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Report says fitness video games are proliferating as gamers get off the couch

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Fitness video games have grown sharply in the past decade, according to a new report released by the game industry’s trade group and a White House study group. That means that getting gamers to exercise is no longer just a novelty; it’s a $750 million a year business.

The Entertainment Software Association and the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition said that 20 percent of all games released in 2011 were ‘”active games,” or those that required gamers to expend energy aside from tapping buttons on a controller. That compares to just 5 percent during the period from 2002 to 2007.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.