Fighting Gamer Rage With an Arduino Based Biometrics Headset 59
An anonymous reader writes "Gamer rage is a common phenomenon among people who play online, a product of the intense frustration created by stressful in-game situations and an inability to cope. It can have significant impact on the gamer's ability to play well, and to get along with others. To combat this rage and train gamers to deal with the stress, visual designer Samuel Matson of Seattle has created the Immersion project, integrating a pulse sensor tied to a Tiny Arduino with Bluetooth into a headset to monitor the gamer's heart rate. The heart rate data is sent in real time to the gaming PC, where it is displayed in the game. Matson even created a simple FPS using the Unity game engine that varies the AI and gaming difficulty based on the user's heart rate. Using this system, the gamer is able to train themselves to recognize the stress and learn to control it, in order to make them a much more agreeable and competitive player."
Why you play? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I lose this game what do I lose in life? Nothing. If I win this game what do I win in life? Nothing. Smile when you win, laugh when you lose. It's a game, for entertainment purposes only.
Re:Why you play? (Score:5, Funny)
Then how do you explain multiplayer tetris-rage?
That's not 'entertainment purposes only'. Those little blocks are life or death.
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It has nothing to do with the game. Dealing with people is the stressful part, take them out of the equation and it's either a game I enjoy or a game I don't. I've never met an MP experience I liked except when it's couch coop.
Re:Why you play? (Score:5, Insightful)
Try EVE Online, when you lose in game you lose months of grind or thousands of dollars. Every important battle induces physiological fight or flight reaction.
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I ragequit Eve after losing two tier 3 battleships to being ganked. They cost about $15 each, roughly what a single Plex (1-month subscription) sold for on the auction house.
I'M FUCKING DONE, DONE DO YOU HEAR? FUKUUUUUUUUUUUUU!
Where's that anti-rage headset? It should be named anti-gamer-and-posting-rage headset.
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I ragequit Eve after losing two tier 3 battleships to being ganked. They cost about $15 each
Thats like dropping out of elementary school because a big mean bully too your lunch money :)
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If I lose this game what do I lose in life? Nothing. If I win this game what do I win in life? Nothing. Smile when you win, laugh when you lose. It's a game, for entertainment purposes only.
Skateboarding used to be just for fun too. Then Tony Hawk showed up.
He's now worth $120 million, and represents just one of dozens of professional skateboarders who are millionaires.
A lot of things used to be done just for fun, until greed came along.
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I doubt you'd play at all with so little emotional investment.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A person's response to the gaming experience is not determined on a rational basis.
If a game is stimulating enough, a person will experience physiological responses that some describe as reactions to stressors - this includes a central and peripheral nervous response mediated by catecholamines (dopamine, adrenaline/norepinephrine, noradrenaline/norepinephrine) (sympathetic nervous system-adrenal-medullary arousal), and possibly pituitary-adrenal-cortical arousal, which results in a release of ACTH, and thus
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If I lose this game what do I lose in life? Time.
FTFY.
Sometimes you also lose money.
Anyway, the issue at hand here is a wee bit more complex than just "it's a game". You get mad because your mouse is shit, or Windows updates decides to bug you about a restart when that boss you've been grinding on for half an hour is at 5% HP, or internet connection goes poof, or game crashes. In MMOs, you rage at horrible RNG or evidence of class imbalance, or in some cases it's simply lack of fairness from game mechanics.
It's not really about losing a game; it's about l
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Some people are more retarded than others. would you please be their leader?
If you work on a novel which fails, you wasted time. If it's successful, you gain money and fame.
The loss currency must be the same as win currency in your tiny head alone.
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But if they must be told, better that the message come from a cheap single board computer than another person.
Gamer rage? (Score:3)
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I'm was about to start raging right there.
That's good to know that you am was about to.
maybe they should visit the real world (Score:2)
Maybe these poor souls should step away from the game for a while and enjoy interacting with living people.
Re:maybe they should visit the real world (Score:4, Insightful)
You'd be surprised how many have "gamer rage" in sports. It isn't just for video games. It is simply them not managing their emotions (or deciding to let them run free).
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Exactly, why rage in a game when you could instead go out to a bar and start an actual fight, with real damage to living people.
Now let other players see it (Score:2)
Just what those in gamer rage need... (Score:3)
...another small electronic device to hurl across the room and smash into little bits!
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Control it by stop playing (Score:2)
Using this system, the gamer is able to train themselves to recognize the stress and learn to control it, in order to make them a much more agreeable and competitive player.
If it gets to the point where you need to build a device to tell you when you're getting gamerage - and if the primary reason for wanting to control your gamerage is because you want to stop it making you suck at the game - you should probably try just gaming less.
I used to get gamerage from Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, the only FPS I ever really got into. If it started angrying me up, I just turned it off for the day.
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Deal with stress? (Score:2)
Go outside. Get some exercise.
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There is no real difference except for a difference of interpretation. Rage is excitement.
Raging is mostly in multiplayer (Score:2)
I've never raged playing a single player game. On the other hand raging in multiplayer FPS is very common.
My worst raging experience was in a multiplayer air combat game called Air Warrior. My joystick was mounted on the desk with screws initially, but I I ripped it out in a fit of rage when I kept getting shot down by laggy headon noobs. Next I epoxied the joystick onto the desk, but that too got ripped out while raging.
Finally I drilled holes in the desk and mounted the joystick using steel wire threaded
GRRRR! (Score:1)
Lag makes me ragequit (Score:2)