Games Could Soon Be Reading Your Emotions
- Thread starter Scott Bullock
- Start date
I don't think it's necessary, a true game developer can predict how the gamer is feeling at that exact time and can make a game mechanic that compliments it. You don't need to adjust the game when gamers are excited. If you can get the player to be excited when playing a game, your doing your job right.
Oh, I bet the marketing guys are going to love this.
Honestly, I think I'd rather a game try to please me and meet it halfway- maybe discover something new- than that it read my emotional state. The latter seems both too invasive and too, well, submissive- the creepy endpoint of "the customer is always right" where the decisions of the game's designers are completely usurped by player expectations.
Honestly, I think I'd rather a game try to please me and meet it halfway- maybe discover something new- than that it read my emotional state. The latter seems both too invasive and too, well, submissive- the creepy endpoint of "the customer is always right" where the decisions of the game's designers are completely usurped by player expectations.
huh, this is the first step into "new technology" in a while that i actually am intrigued by, i'll definitely be checking this out when they "test run" it on the open public.
Next they'll be making devices that actually set off emotions in our brains, allowing us to feel excited even at the shittiest games. I actually think that that would be a good thing mostly, although it could certainly be exploited greatly.
No.
I deny this, for good reason. One, it will not work properly because games interpretting emotions would require an AI level that does not exist. A game cannot 'understand' emotions unless it has a mind to do so. Physiological responses are not the entire story there.
And two, I would never want such a thing because it would remove some of the fun. I don't WANT a game to know how I feel as I'm playing the game. I'M not the character on the screen. I'm his puppetmaster. The audience isn't suppose to pay attention to stage hands or directors. They watch the show. A change in the game because of something read off of ME would be breaking the fourth wall. It's using out-of-character knowledge in an In-Character setting. I am outside of the game's universe or even god of the play. You do not read anything from me.
I hate to sound overly aggressive about this, but I feel that this idea is a step in the wrong direction.
I deny this, for good reason. One, it will not work properly because games interpretting emotions would require an AI level that does not exist. A game cannot 'understand' emotions unless it has a mind to do so. Physiological responses are not the entire story there.
And two, I would never want such a thing because it would remove some of the fun. I don't WANT a game to know how I feel as I'm playing the game. I'M not the character on the screen. I'm his puppetmaster. The audience isn't suppose to pay attention to stage hands or directors. They watch the show. A change in the game because of something read off of ME would be breaking the fourth wall. It's using out-of-character knowledge in an In-Character setting. I am outside of the game's universe or even god of the play. You do not read anything from me.
I hate to sound overly aggressive about this, but I feel that this idea is a step in the wrong direction.
I could easily see this being done, but it would require a lot of gimmicks to make it work. Wearing a headset, or some kind of wrist/arm band attached to a game to monitor my reactions just isn't going to appeal to me (and many other people) for the same reason that flailing around with a remote doesn't. You might get some quick gimmick sales here, but it's not something I see as being part of the future of gaming.
The tech exists where this could be done (and no, it doesn't take an AI, it would work similar to a polygraph test, except without a person to mark the spikes when they happen it would just use them as triggers within the game) but it seems a bit pointless to me.
What's more, it's one of those situations where I simply don't trust the private industry with this kind of technology and that leve of penetration. Right now we already have a lot of things happening with "metrics" and "gamification", even having videos on The Escapist about them. Simply put, the gaming industry is already using our own forced internet connectivity to gather information about us. We've seen it with things like "Red Dead Redemption", connected to unlocking early content, and stats compiled about what kinds of weapons are
used and how often. We have companies like Nintendo setting themselves up to be able to track people through Wi-Fi connections that will be accessed by a peron's 3DS system even when it's not turned on by the user.
All of this being allegedly as a result of "copy protection" and "fighting piracy" but notice that this isn't all they are using these mandatory internet connections and online features of games for.
At any rate, the last thing I need is for the gaming industry to be able to sit there and start gathering psychological data, of any sort, from individual gamers. I could come up with a lot of hypothetical nastiness that could come from being able to simply gauge stress reactions/adrenaline, and similar things from people in connection to a game. A data base of reactions like that could be used for some really messed up things, criminal profiling least among them.
Right now I'm waiting for the police to track people down using the 3DS system in their pocket as opposed to just through a cell phone. If we see this tech out there, it will only be a matter of time before information gained from reaction sensors in games is used in a criminal trial, to say "prove" someone is a sociopath because they were excited by something disturbing in a game or whatever.
Like it or not we have a right to privacy, and while I have nothing paticular to hide, I still don't want other people in my business. At the absolute most "benevolent" the data gathered from be kicking back and unwinding is going to be used to try and sell me products down the road, and for obvious reasons I don't want ad execs crawling around in my head.
The tech exists where this could be done (and no, it doesn't take an AI, it would work similar to a polygraph test, except without a person to mark the spikes when they happen it would just use them as triggers within the game) but it seems a bit pointless to me.
What's more, it's one of those situations where I simply don't trust the private industry with this kind of technology and that leve of penetration. Right now we already have a lot of things happening with "metrics" and "gamification", even having videos on The Escapist about them. Simply put, the gaming industry is already using our own forced internet connectivity to gather information about us. We've seen it with things like "Red Dead Redemption", connected to unlocking early content, and stats compiled about what kinds of weapons are
used and how often. We have companies like Nintendo setting themselves up to be able to track people through Wi-Fi connections that will be accessed by a peron's 3DS system even when it's not turned on by the user.
All of this being allegedly as a result of "copy protection" and "fighting piracy" but notice that this isn't all they are using these mandatory internet connections and online features of games for.
At any rate, the last thing I need is for the gaming industry to be able to sit there and start gathering psychological data, of any sort, from individual gamers. I could come up with a lot of hypothetical nastiness that could come from being able to simply gauge stress reactions/adrenaline, and similar things from people in connection to a game. A data base of reactions like that could be used for some really messed up things, criminal profiling least among them.
Right now I'm waiting for the police to track people down using the 3DS system in their pocket as opposed to just through a cell phone. If we see this tech out there, it will only be a matter of time before information gained from reaction sensors in games is used in a criminal trial, to say "prove" someone is a sociopath because they were excited by something disturbing in a game or whatever.
Like it or not we have a right to privacy, and while I have nothing paticular to hide, I still don't want other people in my business. At the absolute most "benevolent" the data gathered from be kicking back and unwinding is going to be used to try and sell me products down the road, and for obvious reasons I don't want ad execs crawling around in my head.
I'm not sure about this...wouldn't it turn Mass Effect 3 into a dating sim?
"Ah, yes...*Reapers*. The so called race of sentient starships that Commander Shepard keeps harking on about. We've investigated these findings. There is no such thing."
Conversation Tree:
Paragon Response
Neutral Response
Renegade Response
Stick It In
"Ah, yes...*Reapers*. The so called race of sentient starships that Commander Shepard keeps harking on about. We've investigated these findings. There is no such thing."
Conversation Tree:
Paragon Response
Neutral Response
Renegade Response
Stick It In
Perhaps next they will make games that you can beat by throwing the controller at the screen. If nothing else, I would be very good at it. I am not really in favor of using gimmicky devices to play games so I'm not sure about this one. The only alternative way of controlling a game I would really like is a Matrix style mechanism. That would be awesome 
Your avatar's face I can imagine appearing on screen if the game detects huge amounts of rage XDRussian_Assassin said:
OT: I don't know if AI is intelligent enough yet for that. Maybe in a few years but physiological responses to a game isn't enough.
>.>icyneesan said:>Is playing Pokemon
>Sees Gardevoir
>Is arrested by police
Ya... its very likely for me
Back in the good ol' days of the N64 era, I remember reading about that thing in the mexican magazine of Club Nintendo in one of their covers of Space World or E3, I don't remember wich one. They used it with a guy playing Tetris, the faster your heart beats, the faster the blocks fall.starwarsgeek said:
And yes, Miyamoto resurrected that idea for the Wii.
On a side note, I know you can read my feelings Valve and I'm sad, very sad. Why?, because there's still no Episode 3 yet.
Hmm... anyone else getting a slightly Orwellian vibe out of this?
I don't really think it'll pan out all that well, especially since it'll likely require intrusive sensory apparatus that will probably destroy the sense of immersion on which this mechanic depends. If the game developers are doing their job right then this gimmick will be largely pointless. Plus it'll encourage gamers to calm themselves down to gain an advantage, which might negate the feelings that this mechanic is attempting to inspire. Zeno Clash gets me absolutely pumped every time I play it because Zeno Clash is fucking beautiful, it certainly doesn't need to read my emotions to rock my socks off.
I don't really think it'll pan out all that well, especially since it'll likely require intrusive sensory apparatus that will probably destroy the sense of immersion on which this mechanic depends. If the game developers are doing their job right then this gimmick will be largely pointless. Plus it'll encourage gamers to calm themselves down to gain an advantage, which might negate the feelings that this mechanic is attempting to inspire. Zeno Clash gets me absolutely pumped every time I play it because Zeno Clash is fucking beautiful, it certainly doesn't need to read my emotions to rock my socks off.