Valve Wants to Use Your Sweat as a Gaming Device

Steven Bogos

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Jan 17, 2013
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Valve Wants to Use Your Sweat as a Gaming Device

[vimeo=65425720#]
Mike Ambinder, Valve's experimental psychologist, talks about the possibility of sweat detection and eye-tracking for videogames.

The fact that Mike Ambinder is even on the Valve Software payroll shows you just how committed the company is to thinking up new and interesting ways of bringing you the best gaming experience. Ambinder is an experimental psychologist, and Valve have set him to work trying to find out ways of making videogames more immersive. Biofeedback such as sweat detection and eye-tracking are just two ideas Ambinder has been playing around with.

"One thing we are very interested in is the notion of biofeedback and how it can be applied to game design," he 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." Ambinder says with current gaming imput devices, the game developer doesn't know how the player is enjoying the game or what their emotional state is. With biofeedback, developers would be able to shape their game around how a person feels while playing it.

To give an example, Ambinder said Valve has conducted experiments in which it has measured players' sweat and correlated that to their level of arousal while playing. The more you sweat, the more anxious you are. They then fed that data into Left 4 Dead and tried to modify the play experience so it would react to your emotions. When playing "scary" games like Left 4 Dead or Resident Evil, I could think of nothing more immersive than the game being able to tell exactly how scared you are, and using it against you.

He also talked of an experiment in which the player had four minutes to shoot 100 enemies. If the player was calm, the game would progress normally. If they got aroused or nervous, the game would move more quickly, and they would have less time to shoot the enemies.

As for eye-tracking, Ambinder points out the obvious: eyes move faster than fingers. Valve built a version of Portal 2 that was controlled with your eyes. This version decoupled aiming and viewpoint, in much the same way the Occulus Rift works. "It's still experimental, but it worked pretty well, and we were pleased with that," he said.

Beyond sweat and eye-tracking, other forms of biofeedback include: heart rate, facial expression, brain waves, pupil dilation, body temperature, and more. As well as being helpful for improving the immersion factor for gamers, this kind of technology can help out developers in the testing phase of development. Being able to see emotional states first-hand with raw data is much more usefull than asking someone in a postgame interview about how they felt while playing.

Source: Venture Beat [http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/05/valves-experimental-psychologist-discusses-sweat-detection-and-eye-tracking-for-games/#MxTCMkLpvCdap7IX.99]

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ResonanceSD

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This could work, but most games aren't really geared towards physical activity -_- eye tracking yes, sweat collection no.


I mean come on, the most obvious thing to measure biofeedback and have the results feed back into the game would be a heartbeat tracker.

Stressed in TF2's MvM mode? High heartrate? EVEN MORE SCOUTS!
 

ResonanceSD

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Desert Punk said:
ResonanceSD said:
This could work, but most games aren't really geared towards physical activity -_- eye tracking yes, sweat collection no.


I mean come on, the most obvious thing to measure biofeedback and have the results feed back into the game would be a heartbeat tracker.

Stressed in TF2's MvM mode? High heartrate? EVEN MORE SCOUTS!
Not only that, but I think cheat codes in the future will be very, very gross indeed.

What game uses cheat codes anymore? Achievements have basically killed them all off.
 

Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
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Desert Punk said:
ResonanceSD said:
This could work, but most games aren't really geared towards physical activity -_- eye tracking yes, sweat collection no.


I mean come on, the most obvious thing to measure biofeedback and have the results feed back into the game would be a heartbeat tracker.

Stressed in TF2's MvM mode? High heartrate? EVEN MORE SCOUTS!
Not only that, but I think cheat codes in the future will be very, very gross indeed.
Nah, that shouldn't be too bad. Go to a bar, slip someone a roofie, take them home and plug them up while they're out. Calm as fuck during the entire session. What's gross about that?
 

ResonanceSD

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Desert Punk said:
...I am sure there is a joke about Physical trainers in there, but I am too lazy and tired to come up with it...Damnit where is one of those punny people when you need them!
Shot, hopefully.

No but seriously, if they can develop a mechanism for biofeedback tracking that ISN'T invasive, then more power to them.
 

BreakfastMan

Scandinavian Jawbreaker
Jul 22, 2010
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So, a Valve employee was endorsing something like this... thing?

Yeah, no, I don't think so. Biofeedback is a pretty silly idea.
 

Strazdas

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May 28, 2011
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Of sweat is used to indicate when a person is scared, does that mean that during sumer im ultra-scared 24/7?
 

piinyouri

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Mar 18, 2012
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Yeah this seems a bit silly.
I never sweat while playing games, well at least not from any perceived stress. If I do it's usually because I'm hot. : p
I've never quite grasped the idea that you could sweat from playing a game.
I mean, sweating is something that happens when you exercise, or engage in some good ole fashioned hard work. (in the bed and otherwise)
Regardless of how scared/tense/into it I am, I just can't imagine being so stressed that I'm sweating.
Hell if I was that stressed I'd quit playing whatever I was playing to be honest.

I mean if this is just one of the speed bumps we have to cross to eventually get to some kind of virtual reality then it's all good.
 

TIMESWORDSMAN

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Mar 7, 2008
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Steven Bogos said:
Valve Wants to Use Your Sweat as a Gaming Device

"To give an example, Ambinder said Valve has conducted experiments in which it has measured players' sweat and correlated that to their level of arousal while playing... If the player was calm, the game would progress normally. If they got aroused or nervous, the game would move more quickly, and they would have less time to shoot the enemies."

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I pictured something totally dfifferent while reading those lines. I'm aware "aroused" has a perfectly normal and nonsexual meaning, but when unaffiliated and not used in a figure of speech such as " aroused my suspicion" I can't help but associate it with sexuality. I suppose once a word gains a certain attribute, it can take some time to shake it.
 

SinisterGehe

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May 19, 2009
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On other news: money has finally driven valve to Pëtër Mölÿnëüx levels of crazy.

How is this supposed to work localized, to I don't know, areas up north, like my home Finland. In which we spend most of the year in ass freezing temperatures, in and outside. (Or at least my apartment does)
Or how about during summer when my apartment is humid and hot as hell.

What if I like to eat chili during my gaming... ?
What if... compulsive sweater...
What if I got a fewer.. For cowbell...
What if I am suffering from hangover or medical withdraw...
What if... I like to game while wrapped in a warm blanket...
What if...
Hold on I'll try to come up with more of these.

Seriously, the more immersive the game is for me, the less gadgets I want to have between me and the keyboard.
Also making scary games doesn't take extra gadgets, it requires "Shockhorror!!!" Good design! Hell when I first played F.E.A.R I fond it to be excellent constipation aid, along with Amnesia and few other games lately.

It is all about sucking in the player like a prostitute with a bufferfish on the end of a vacuum cleaner as genitalia. Make the player focus all attention, cognitive and emotional to the game and then bombard the senses with primitive subtle hints that bypass cognitive barriers and go straight to the primitive parts of the brain.
 

FalloutJack

Bah weep grah nah neep ninny bom
Nov 20, 2008
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Screw that. Read my mind and we could do all sorts of stunts by will alone.
 

KungFuJazzHands

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Enough with the gimmicks, Valve. Just concentrate on creating great games and making Steam a better client, and we the consumers will be happy.

The only time I sweated while playing a video game was during an amphetamine overdose. Cross tops are nasty, folks.
 

bafrali

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Mar 6, 2012
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Sweat things sounds a little iffy since ony time I remember sweating was in DMC 3 bloody palace.

Eye movement tracking is interesting though. I can see it significantly increasing the response time in shooters.
 

Thaluikhain

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Yeah...no. Not going to work, and even if it did, well, Yahtzee would end up ranting about people shoehorning the gimmick into games, rather than make games that use them, and its abandoned next year anyway.
 

Zanderinfal

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bafrali said:
Sweat things sounds a little iffy since ony time I remember sweating was in DMC 3 bloody palace.
Is it weird that I am reading this comment while playing DMC3 bloody palace?
 

bafrali

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Zanderinfal said:
bafrali said:
Sweat things sounds a little iffy since ony time I remember sweating was in DMC 3 bloody palace.
Is it weird that I am reading this comment while playing DMC3 bloody palace?
Not really. In fact We should all be playing it right now as it is that good.
 

Scarim Coral

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The thing about using sweat in a game is that we would have to clean it after we are done with it as I pretty sure it will end being smelly.