For Unity, an SDK has been released that allows you to read the facial expressions of players

Affectiva’s service, which allows you to read the emotions of players in real time, has received integration with Unity. Companies with an income of less than $1 million per year can use it for free.

The authors of the service, named Emotion AI, claim that their solution can be used by gaming companies to:

• dynamic changes in the game conditions (the webcam or the front camera of the mobile device reads the emotional states of the player, these states can become triggers for activating certain events, for example: the player got bored, the game immediately loaded more monsters to the level);
• collecting analytical data (the game records at what points players, for example, get upset or get bored, and sends information about this to developers, who then improve the weaknesses of the game to increase retention);
• A/B testing;
• tracking the reaction to the matches of the esports audience.

Affectiva is not a newcomer to the market. The company was founded in 2009. Initially, non-gaming companies like Coca-Cola used its solutions to assess the attitude of customers to brands.

At the moment, only one game that has integrated the solution is officially presented on the market — Nevermind (in it, if the player is emotionally tired, the levels become more surreal and complex). The developers of the service claim that BANDAI NAMCO is working on another game project with Emotion AI.

Collecting additional data on the emotional state of players can help in working on games, although it seems to us that the already available amount of data collected (using traditional development tools) is very large and more unambiguous in the interpretation of user reactions (developers already now often understand where most players came out, reading smiles or tears is more difficult for analysis and further conclusions).

As for the dynamic change of game conditions depending on the user’s reaction, it seems to us that this raises too many questions concerning balance, tasks of a specific level and freedom of choice. However, we can’t help but note that it sounds interesting.

Sources: Affectiva, App Developer Magazine