Eye Controlled Video Games? Better Late Than Never
A recent article published in New Scientist may be a little late to the Eye Tracking party as far as we’re concerned, but it’s certainly good to see more eye tracking news in mainstream media, even if it is focusing on something that’s no novelty to most within the industry.
The “innovation” article focuses on gamers in search of a more interactive, immersive, and thrilling gaming experience. And thanks to innovations in gaze tracking, gamers have yet another tool at their disposal for the online worlds in which they often dwell. With eye and gaze tracking interfaces, new games allow players to use what is probably the body’s “fastest and most fatigue-resistant muscles,” the muscles responsible for controlling the eyes.
Of course, we know gaze tracking is used in web research, medical, and communications industries, but as gaming technology grows evermore sophisticated, it’s proving capable of providing quick, efficient interaction, far faster than conventional game controllers, mice, or touchscreens.
The article starts in about how one leading manufacturer expects eye tracking systems to play an integral part in the computer gaming future. But we know this to be the case already, as we’ve covered expanding efforts using eye tracking in gaming environments. Still, it’s important to note the excitement many have for this new technology.
In the article, John Paulin Hansen of the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark demonstrates gaze tracking within a timed experiment in which he gave a number of people a mouse, a touchscreen, a joystick, or an eye tracking interface to use with a game. Participants raced against one another to find and select a small target onscreen, each having to click or touch the target once they found it. But the eye tracking participant simply had to frown to select the target, as a headband monitored muscle activity in the face.
According to the study, eye tracking during target selection took on average 350 milliseconds: 50 milliseconds faster than the mouse, which was the second fastest. Considering the high speed was achieved by participants frowning when reaching the target, you can probably assume that an eye blink to trigger the target would be even faster.
The article also highlights a couple of other studies – one at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, and another at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Both utilized gaze control to play online role-playing games, such as World of Warcraft, and another first person shooter game developed at MacGill. Each study showed that experienced gamers adapt very quickly to an eyes-only control scheme, allowing games to respond to a player more intelligently or, as written in the story, more “deviously.”
In fact, this raises a good point. We’ve written about some difficulties in gaming technology where a player has trouble seeing outside their peripheral view or at least their focus of attention. Sure, in communication or web usability research, this could be considered a negative, but as for gaming, say, in a first person shooter, this “error” might add more accurate attributes – you can’t see everything happening all the time. Walk down that virtual alley with your gun drawn and suddenly your lack of periphery becomes more of a liability, making role-playing games more realistic.
In any case, it’s a good introductory article to eye tracking in general and worth a read to get acquainted with the technology if you’re new to our site.