Predicting Color Blindness, ADD, or Learning Disorders From Game Data [Slashdot]

[DP ServBot]

An anonymous reader tips a story at VentureBeat about a company that helps game developers analyze data gathered from their games to detect cheaters. But now, the company says this data can also be used to determine other traits of the players, like whether they're minors, or whether they like to gamble. Their CEO, Lukasz Twardowski, expects such analysis will soon be able to reveal even more traits, like whether a player is color blind, has a developmental disorder, or has Alzheimer's disease."'Games are the richest and the most meaningful form of human-computer interaction. ...By tracking how they play games, we can learn a lot about people,' Twardowski explained. Hesitatingly, he added: 'That will be a huge responsibility for us later on.' ... Academics have begun to take games more seriously, as a window into the human psyche. Games are addictive and immersive and are built to command hours of our time and attention. What better testbed for myriad psychological and medical conditions? A good game pushes us to our limits, challenging us to use both the analytical and intuitive sides of our brain.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[Gameguy]

Now all they have to do is figure out how to sell that information to marketers so they can use that to somehow exploit game players and profit on it.

[buzz_n64]

This is way too intrusive. I hope they don't implement these studies into regular games, at least without the option to not do it, and be up front about the data collection.

[Bazoo]

Hmm, I think this could be exceptionally useful technology for actual educators and psychiatrists diagnosing them. Regardless of the strength of the technology, though, I am guessing the diagnosis should not always be taken completely seriously. For instance, it might diagnose too many kids with ADD when the game itself encourages you to be trigger happy, or similar. That is, they need to make sure there isn't hidden reinforcement in the game that can lead the individual toward a specific behavior.

either way, I think you two above are right: this would be intrusive if that info somehow was stored in a server somewhere and I saw pop-ups that targeted my personality "traits." I hope that won't happen; gauging interests off Amazon is one thing, this is another. That being said, I'm not particularly opposed to the technology existing in itself, but I think if it takes off it should ONLY be used in the hands of professionals who can actually diagnose based on other factors. I've always thought video games could be used for something greater than entertainment, but I don't want that "greater" to be "we can sell you products better."