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Playing Pokemon Go has health benefits too

By FnF Desk | PUBLISHED: 21, Aug 2016, 14:52 pm IST | UPDATED: 21, Aug 2016, 19:34 pm IST

Playing Pokemon Go has health benefits too London: While the augmented reality (AR) based smartphone game Pokemon Go is spreading like a fire globally, researchers have now figured health benefits that such games can bring for its users.

According to the researchers, Pokemon Go stimulates substantial amounts of physical activity in many likely-otherwise sedentary game players without intending to.

"We might call this stealth 'exergame' programming and we have a lot to learn about how to achieve this!" said Tom Baranowski, Professor of Pediatrics from Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.

The combination of AR technology, geocaching and other novel techniques to create innovative active video games (AVGs) has potential personal and public health implications, the study noted.

The team identified many lessons from GPD-based Pokemon Go in which players can log hours of walking as they physically chase the animated Pokemon creatures based on video images displayed on their smart phones.

"Game developers could then use this information to create new games that would be both fun to play and promote beneficial physical activity," the authors noted in a paper that appeared on the Games for Health Journal website.

The game uses GPS to track a player's location and overlays "monsters" that can be hunted in that location on his mobile screen. The captured monsters can then be trained for battles.
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