Eye Tracking Technology to Be Integrated with Future Games

Seeing the increasing video game enthusiasts, game developers are now focusing on integrating easier-to-use controls for their games, like those that allow gamers to play through eye movement.

A study conducted by Queen’s University confirms that video-gamers feel more immersed and enjoy more in virtual environments when they play with commercial eye tracking technology.

Study’s co-author David Smith, a PhD candidate with Queen’s School of Computing said, “Eye tracking technology allows us to build interfaces that respond to users’ intentions rather than just their actions. This makes computers feel more natural than ever before.”

This technology was first developed in the late 1960s and is already used by people with limited mobility, pilots, and market researchers.

This study, also authored by the School of Computing’s Associate Professor Nicholas Graham, showed that gamers enjoyed the role-playing game Neverwinter Nights; however, for games likes Quake 2 (first-person shooter) and Lunar Command (action/arcade) gamers preferred mouse over eye-tracker for controlling the games.

For the study, researchers had integrated a Tobii 1750 desktop eye tracker with these commercial video games. One participant said, “I could explore with sight freely and only clicked the mouse when needed”.

Smith and Graham pointed the preference of mouse over eye tracker to the “Midas Touch” problem that is still associated with eye tracking technology, in which the eye tends to “choose” items or directions inadvertently.

Source: Queen’s University Canada