And why the hell not!
As the Wii has shown, gaming doesn’t have to just be for the younger generation and this seems like one of those obvious ideas that no one has ever thought of. Surely the mechanics of the game would be kept the same, just change the music to suite the audience. Foxtrot anyone?
In this session from the recent Games for Health conference, Jeff Pepper, President and CEO of Touchtown, discussed his company’s work in creating Dancetown – a PC-based dance game specifically aimed at older players and retirement homes, to give players regular exercise and reduce the risk of falling.
Touchtown is a 9-year old company out of Pittsburgh that was originally not a game company, but provided digital signage and TV to retirement homes. Two years ago, Pepper’s daughter came home with Dance Dance Revolution and he “got hooked”.
His daughter said ‘Wouldn’t it be great if your customers could do this?’ But it seemed too hard for seniors, and Pepper thought “there’s no way our customers would actually use this.”
However, after an investment of 18 months on a study, with a team of over 40 people, five retirement homes on an advisory board, and the CMU Entertainment Technology Group helping out, he discovered that dance provides benefits over plain exercise.
Head to GameSetWatch to read the entire article.
