At this year’s GDC, Gabe Newell was honored for being a pioneer in the field of gaming. That’s an indisputable title for a guy at the helm of one of the most successful development houses of all time. Valve is responsible for classics like Half-Life and modern marvels Portal and Team Fortress 2. Kotaku caught up with Gabe after his presentation to find out what he thought about Pokémon, what it means to be a pioneer, and how he sees the future of gaming.

“One of the things we’ve found is we’ve been doing some research into biometrics. We have a criminal psychologist on staff now. We’re finding that the impact of what we do – the emotional component of it – can be improved pretty dramatically by measuring people’s arousal states. By looking at how their pupils are dilated, by tracking where their gaze is, you know, doing skin galvanic response. Rather than having an experience that’s supposed to work for everybody, you can design, you can react to how the player is feeling, which is what’s driving those biometric measures.”

While it’s a little weird to think of a criminal psychologist as the appropriate individual to study us gamers, it’s also kinda cool to think of these tailored experiences coming soon. He goes on to talk about the changes to CPU architecture and how that will affect games, but the really interesting stuff was in the biometrics. I am curious, though, if Newell means we’ll see tools for measuring biometrics at the player level, giving developers the chance to custom tailor each individual experience, not just tailored to the gaming demographic. Maybe there is a point to the Wii Vitality Sensor after all.

Source: Kotaku