Valve: Gaming’s future is in bio-sensory data

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell believes that the future of the game development will be based on a biometric analysis of players.

In an acceptance speech at the Game Developers Choice Awards, Newell said he envisioned developers getting more personal, intimate information from the player – with that data being used to refine the experience.

“In terms of looking ahead, what’s important in the future?” he asked.

“We think Biometrics will be really important, we’ve seen a lot of work since the Wii shipped to explore how motion – and with this next generation of controllers – how vision systems are going to affect our games.

“Given that we have all these proxies inside of our games, that measure player state, we think that actually being able to measure small things like pupil dilation, heart rate – those are the techniques that are going to give our games enormous impact in the future.”

Newell picked up the Pioneer Award at the ceremony, but was keen to emphasise the award belongs to the whole Valve team.