There's more to games than meets the eye . . . I'll second that eMotion!

Only a short walk from the city centre, Glasgow's Caledonian University, which supports much research with a business focus, is the home of the eMotion Laboratory, heralded as the first and only world class facility dedicated to research into people's emotional engagement with technology.

Monitoring emotions

This unique facility captures and analyses the subtle palettes of human emotion, the engagement of person and machine. Other laboratories apply body sensors to measure physiological changes that, in the hands of an expert, can be translated into the subject's emotional response; enjoyment of a video game or frustration when a computer programme goes wrong. Researchers from the eMotion Laboratory believe that this way of monitoring has, in itself, a significant impact on the user's experience and so they have developed a number of tailor made, in-house products that gives them the ability to monitor and identify emotions without intruding upon the user experience.

The observation lounge, looks like an ordinary, western-style living room it has all the usual furnishings but with some added extras, namely, a state-of-the-art plasma screen television and a top-of-the-range games console.

This is no normal living room, however.

Remote control cameras

Remote control cameras have been fitted to capture all aspects of user behaviour right down to detailed facial expressions sounds like the television programme 'Big Brother' with cameras watching every move but the technology doesn't end with the cameras. Once the video data has been collected, it is digitized in real-time and analysed using The Observer Video-Pro, a software package that evaluates and presents observational data revealing how emotions change. If reactions to a video game are being assessed it will show which parts of the game the player enjoyed and where the player began to lose interest.

In other words it can tell a games manufacturer which parts of the game really excite and engage people and so increase the likelihood that the game will be a success; a 'must have' item on every gift list.

Predicting success

As Jon Sykes, Lecturer and Director of the eMotion Laboratory explains, these techniques are not restricted to the Big Brother style living room, nor to just computer games. They can be used outside the lab and have applications that go far beyond assessing the likely success of computer games.

"Think aircraft. Aeroplanes are more or less controlled by computers and pilots are there to take over if something unexpected happens. However, there is no such level of automatic control in helicopters, which means more responsibility on the pilot. As a result, the pilot operating the helicopter will undergo various degrees of stress how do we measure his or her stress levels? You can use eMotion to measure stress levels during various stages of the flight. We measure how stress is affecting them and their performance. How much information can they take in before stress starts to take control? Such information allows us to take remedial action when necessary."

An additional tool

When used as a marketing tool as in the case of games, Sykes stresses eMotion will not replace existing forms of market research such as questioning people, but should be seen as an additional tool.

The games laboratory is regularly used by students at the University to study the philosophy and theory of play and how computer games work. As part of their final year project, students work together in teams to produce a game from start to finish. The Lab helps them to understand what will make a good game and how to get maximum engagement from players. Sykes hopes the work of the eMotion Laboratory will be rolled out across the university. His pupils have bonded well and achieved great results in their undergraduate coursework and others could benefit.

The University's Division of Computing, through support from Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, offers a range of games and mobile-related short courses. These courses provide opportunities to understand theoretical and practical techniques required to develop profitable games.