Playing Ring Fit Adventures on the floor or on a treadmill: a comparative study

Abstract

Fitness games have become very popular in recent times. However, the number of games specially designed for fitness machines is not very large and there are no studies evaluating their potential. In this sense, this work presents an analysis of the differences between playing Ring Fit Adventures for Nintendo Switch on the ground or on a treadmill. The user experience has been measured with the In-game version of the Game Experience Questionnaire. With it, aspects related to immersion, flow, positive emotions, and psychological needs of both ways of playing have been compared. The study shows that gaming on treadmill is better for self-reported users. Additionally, the level of perceived challenge on the treadmill was significantly higher from statistical analysis. Really high levels of immersion, competence and positive affections were found in both experiences, and slightly higher on treadmill. The values of tension and negative affections were very low in both experiences, with a median less than one in all cases. However, comments related to the lack of optimization of controls were raised. In this sense, the research of the different interaction and locomotion devices is proposed for future work.