(Ars Tech.)Valve dreams of analyzing your brainwaves to tailor in-game rewards - Sensationalist Headlines

Couple of days old, but saw no thread Valve Software dreams of analyzing your brainwaves to tailor in Valve Software's famously "flat" structure means most of its game-making staffers have vague titles. One of the few exceptions is its Principal Experimental Psychologist, who presented a futuristic gaming vision at this year's Game Developers Conference—in particular, he made a few peculiar admissions about how Valve might one day study your brain activity in the middle of a game and what the company might do with it. Before speaking, Valve Software's Mike Ambinder laid out a very loud disclaimer about GDC's "vision" track of panels: "This is supposed to be speculative," he said. "This is one possible direction things could go." Even with that caveat in mind, Ambinder's choice of details is interesting to sink our teeth into, especially coming from a company that seems to offer more speculation about the future of gaming than it does actual applications of it (i.e. new games).

So they want people to unbox and right before they stop spending money give them a sparkly hat to keep them unboxing?

I'm not comfortable with ANYONE knowing what makes me tick, thanks

We need a "terrifying" rating

The past few years have shown me that anything that creates more personalized ads can be easily weaponized by governments to push fake news and propaganda to indoctrinate its — or another country's — citizens.

gabe's fun crew died for this

The company that exists because of a highly acclaimed dystopian fps series is now interested in dystopian tech

This is all the fault of the combines.

They call this new technology the 'Man Hack'

"Failure to acquire a government issued implant will result in permanent off-world relocation."

I'm getting rather tired of games being designed to manipulate consumers into playing longer and spending money on it. Reading people's minds is even worse.

Do these people think this is what their consumer-base wants?

With this and Epic I think it's time for Garry to launch the Facepunch launcher and store.

In the future TF2 idling will be done by injecting yourself with sedatives to trick the game into thinking you're getting bored

The ultimate irony in doing all of this shit is that a well made videogame would have made them a crapton of money anyway, they are being evil for zero reason. Maximizing profits by creating new ways of fucking people over has no meaning if they are already drowning in cash.

this sounds like approaching some really dangerous territory

This sounds like such a fucking waste of time and resources, they could be actually making decent games but instead they're doing this? Why do Valve even exist anymore? They're only a name now that's attached to Steam.

The dystopian setting was only adopted by the 2nd installment (or 5th if you count Gearbox's games), though.

Victory has defeated them. They now have all of the money and power in the world but zero humanity, a fate just as bad if not worse than having all the humanity while being penniless.

I think its pretty cool...

Typical Valve, only thinking about their wallets.

If 1998-2007 Valve saw what they would turn into in the future they would probably set the entire building on fire as soon as they finished the Orange Box.

No valve, I wont unbox the millionth winter crate you've sent me just because you have stuck brain implants in my brain

Are you telling me valve dreams of making games? Christ, you stop that, I'm gonna shiver.

What if it's already happened, and the 2007 Valve chose to follow the same route in our current timeline, becoming what Vale is now

Oh boy this is gonna turn into some massive grandfather paradox bullshit isn't it? I guess in this situation you would need to bring the good valve version from a different parallel reality in order to combat the evil valve, and you would have this epic 30 minute duel of good gabe fighting evil gabe with a crowbar with evil gabe using a combine rifle.

"What profits it a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?"

They've been trying to experiment with this kind of feedback for a long time. Years ago, they talked about how they could use it to guide the L4D director to make the game as tense and emotionally engaging as possible. But it's been almost a decade and all we have to show for it is a bit feature in the Steam controller, I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, I remember the Gabe interview from 2013. Been a while, hah. But what's the bit feature in the SC?

im ok with this aslong as creepy Gabe Newell is the first one to show his toughs.