Valve: games will detect your feelings

By Richard Leadbetter Published 22 February, 2011

Wants access to "internal state" of players.

Valve Software believes that processing biometric data from players will become a fundamental aspect of future games. It's a hugely exciting idea: developers will be able to adjust gameplay according to how the player is feeling, and the way people interact in multiplayer titles could change irrevocably.

"When you look at the kinds of experiences we try to create for people, having access to [the] internal state of the player allows us to build much more interesting and compelling experiences," Valve's Gabe Newell reveals in a recent Steamcast.

"So we don't really think that that's in doubt; the question is really about when and in what forms that takes. Even very simple noisy proxies for player-state, like skin galvanic response or heart-rate, turn out to be super-useful and they're very much at the beginning of the kinds of data that you can gather."

Sensors that measure elements such as this could conceivably be built into next generation control pads, and Newell also points out that other biometric data could be harvested relatively easily, pointing to advances in webcam tech allowing developers to capture the "gaze" of the player and even measure pupil dilation.

Valve experimented with biometrics directly by introducing them into a special build of Left 4 Dead 2, with the developers surprised by just how much the game was changed just by sharing the data with other players - it added to the social experience.

"This was not something we were expecting and it's the sort of reason you like to invest in these kinds of research efforts is it's not only the things you expect it's the things that catch you by surprise," Newell says.

Valve took the various biometric data feeds and filtered them into what it called (no sniggering), the "arousal state". With the data beamed across to the other players, different behaviours began to emerge.

"When you were playing competitively we found that people were incredibly aggressive towards highly aroused players on the opposing team and were very defensive about highly aroused players on their own team," Newell explains.

In short, Valve had developed a system where sharing the players' feelings fundamentally altered how the game played out. The developers started to theorise on why this actually happened and came to some intriguing conclusions. While online gaming is a social experience of sorts, there are still many layers of anonymity to the experience: Newell likens it to the difference between email and chat. Sharing the biometric data took away some of that anonymity and changed the way that players interacted.

"This other thing is where you just have this bar on the side of your screen going up and down showing somebody else's arousal state actually seems to bring that sense of connection back, like your brain is flexible enough to actually internalise that as sort of a replacement for a bunch of the face-to-face cueing that we've lost," Newell says.

"So that's an example of something where we were completely caught by surprise as a side-effect of doing this biometric research... so we're going to do a lot more of that and we're sure that a lot of other people will discover a lot of other interesting things about it, but I think there's a lot of untapped opportunity in the biometrics space."

Stating that the future of this tech is very "science-fictiony", Gabe Newell also revealed that Valve is currently talking to a company that implants EEG (electroencephalography) equipment into people's skulls, providing a comprehensive flow of raw information about the body.

"It's about a $60,000 operation right now but it gives you fantastic data that you could use. Eventually you're going to reach the point where it's a reasonable consumer option, as strange as that sounds, and very much reminds me of science fiction stories out of the nineteen-fifties about embedded phones and things like that. But at some point there are going to be sort of increasingly accurate, increasingly sophisticated sources of data about what's going on in your body and in your brain."

While the roadmap for the tech is very much at its earliest stages at the moment, Newell is in no doubt that the principle of games reacting to the feeling of the people playing them will play a fundamental role in future software development.

"So, I think that that's just going to happen, in how we get there, what form factors that takes, how controllers and input devices change. That's the thing we don't know - the fact that it's going to occur I think is pretty predictable at this point," Newell continued.

"We're working on sort of industrial designs ourselves, like we did a mouse design that we've been using here internally. You could also do game controllers and things like that and even the primitive kinds of hardware that a software company does, we're working pretty well. So I would actually be surprised if the next generation of certainly living room devices didn't have some form of that."

Picture of Richard.

About Richard Leadbetter

Rich has been a games journalist since the days of 16-bit and specialises in technical analysis. Commonly known around Eurogamer as the Blacksmith of the Future.

Read more articles from Richard by visiting the Richard Leadbetter archive page.

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Comments (43) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • captain_Carl #1 1 year ago

    e-motion control

  • Ultrasoundwave #2 1 year ago

    Does this mean Bulletstorm will detect my thoughts when i play it?

    / "MUST. RAPE. SOMETHING."

  • AcidSnake #3 1 year ago

    "Remember, the Aperture Science 'Bring Your Daughter To Work Day' is the perfect time to have her tested"

    Wasn't there a bio tetris game years back for the N64? It dropped blocks faster if you panicked IIRC...

  • TheNinkyNonk #4 1 year ago

    Lovely, Gabe, now stfu and make half life 3 already

  • uknortherner2000 #5 1 year ago

    Episode 3, Valve. Can your biometric tests detect the rage I'm feeling right now?

  • wizlon #6 1 year ago

    Isn't this what Nintendo were kinda going for with the Vitality Sensor?

  • jag10 #7 1 year ago

    nanomachines lol.

  • WiseGuy #8 1 year ago

    Im getting impatient waiting on advances, I was sure we would be at lawnmower man type stuff by now!

  • Dolly #9 1 year ago

    Could be amazing with the 'director' of Left 4 dead reacting to how stressed you are in order to ratcher up/down the terror etc. I actually think there is something very compelling about this.

  • StolenGlory #10 1 year ago

    I want to 'access' Episode 3 Valve.

    Put down the hash pipe and get back to work.

  • altitude2k #11 1 year ago

    Couldn't Kinect help with this?

    Especially seeing as emotional recognition has already been demonstrated by MS and is soon to be added via an update.
    Edited by altitude2k at 22/02/11 @ 11:52

  • Shikasama #12 1 year ago

    So if you don't buy a DLC pack in the future, they can disable your left arm remotely!

  • vegard #13 1 year ago

    I don't think there's going to be any Episode 3. I don't know if it's ever been formally announced? A full-blown HL3 with a new engine has got to be coming, I can't believe they spent all this time doing anything else.

  • mingster #14 1 year ago

    Grrr.. rage... smash... kill..

  • MattyD #15 1 year ago

    They said this years and years ago.

  • TheApologist #16 1 year ago

    So Valve first mastered making amazing software, then dominated software sales on PC, and next they're moving into hardware.

    This is the world's most important games company. Frankly, this is probably the most important company in all the entertainment industry sectors. Stunning.
    Edited by TheApologist at 22/02/11 @ 12:26

  • FireMonkey #17 1 year ago

    "When you were playing competitively we found that people were incredibly aggressive towards highly aroused players on the opposing team"

    But if a player never had that 'special' type of pad they would have an advantage over their team-mates opposing team would think you are basically dead and target the more 'aroused' players. Not sure anyone would buy a pad that gets them attacked more. If the game type, required the special pad to be connected then you just put a pair of gloves on, or hack the sensor so it's connected to your cat.
    Edited by FireMonkey at 22/02/11 @ 12:28

  • JensonJet #18 1 year ago

    Games can already tell the state of my feelings if they want... it's easy!

    If I'm winning I'm happy. If I'm not I'm p*ssed off... simple!

  • Tonne #19 1 year ago

    real men don't have feelings

  • Lusterpurge #20 1 year ago

    And we all laughed when Nintendo showed off the Vitality Sensor.

  • Fab4 #21 1 year ago

    Hook it up to your gr/wife/significant other...fool the game into thinking you are always angry ;)

  • Zephro #22 1 year ago

    Nice to know some developers actually do blue sky research instead of just dicking about with graphics algorithms all day long.

  • Kanjin #23 1 year ago

    Note to self: never buy a Valve horror game with this tech, preserve sanity longer that way.

  • SvennoJ #24 1 year ago

    The sooner the better. A webcam can also already tell when I'm bored to death with repetition or completely indifferent to yet another expected 'surprise' attack or predictable turn in the poorly written story. Or when I'm frustrated by cheap deaths, glitchy controls and cameras looking in the wrong direction. But what's the game going to do about that?

  • MattEdWithCheese #25 1 year ago

    well, isn't the AI director in Left 4 Dead an example of this?

  • charming_fox #26 1 year ago

    It would be nice if the character representing me would wear my emotions... subtle and not so subtle changes in the animation of the character to reflect fear, joy, fatigue, anger etc. topped off with the kinect camera reading my facial expressions and mouth movements and matchiong the character to them... for both mult and single player games.

  • dirtysteve #27 1 year ago

    Horse. Shit.

  • charming_fox #28 1 year ago

    ok...


    PS. Eurogamer staff, could you give Valve a call and ask them what is happening with Episode 3? Or maybe even do a little teeny article on what your personal expectations are of it? I just really wanna read something about Half-Life. Please?

  • Kami #29 1 year ago

    As much as this is a lovely idea, I have some reservations about this.

    Some of us aren't exactly capable of normal feelings. I have said it on the forums, I'll say it here - I am Bipolar, or Manic Depressive in old money, and I have to admit some days I'm not entirely sure what I am feeling. Well, I do, but generally it's "I'm going to puke" or "I'm going to faint!" or "I'm going to stick my phone in a microwave and set it to full power because I'm feeling particularly reckless!".

    Any game that attempted to read my feelings on a day-to-day basis would likely blow up or develop enough sentience to say "Seriously man, you're F[/spoiler]UCKED UP! Go back to bed or call the local psychiatric nurse or something!". Biometrics and reading feelings is all well and good - but in truth, I like games because in part I like their predictability. When you know that you aren't predictable or sane or sensible in the slightest, I like some games for the grounding orderly way it gets me to focus. And that's at the early stages, imagine when it has enough power to detect your actual feelings and not basic stress indicators!

    It's people like me who will stop this from working the way they want it to. Sorry, but it's true, people are unpredictable, and besides... do you really want someone who can hold their hands up and say "I'm clinically crazy!" on your side in L4D2 with this stuff running? No? That's what I thought... and it isn't just limited to people like me with medical "crazy" problems...

    I'd make a period joke here but I have my sister sitting nearby and if I do, I'm a dead man... not even I'm that crazy...
    Edited by Kami at 22/02/11 @ 15:28

  • Shinetop #30 1 year ago

    Hey, about that Vitality sensor Nintendo was apparently serious about. Did anything ever happen with that?

  • DAN.E.B #31 1 year ago

    will it detect my sorrow that L4D 3 hasnt been anounced?

  • coldfoot #32 1 year ago

    You can already do this with the Dualshock controller. They could make it so that when the internal gyro detects that you threw the controller game difficulty becomes easier :)

  • Dan41187 #33 1 year ago

    The thought of this type of technology becoming commonplace, particularly in horror games, is both awesome, and utterly terrifying. I'm tense enough when I play stuff like L4D & Condemned now, let alone when there's a chance the game might realise and decide to really try and fuck me up.

    They may as well go the whole way and make the box scream at you when you pick it up, and then refuse to open if you're too scared.

    Top work Valve.

  • Caimbeul #34 1 year ago

    Could be interesting. Now get on with Episode 3.

  • Savatage #35 1 year ago

    "This other thing is where you just have this bar on the side of your screen going up and down showing somebody else's arousal state..."

    Just what sort of games are Valve talking about here?

  • Farzlepot #36 1 year ago

    Dear Valve,

    Your recent research into porn games has been incredibly enticing, and your predictions fascinating.

    NOW QUIT YOUR GOD-DAMN SCIENCE-FICTION BULL AND HURRY THE HELL UP WITH EPISODE 3 ALREADY!

    Sincerely,

    Farzlepot

  • womble #37 1 year ago

    Gabe, we've been waiting THREE AND A HALF YEARS to play Episode 3 (or HL3). And it's nowhere in sight.

    And if Portal 2's marketing is anything to go by, HL3 would still probably be at least a YEAR away from release even if it were announced tomorrow.

    (Portal 2 was announced almost a year ago. And it's STILL not released.)

    Come on Valve. You're making Polyphony Digital look good. (At least they SHOW something during their 5+ year development hells.)

    What does your eMotion technology tell me about how I'm feeling right now? ;)

  • womble #38 1 year ago

    More Half Life grumbling:

    Half Life 2 took 5 years to make. It was released waaaay back in 2004.

    Fast forward to 2011: Half Life 3 hasn't even been mentioned in years.

    So, basically, Gabe... I love you and all, but really, shut your cakehole, crack the whip on the back of your minions -- bleed them, bleed them, bleed them! -- and FINISH HALF LIFE already.

  • Kmfrob #39 1 year ago

    I love your games Valve, but you're not putting an 'electroencephalography' in my skull!!!

  • RodHull #40 1 year ago

    The Vitality Sensor is just a pulse oximter that slips on your finger and measures heart rate and the saturation of oxygen in your blood. Basically knows if your heart's beating quick or if you're short of puff.

    What Valve are suggesting sounds a lot more advanced and sinister.

  • womble #41 1 year ago

    Only start to worry if it's running on GLaDOS.

  • kongzi #42 1 year ago

    Duke Nukem Forever does an admirable job of detecting my feelings already

  • BlinkeredAxis #43 1 year ago

    If HL2 could detect my feelings when looking at Alyx's butt-crack, I'd be locked away for a decade.