Valve experiments: sweat-based Left 4 Dead, eye-controlled Portal

Valve has hired on an experimental psychologist who has been working on biometric feedback tests to influence gameplay.

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Valve has a history of experimental hires, like when it brought on an economist to examine in-game economies. The company has now taken in Mike Ambinder, an experimental psychologist who is tasked with researching biofeedback.

VentureBeat reports that Ambinder talked at a session during the NeuroGaming Conference and Expo last week. He said that the company has conducted experiments that measure factors like players sweat, player calmness, and eye tracking. The sweat levels fed data into Left 4 Dead to modify the game experience, while the player's calmness might impact how much time they have to complete an objective. It also created a version of Portal 2 that you could control with your eyes, since they can move faster than your hands.

The measurements can come from readings of heart rate, brain waves, pupil dilation, body temperature, and even facial expressions. Ambinder said that the biofeedback could potentially be used to find better multiplayer matches, create game profiles, and make better peaks and valleys of content.

We've heard before that Valve was looking into biometric controllers, so bringing in a professional in the field makes perfect sense. So far, though, it's only in the testing phases, and Valve hasn't made any mention of actual hardware plans.

"One thing we are very interested in is the notion of biofeedback and how it can be applied to game design," Ambinder said. "There is potential on both sides of the equation, both for using physiological signals to quantify an emotional state while people are playing the game. The more interesting side of the equation is what you can do when you incorporate physiological signals into the gameplay itself. If we could start tapping into that, we could tap into a whole wealth of data."

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    May 6, 2013 9:00 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Valve experiments: sweat-based Left 4 Dead, eye-controlled Portal.

    Valve has hired on an experimental psychologist who has been working on biometric feedback tests to influence gameplay.

    • reply
      May 6, 2013 9:31 AM

      Been hearing about Valve playing around with biofeedback for so long now. Hope to see it lead to something!

      • reply
        May 6, 2013 9:51 AM

        It won't.

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        May 6, 2013 10:13 AM

        I hope something that Valve does leads then to putting out a new game someday!

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          May 6, 2013 10:13 AM

          They are too busy playing DOTA2 to bother with new games.

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        May 6, 2013 10:18 AM

        I think they're very much in DNF territory where working overlong on a game does not necessarily means it's actually getting better.

        Unlike 3Drealms however they do have the funds to restart development indefnitely and also appear to have enough instrospective ability to step back and judge the thing they're building and whether they're getting anywhere.

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          May 6, 2013 11:24 AM

          The only game that Valve had that was borderline DNF territory was TF2 which was announced years in advanced and restarted half a dozen times. You might argue HL2:EP3 or HL3 is the same way but it technically was never announced nor has any details about it surfaced. Valve has a track record for producing good games that albeit take ages to finish.

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        May 6, 2013 10:32 AM

        Force pause the game when you really need to piss/shit to prevent people from holding it.

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      May 6, 2013 10:33 AM

      There is too much liability attached to messing with peoples bodies for this ever to happen. I'm never going to get my DNI jack. :(

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      May 6, 2013 11:34 AM

      Howabout you hire on some people who make video games and make HL3 already

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        May 6, 2013 12:32 PM

        No one at that 400 person company make video games. Doug Church, Clint Hocking, and Robin Walker are all making hats for DOTA 2 now.

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      May 6, 2013 2:41 PM

      Maybe them studying biometric feedback isn't so much to give us "new controllers", but to make the games more exciting / challenging / natural playing.

      For instance:

      If they see that a person gets calm at certain parts they can ask themselves, "what can we do as designers to make it so the player WTFOMG's more".

      If they see that players eyes are already figuring out the portal goes here and here in an instant, how can we change it to include more problem solving.

      OR MAYBE IT IS A CONTROLLER THING AND WE WILL ALL BE PLAYING A LINUX HL3 ON GOOGLE GLASSES!

    • reply
      May 7, 2013 9:45 AM

      I love how so much of this Steam money is going into Valve as basically a big R&D house with video games. I bet some really cool stuff is going to come out of this.

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