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.
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.
