Biofeedback Sensors in Game Telemetry Research Rodrigo T. Soares 1* Elton S. Siqueira 1 Marco A. Miura 2 Tiago P. B. e Silva 2 Carla D. Castanho 1 Universidade de Brasília, Departamento de Ciência da Computação, Brasil 1 Universidade de Brasília, Departamento de Design, Brasil 2 Figure 1: User data acquisition schema in Game Analytics. ABSTRACT Game Analytics is one of the new research trends in digital games’ industry. It consists of analyzing the variables collected during a game session in order to improve game designing and collaborate with gamer behavior research as well. These data may be acquired from the game itself, such as level progression, session duration and the user’s overall performance; or from the users, like heartbeat, brain activity, gaze movement or any indication of attention, fun or boredom. The automatic process used to capture such data is called game telemetry. Several studies have been proposing different ways to apply measurement techniques and to employ specific sensors to collect user data. This study aims to survey the uses of biofeedback sensors in recent research, in the context of game data telemetry. The devices will be described and their reliability aspects will be outlined to better summarize the survey. The results shown here intend to assist researchers interested in obtaining information on sensors and methods applied in game telemetry. Keywords: Game analytics, user data telemetry, biofeedback sen- sors. 1 I NTRODUCTION Game development was, during the early years of game history, a process of experimenting and trying out new game concepts [4]. Since then, many design theories have been created and studied in this area, based on new games and genres that rose in the following decades. When new games have become a success, they made the * e-mail: rodrigo.teixeira0@gmail.com industry grow from that new concept or genre recently introduced. These cases, however, did not always give useful information nei- ther a recipe on how to systematically develop a remarkable game, as user behavior and acceptance of the game were not predictable in a simple way. In order to improve the development process and to analyze player behavior, game design has been moving towards a new ap- proach in recent years. For modern designers, it has become clear that more information on the user experience was needed, to iden- tify and analyze the aspects that produce a notable game. Several studies point that a data-driven game design is not only beneficial to the industry but also necessary, given the game market diversifi- cation, in both companies and consumer spheres [15]. Game Analytics, then, emerged as a new way to proceed when designing a game. The application of analytics in game data serves as a powerful tool when thinking about user preferences and ex- pected reaction to the game [15]. Recently, games are being de- veloped with not only the designer’s experience, but also based on actual data derived directly from the game and its users. Level pro- ceed rate, average play session time and other game-related vari- ables are being collected and stored in order to evaluate game pro- gression and replayability. In addition, users are also supplying useful data, as their excitement level is being analyzed to determine which moments in the game are thrilling or boring, for example. Game Telemetry, as it is called the process of measuring game data from a distant source [15], is a key step in game analytics to gather user and game information. While game data is obtained di- rectly from inner computational methods and sent via network, for instance, user data is acquired from sensors and supervisor systems physically linked to them, and also from questionnaires given after a game session. The devices employed usually sense biofeedback data, i.e. data derived from the physiological and motor systems of the human body [17], so gamer behavior can be studied directly SBC – Proceedings of SBGames 2016 | ISSN: 2179-2259 Computing Track – Full Papers XV SBGames – São Paulo – SP – Brazil, Setember 8th - 10th, 2016 81