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Measure the Pleasure of Playing Games

Regan Mandryk, a 30-year-old computer scientist, has measured in her research heart rate and facial muscle movements in order to count the emotional condition of gamers while they play. The scientist believes that soon she will be able to measure the amount of fun and excitement each video game creates. The research was based on three groups of men of various ages who played NHL 2003 while they were attached to special physical sensors.

Until then, game developers rely on the intuition of programmers and production managers and occasional product evaluation by means of interviews and focus groups, which takes a great effort and costs money. Only one of the games that are developed reaches the market, and even there, not all of these games are liked by the public.

According to the scientist, games manufacturers will save a lot of money when they will have the option of spotting those games that will be accepted by the potential buyers and those that will not. In her research she found out that players rather like to compete with a real person than with a computer. The scientist has a lot of plans for developing her ideas in the near future.