You know who conducts tests with subjects hooked up to biofeedback gear, under camera surveillance? If you guessed GLaDOS, you\u2019re right. If you guessed Valve Corp., you\u2019re also right. Does life imitate art, or is it the other way around?<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, playtesting is the most important part of the game development process,\u201d Valve\u2019s playtesting lead and in-house experimental psychologist (no, seriously) Mike Ambinder tells Gamespot.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not something we save for the end of the development, or use as a quality assessment or balancing tool. It is the dominant factor that shapes our decisions about what to release and when to release it.\u201d<\/p>\n The company\u2019s playtesting labs are fitted with cameras that track players\u2019 eye movements, heart-rate monitors, even skin conductivity testing equipment. It\u2019s probably safe to assume the sentient AIs are kept out of sight.<\/p>\n \u201cWe became interested in the use of biofeedback both as a playtesting methodology and as potential user input to gameplay because the idea of quantifying emotion or player sentiment seems to have utility,\u201d Ambinder says.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the playtesting side, recording more objective measurements of player sentiment is always desired. People sometimes have a hard time explaining how they felt about various things, and memories of feelings and events can become conflated.<\/p>\n \u201cConversely, if you have a more objective measurement of arousal or engagement, you can get a clearer picture for how people are emotionally consuming your game.\u201d<\/p>\n Or plotting to kill you. Obviously.<\/p>\n