We make games that claim to be exercise, so we owe you a rigorous answer to the obvious question: is playing an active video game actually exercise, or is it exercise-flavored entertainment? The answer from exercise science is a conditional yes — and the condition is specific enough to be useful. This article lays it out, and applies it critically to our own games.

What “counts” even means

Exercise science grades activity by intensity, usually in METs — multiples of resting energy burn. The rough bands: below 3 METs is light activity (strolling, standing tasks); 3 to 6 METs is moderate (brisk walking, easy cycling); above 6 is vigorous (running, hard cardio). Public-health guidance, such as the WHO’s widely cited recommendation of at least 150 minutes of moderate activity per week, counts time spent at moderate intensity or above. So the question “does a game count?” reduces to a measurable one: does playing push you to 3+ METs for sustained stretches?

What the research found about exergames

Active video games have been studied since the Wii and Kinect era, and the literature converges on a common-sense conclusion: intensity tracks how much of your body the game actually makes you move. Seated or hand-controller motion games typically land in light territory. Games driven by arm gestures reach low-moderate. Games that force whole-body movement — jumping, squatting, running in place, dance games at effort — reach solid moderate and can touch vigorous. Reviews of the field consistently frame exergaming as a legitimate source of light-to-moderate physical activity, especially for people who would otherwise be sedentary, while noting that few games sustain vigorous intensity for long stretches the way continuous running does.

Two honest caveats from that same literature. First, intensity varies enormously with player effort — the same game can be light for a half-hearted player and moderate-plus for a committed one. Second, the replacement effect matters: an active game is a health win when it replaces sitting, not when it replaces harder exercise you would actually have done.

Applying the bar to CamPlay, honestly

CamPlay’s games were designed after that research, and the design target was simple: make the game unplayable without whole-body movement. You cannot progress in Rune Run without genuinely jogging in place — the speed signal is built from arm-pump cadence and head bob, and standing still means stopping. Ski Slalom’s speed tuck is a real squat hold, the single most quad-expensive thing we could make the “go faster” button. Simon Says and Dino Dodge are burst-interval by nature — jumps, ducks and quick direction changes with short recoveries.

Mapped to MET bands using our own calorie methodology: standing between actions is light (1.8); an easy jog registers around 4 — moderate; hard running pushes toward 8.5 — vigorous; squat holds sit at 4.0 and held leans at 2.5. So a CamPlay session is interval-shaped: moderate-to-vigorous bursts over a light baseline. Sustained at honest effort, most of a session sits in the moderate band — which is exactly the bar that “counts”. And the gearing runs through the games’ scoring: pace multiplies score in the runners, so playing harder and playing better are the same thing. But the caveat from the literature applies to us fully: play half-heartedly and you will be in light territory, and the calorie counter will say so, because it reads your actual movement — if the camera sees strolling effort, you get strolling numbers.

What game sessions are — and aren’t — good for

  • Genuinely good: replacing sedentary time. Ten minutes of moderate movement you actually do beats thirty you skipped. Short sessions stack — activity guidance long ago dropped the idea that exercise only counts in continuous blocks.
  • Genuinely good: consistency. The motivational structure of games — scores to beat, friends to race — is precisely the adherence machinery most home-exercise plans lack. The best workout remains the one you repeat.
  • Partially good: cardio development. Interval-shaped moderate activity improves fitness in deconditioned and moderately active people; a trained runner will not improve their VO2max playing browser games.
  • Not what this is for: strength beyond bodyweight, sport-specific training, or medical rehabilitation. And game calorie counters — ours included — are estimates for self-comparison, not clinical measurements.

How to make a session count

  • Treat the game’s speed mechanic as the intensity dial: in the runners, your pace multiplies your score, so chasing points and chasing heart rate are aligned by design.
  • Use the talk test: during a hard stretch you should be able to talk but not comfortably sing — the classic field marker of moderate intensity.
  • Set your real weight (see why weight matters) so your numbers mean something, then compare sessions against your own history on the stats page, not against anyone else’s.
  • Clear a bit of space, warm up with the first easy minute, and stop for pain — the boring advice that applies to every form of exercise applies to games that are exercise.

So: do active video games count? When the game forces whole-body movement and you play with intent, yes — as honest moderate-intensity activity, the kind weekly guidelines are made of. The fair test of an exergame is whether it is more tiring to play well than to play badly. That is the test we build against, and the one you should hold us — and any fitness game — to.