Valve Software dreams of analyzing your brainwaves to tailor in-game rewards

Enlarge / Valve Software's Mike Ambinder offers a joking photo of what people think his job as Principal Experimental Psychologist looks like. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell was not on hand to confirm or deny Valve's use of power tools on his head. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

SAN FRANCISCO-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).

The slot machine of your mind?

The above and below images of Ambinder goofing off with Valve co-founder Gabe Newell weren't just for yuks: "Every talk I've given, this reliably gets a laugh. Think about that. What if we could elicit reliable reactions [from video games] and determine we were doing so?"

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