life. Increasingly larger organizations are aware of how important this is. For example, the International Esports Federation (IESF) organizes every tournament, whether European or world, at wellness locations with healthy food, swimming pools, gyms, sports fields, and includes sports at every competition, say HeSS representatives, adding that due to the nature of this sector, since video games are still played virtually and electronically, it is certainly necessary to connect as well as possible with wellness and health tech, which opens up space for new innovations.
With Glasses to the Beach
Such an innovation has been developed at the headquarters of the video game industry in Croatia, the Entrepreneurial Incubator PISMO in Novska.
– The PISMO incubator powered by A1 supports a healthier life for programmers, and that is why our startup Studio Loomi&Design has created a VR application that our tenants can use after a hard day. Since the Panonian Sea has long been absent in the Novska area, a virtual world has been designed that includes a beach, sea, and the sound of waves, relaxing music, reading a book… explains Ivana Matanović, public relations manager at the PISMO incubator, adding that the application is used internally, but they claim they plan further development so that it can be used by others.
That it is good to incorporate wellness into video gaming is clearly a widely popular stance, and this rapidly growing sector could soon also penetrate health tech, which Gavrilović has confirmed:
– Many startups combine technologies from the video game industry for the gamification of health, for example, using game engines for interactive 3D visualizations as assistance in medical procedures. Knowledge such as design also helps to create gamified applications for chronic patients, using game elements to help them develop certain habits, such as taking medication, he claims.
How much gamification helps has also been shown by last year’s discovery by the Neuroscape scientific center at the University of San Francisco, where scientists proved that specially designed video games can restore weakened mental abilities in older adults in just four weeks of training. Games that simulate activities such as driving, exercising, and playing drums have shown to help train cognitive processes that weaken with age, such as short-term and long-term memory.
Regardless of how the gaming sector will develop further, individuals who found entertainment and an escape from boredom in games have been entering it since its inception. Today, this sector has evolved into a completely new world thanks to VR and other innovations, but precisely because of relaxation after work or school, it has found itself in the position it is in today. Therefore, it can be easily said that gaming and wellness have gone hand in hand since the very beginning, and how they will continue to develop and whether one day it will be possible to take a short vacation during working hours thanks to virtual reality remains to be seen by innovators like those in Novska.
