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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Exercise Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1556434
This article is part of the Research Topic Monitoring and Promoting Physical Exercise and Physical Performance in Esports Players View all 13 articles
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Physical inactivity or lack of physical activity has become an increasingly widespread and important global public health problem. Along with technological developments, the interest in e-sports is also increasing. Virtual reality (VR) games applied within the scope of e-sports include physical movements by nature, which encourages players to move more and be active. This study aimed to compare VR and mobile games regarding physiologic load. Twenty-two (13 males, 9 females) healthy university students with a mean age of 21.72 ± 1.39 years, height of 171.59 ± 9.12 cm, and body weight of 64.95 ± 13.35 kg, who did not smoke, did not play sports professionally, and did not have chronic diseases, voluntarily participated in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to play an active video game (VR) using a virtual reality headset and a mobile game (MO) on a smartphone for two days. The game duration was determined as 15 minutes. The body temperature of the participants before and after the game and heart rate (HR) values during the game were measured from beat to beat. A non-contact infrared thermometer was used for measuring body temperature, and a telemetric device was used for HR measurements. When VR and MO games were compared regarding body temperature, no intra- and inter-group differences were observed. Regarding HR, HRmean, HRmax, and HRtotal values of the VR game were statistically significantly higher than MO games. In addition, in the analyses performed according to the time spent in the percentage of maximal heart rate, it was observed that the time spent in the MO game was significantly longer compared to the VR game below the Under Very Light (UVL). On the contrary, the time spent in the VR game was significantly longer than the MO game at Above Very Light (AVL). As a result, the heart rate parameters measured in the VR game were higher than in the MO game at all levels, suggesting that VR may be an effective tool for physical activity-based gaming experiences.
Keywords: Heart Rate, Physiological load, Virtual reality game, Mobile game, physical activity
Received: 21 Jan 2025; Accepted: 24 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Biçer and Löklüoğlu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Bilal Biçer, Mustafa Kemal University, Antakya, Hatay, Türkiye
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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