The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Biometrics
The Video Game industry continues to rise every year and as it continues to evolve, it faces many challenges in Hardware, expenses, users’ biometric data, and most importantly security. One method we can us is HCI (Human Computer Interaction) that allow us to measure how players feel and behave to certain games. The title of this paper is referenced one of Clint Eastwood’s classic movies, as I think it best describe the purpose of this paper.
There is a Good, a Bad, and an Ugly part to the evolution of biometrics in Video Games and this paper will help us identify the advantages, challenges, and solutions it faces, especially in the security issues it faces.
Introduction
In 2012, Forbes forecasted that the Video Game industry will reach $82 billion dollars globally (1). We can startup a game from almost any device, our Smartphone, Smart TVs, Gaming Consoles, HDMI Stick Steamers like a Roku or a Chromecast, and of course Computers. The purpose of the Industry recording our Biometric moves is to design games that can respond differently to every user, which will attract more players and create more revenue.
Biometrics is used to analyze the way a person behaves physically and emotionally. We are more familiar to see it be used in relation to security, such as, devices that are scanning our body parts and then checked by the device to verify if the person is allowed to view or access a certain information, for example iPhones with the fingerprint scanner. But, recent years is showing that video games are now using biometrics for their own purposes. The most common consoles are Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation.
The information that is being collected by these consoles are helping create better gamer experience. Some of the biometric patterns industries are recording: how a user holds a controller, how difficult a user finds a games by the way he/she reacts to a video game (verbally or physically), scanning a user’s body to help exercise at home (Yoga, Sumba), or even commanding characters to do any requested action.
These biometric patterns are not only used to allow gamers to have better control of video games, but it also allows video games to adjust depending on the gamers reactions and help with real life experiences. Nevermind is a horror game where players wear a heart monitor and faster the heart rate of the gamer, the more difficult the video game becomes. The intention of this game is to help people with real life situation and how to be functional during stressful situations. Players have to learn how to control and identify their physical reactions and according to Reynolds, “This helps players manage anxiety in the real world: Players start to connect what they’re seeing on the screen with those subtle internal reactions that I think so many of us learn to ignore in everyday life. ” Security is the biggest issue with the data being collected and how our living rooms are being monitored 24/7. Most of us accept the terms of agreements without reading them, because of course it's too long and can be written in a way we don't even understand. But, we allowing these consoles to send our biometric patterns back to these industry’s servers. These companies use this information to make video games that can attract us more to the consoles, which will result in better sales. Even if we allow these consoles to receive our information, how safe are their servers and how hard is it for hackers to get our information.
In April of 2011, Sony’s servers were hacked and more than 100 million accounts were compromised. User’s credit cards, address, gaming profile, all were breached by these hackers and it took a month of outage for Sony to recuperate from this attack. Later that same year, in October, 93,000 accounts were compromised again, where hackers were attempting to use PlayStation’s services through user’s accounts.
November 22, 2013, Microsoft introduced it's newest and most current console, the Xbox One. A more powerful machine and with better speed and graphics, gamers were all looking forward to getting their hands on this console. But its biggest concern was for gamers to be able to use the console, they would need to have the Kinect connected at all times. Kinect is a separate hardware for the console, a camera with integrated microphone. This allows the system to listen to users, even with the console is off. Microsoft stated that the company does not record or transmit any audio or video back to Microsoft without the user’s consent, but as I stated before, how many users do not know how to turn this feature off? Microsoft can be listening and viewing your room or living room 24/7 and even though Phil Harrison from Microsoft stated “We aren’t using the Kinect to snoop on anybody at all” History would be saying otherwise. It has been alleged that Microsoft gave government agencies access to private Skype videos and audio calls, even after Microsoft had assured that wiretaps were technically impossible. Christopher Soghoian, a senior policy analyst with American Civil Liberties Union pointed out: “It’s not clear that the Kinect camera serves as a critical function, but the NSA could quietly record what’s going in your living room without disrupting your ability to play video games.
