Alternative medicine offers new options for gaming.

Some of you may have heard of Biofeedback. I for one, never associated it with gaming, until a colleague mentioned how a number of companies are now forming interactive experiences around the concept. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on it, well at least it sounds credible enough to me. It sums up Biofeedback as:

"…a form of alternative medicine that involves measuring a subject's quantifiable bodily functions such as blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, sweat gland activity, and muscle tension, conveying the information to the patient in real-time. This raises the patient's awareness and conscious control of their unconscious physiological activities."

While it's primary use it to teach us to better relax, imagine if it was used to effect character and environment status in a game? All the health nuts could claim one more beneficial use for gaming and gamers would gain further interactivity. There are some primitive interactive experiences right now, but what if the atmospheric marvel that is BioShock used Biofeedback as part of the engine? Your character could respond based on your body's response. The angrier you get, the worse you aim. Your heart rate increases, so you fatigue more quickly. The more calm you are, the better you perform. Would it even be possible to build in this kind of logic to a typical controller? My gym has treadmills with basic heart-rate monitors that respond to touch… Could they be developed further to do even a primitive amount of interaction and would anyone besides me even want to see it happen?

And what about everyone's favorite survival horror series? Resident Evil would be insane if it could incorporate this functionality. As we move towards perfecting open gaming and more interactive experiences, this is one area that could really be developed. Right now, there are PC-based experiences that incorporate Biofeedback, but I would love to see it in console games, especially the good ones with atmosphere so thick you can taste it.

So what are your thoughts? Too far off in the horizon to even care? It may not work for all genres, but FPS and survival horror are ripe test pilots for it.

This blog article should be recognized as the sole opinion of the editor and does not necessarily reflect GotNext's official position on the subject.