14 DAY TRIAL // Valve has confirmed that it has engaged in a lot of experiments during the development of many of its recent titles, from Left 4 Dead to Portal, in which it tried to detect the amount of sweat generated by players and tracked their eyes.
Valve is one of the biggest independent game studios in the world, having worked on a variety of great franchises like Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, or Counter-Strike, but it's also responsible for the hugely successful Steam digital distribution service that's present on PC, Mac, and Linux.
The studio has made a name for itself by experimenting with many different ideas, like its current SteamBox project that wants to deliver a lightweight mini PC capable of running new games on high settings in the living room.
Now, one of Valve's special employees, experimental psychologist Mike Ambinder, has talked about the more outlandish tests organized by the studio during the NeuroGaming Conference and Expo, via VentureBeat.
According to Ambinder, video games that rely on the mouse or the controller to get feedback from players will soon become limited in what they can offer to consumers.
"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. The more interesting side of the equation is what you can do when you incorporate physiological signals into the gameplay itself."
The psychologist exemplified his statement by confirming that Valve ran a variety of experiments in recent years with games like Left 4 Dead. According to him, the studio monitored the sweat perspired by players and that data was fed into the game, which changed the experience.
Calmness was rewarded by the game, while those who got excited saw more enemies that moved much faster.
Eye tracking was also monitored when play testing Portal 2 but, while it "worked well," the studio found that decoupling aiming and the viewpoint helped the overall experience.
While these experiments didn't help Valve's actual games, they did provide data which can result in potential mechanics for future titles.