If Microsoft's announcements at E3 are anything to go by then they obviously see Kinect, their hands-free motion-sensing input, as a centrepiece in the Xbox ecosystem. Kinect is also being used increasingly more outside of gaming. There's plenty of interesting examples of novel interaction design centred around Kinect and it's becoming almost ubiquitous in hands-free interaction research. Still, there's one thing that Kinect lacks: tactile response. I feel that this has more of an impact in games than other uses, so that's what I'll discuss here.
Lack of tactile feedback is obvious; if I'm providing input to a game by waving my hands about, I'm not going to feel anything in response to my actions. Actually, that's not technically true. There's some really cool research happening at the University of Tokyo combining Kinect and ultrasound so that you feel like you're manipulating a mid-air object with your hands but this technology (so far) isn't really suited to games. Limitations with their current technology means that it wouldn't scale to the typical Kinect gaming scenario: a user on the opposite side of the living room from the television, moving around a large space.
To recap: Kinect is pretty cool, but it lacks tactile response. Why does this matter in gaming? Interaction in gaming benefits from a closed feedback loop between player and game. As the player provides some input (e.g. mouse click, button press, gesture), they receive some response from the game. This is a continuous loop where the feedback provided (visual, audible, tactile) communicates what effect that action had and allows the player to adjust their actions if appropriate.
I feel that tactile feedback is an important part of this feedback loop: in action games it can confirm success of an action (e.g. you "feel" a punch connect) or inform you some event (e.g. you "feel" your character take a hit). Tactile feedback can also be rewarding. A well designed game combines the aesthetics of the game, good sound design and the feedback from the controller to make a satisfying experience.
With devices such as Kinect you lose this tactile feedback. Touchscreen devices can also suffer from this problem; tablets often lack the rotational motors that mobile phones have to provide low fidelity feedback. Not only does this remove a way of communicating in-game state, but also removes some all-important precision of control. In some games precision is key. Actually being able to hold and feel an input device allows a similar tactile feedback as discussed previously, except this time it's the physical characteristics of the controller which the player feels. Being able to feel the controller and how it responds permits a greater amount of control and precision. A few months ago I wrote briefly about "feelable" touchscreens which could be one way to enrich the mobile gaming experience for touchscreens, but that's another discussion. Back to Kinect.
Kinect is an amazing piece of technology and it, and similar devices, have a great potential in interaction design. I can't help but feel that its use in gaming, however, suffers from the loss of a modality. It potentially detracts from two key aspects of games: communication of state and input precision. Where am I going with this? I'm not really sure. Should Kinect be written off for games? Absolutely not: it does have its uses in more casual games. But what is the future of Kinect in more "serious" games (a term I detest but can't think of an alternative)? Should we strive to develop haptic technologies which make Kinect viable for these games or just continue to treat it as a bit of a gimmick?
Lack of tactile feedback is obvious; if I'm providing input to a game by waving my hands about, I'm not going to feel anything in response to my actions. Actually, that's not technically true. There's some really cool research happening at the University of Tokyo combining Kinect and ultrasound so that you feel like you're manipulating a mid-air object with your hands but this technology (so far) isn't really suited to games. Limitations with their current technology means that it wouldn't scale to the typical Kinect gaming scenario: a user on the opposite side of the living room from the television, moving around a large space.
To recap: Kinect is pretty cool, but it lacks tactile response. Why does this matter in gaming? Interaction in gaming benefits from a closed feedback loop between player and game. As the player provides some input (e.g. mouse click, button press, gesture), they receive some response from the game. This is a continuous loop where the feedback provided (visual, audible, tactile) communicates what effect that action had and allows the player to adjust their actions if appropriate.
I feel that tactile feedback is an important part of this feedback loop: in action games it can confirm success of an action (e.g. you "feel" a punch connect) or inform you some event (e.g. you "feel" your character take a hit). Tactile feedback can also be rewarding. A well designed game combines the aesthetics of the game, good sound design and the feedback from the controller to make a satisfying experience.
With devices such as Kinect you lose this tactile feedback. Touchscreen devices can also suffer from this problem; tablets often lack the rotational motors that mobile phones have to provide low fidelity feedback. Not only does this remove a way of communicating in-game state, but also removes some all-important precision of control. In some games precision is key. Actually being able to hold and feel an input device allows a similar tactile feedback as discussed previously, except this time it's the physical characteristics of the controller which the player feels. Being able to feel the controller and how it responds permits a greater amount of control and precision. A few months ago I wrote briefly about "feelable" touchscreens which could be one way to enrich the mobile gaming experience for touchscreens, but that's another discussion. Back to Kinect.
Kinect is an amazing piece of technology and it, and similar devices, have a great potential in interaction design. I can't help but feel that its use in gaming, however, suffers from the loss of a modality. It potentially detracts from two key aspects of games: communication of state and input precision. Where am I going with this? I'm not really sure. Should Kinect be written off for games? Absolutely not: it does have its uses in more casual games. But what is the future of Kinect in more "serious" games (a term I detest but can't think of an alternative)? Should we strive to develop haptic technologies which make Kinect viable for these games or just continue to treat it as a bit of a gimmick?
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