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Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

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Re: Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

#2
I maintain that Blizzard and 24 Hour Fitness could make a lot of money (or at least get a lot of attention) by installing WoW clients on treadmills, elliptical machines, etc. When you're logged into the game and using one of these machines, your player gets a buff that makes it stronger or gains xp faster. Stop walking on the treadmill and the buff wears off. If they made the buff valuable enough, they'd sell a lot of gym memberships to people that would otherwise never set a foot in one -- and maybe some people would lose some weight too.

Re: Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

#4
I think (hope?) this might be exactly what it would take to get me going to the gym regularly. The team element would be a great source of peer pressure "You best be at the gym tonight, we've an important battle".

Here in the UK there is a trend of £9.99/month 24/7 Gyms - and this would complement them really well.

Re: Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

#5
post #2

I maintain that Blizzard and 24 Hour Fitness could make a lot of money (or at least get a lot of attention) by installing WoW clients on treadmills, elliptical machines, etc. When you're logged into the game and using one of these machines, your player gets a buff that makes it stronger or gains xp faster. Stop walking on the treadmill and the buff wears off. If they made the buff valuable enough, they'd sell a lot o…

Hmm, this is an interesting idea. Perhaps instead of making the buff wear off, make things available for the next time you are "in game" as it would be rather risky trying to play the game while walking on a treadmill, bike or eliptical machine.

Re: Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

#7
cycling / rowing machines had this years ago. The little LCD screen shows a cartoon of you and the gym's best, your best, or some pro athlete at a set rate zooming off into the distance. I assume the screens and graphics have got a lot better in the last 10 years.

Re: Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

#8
post #2

I maintain that Blizzard and 24 Hour Fitness could make a lot of money (or at least get a lot of attention) by installing WoW clients on treadmills, elliptical machines, etc. When you're logged into the game and using one of these machines, your player gets a buff that makes it stronger or gains xp faster. Stop walking on the treadmill and the buff wears off. If they made the buff valuable enough, they'd sell a lot o…

Hmm, this is an interesting idea. Perhaps instead of making the buff wear off, make things available for the next time you are "in game" as it would be rather risky trying to play the game while walking on a treadmill, bike or eliptical machine.

That's a good alternative. Although I think the game would be easily playable at even a quick walking pace on the treadmill, they could trade each minute on the machine with a minute of the buff next time you login. Or charge up an orb in your inventory that you can use at will.

Re: Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

#9
That's a completely stupid idea that will never work, as is obvious to anyone who's actually ever attempted to get people to do things. It fails on so many levels that it's not really even possible to write a concise, structured rebuttal of it. Off the top of my head:

- Too weird, most normal people won't do it

- Not everyone gives a damn about video games

- Too much of a financial risk for gyms to sign up to such a system

- Too much of a financial risk for someone to build such a system for gyms to sign up to

- Too difficult to get everyone to agree on a game

- Probably wouldn't make all that much difference to the total amount of exercise being done, as it would turn off as many people as it turns on

Basically, this idea could work, so long as it was effectively free to implement. So, by the time physical and informational resources are that cheap, do you really think that no one will have figured out something more efficient than gyms to work out?

Next: "How to make everyone happier: just get all the warlords to agree to peace."

Re: Scott Adams: Your Next Gym

#10
My gym does just the MVP of this, where your RFID wristband gives you data persistence for workout results. Walk up to machine, swipe wristband, Good afternoon Mr. Mckenz lets try for 12 reps at 40kg today. ("Who ever heard of someone with a last name longer than six characters long? LOL" A segment of their clientele -- and most at my gym are north of forty -- love it to death. There is at least one seventy something who brought me over to his screen to show me his fiftieth gold badge. One is earned for running a Tokyo marathon. You do the math.

Of course, their main business is still selling the notion of belonging to a gym.

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