Sensores de biofeedback em jogos eletrônicos : um estudo teórico e prático

Trabalho de conclusão de curso (graduação)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Tecnologia, Curso de Graduação em Engenharia de Controle e Automação, 2016.Game Analytics é uma das novas tendências de investigação na indústria de jogos digitais. Ela consiste em analisar as variáveis obtidas durante uma sessão de jogo, com o objetivo de melhorar o design de jogos e também para colaborar com a pesquisa de análise do comportamento do jogador. Estes dados podem ser adquiridos a partir do próprio jogo, como progresso nas fases, duração da sessão ou o desempenho geral do jogador; ou a partir dos usuários, como frequência cardíaca, atividade cerebral, movimento dos olhos ou qualquer indício de atenção, diversão ou tédio. O processo automático utilizado para capturar estes dados é chamado de Game Telemetry (Telemetria de Jogos). Diversos estudos vem propondo meios diferentes de aplicar técnicas de medição para utilizar sensores específicos, com o objetivo de obter os dados do jogador. Neste trabalho, o objetivo é realizar um levantamento acerca dos usos de sensores de Biofeedback em estudos recentes no contexto de telemetria de jogos, bem como uma avaliação prática do uso destes sensores, quando utilizados para prever o comportamento do jogador em diferentes gêneros de jogos. Mais precisamente, foi conduzido um experimento com três sensores de biofeedback (Eletrocardiografia, Sensor de Resposta Galvânica da Pele, e Eletromiografia) com o intuito de verificar a adequação destes sensores para a identificação de emoções do jogador em função do gênero do jogo.Game Analytics is one of the new research trends in digital games’ industry. It consists of analyzing the variables collected during a game session in order to improve game designing and collaborate with gamer behavior research as well. These data may be acquired from the game itself, such as level progression, session duration and the user’s overall performance; or from the users, like heartbeat, brain activity, gaze movement or any indication of attention, fun or boredom. The automatic process used to capture such data is called game telemetry. Several studies have been proposing different ways to apply measurement techniques and to employ specific sensors to collect user data. In this work, the objective is to perform a survey about the uses of Biofeedback sensors in recent studies in the context of game telemetry, as well as a practical evaluation of the use of these sensors, when used to predict the behavior of the player in different genres of games. More precisely, an experiment with three biofeedback sensors (Electrocardiography, Electrodermal Activity Sensor, and Electromyography) was conducted to verify the suitability of these sensors to identify the player’s emotions according to the genre of the game

A Design Exploration of Affective Gaming

Physiological sensing has been a prominent fixture in games user research (GUR) since the late 1990s, when researchers began to explore its potential to enhance and understand experience within digital game play. Since these early days, it has been widely argued that “affective gaming”—in which gameplay is influenced by a player’s emotional state—can enhance player experience by integrating physiological sensors into play. In this thesis, I conduct a design exploration of the field of affective gaming by first, systematically exploring the field and creating a framework (the affective game loop) to classify existing literature; and second by presenting two design probes, to probe and explore the design space of affective games contextualized within the affective game loop: In the Same Boat and Commons Sense. The systematic review explored this unique design space of affective gaming, opening up future avenues for exploration. The affective game loop was created as a way to classify the physiological signals and sensors most commonly used in prior literature within the context of how they are mapped into the gameplay itself. Findings suggest that the physiological input mappings can be more action-based (e.g., affecting mechanics in the game such as the movement of the character) or more context-based (e.g., affecting things like environmental or difficulty variables in the game). Findings also suggested that while the field has been around for decades, there is still yet to be any commercial successes, so does physiological interaction really heighten player experience? This question instigated the design of the two probes, exploring ways to implement these mappings and effectively heighten player experience. In the Same Boat (Design Probe One) is an embodied mirroring game designed to promote an intimate interaction, using players’ breathing rate and facial expressions to control movement of a canoe down a river. Findings suggest that playing In the Same Boat fostered the development of affiliation between the players, and that while embodied controls were less intuitive, people enjoyed them more, indicating the potential of embodied controls to foster social closeness in synchronized play over a distance. Commons Sense (Design Probe Two) is a communication modality intended to heighten audience engagement and effectively capture and communicate the audience experience, using a webcam-based heart rate detection software that takes an average of each spectator’s heart rate as input to affect in-game variables such as lighting and sound design, and game difficulty. Findings suggest that Commons Sense successfully facilitated the communication of audience response in an online entertainment context—where these social cues and signals are inherently diminished. In addition, Commons Sense is a communication modality that can both enhance a play experience while offering a novel way to communicate. Overall, findings from this design exploration shows that affective games offer a novel way to deliver a rich gameplay experience for the player