作者：Christina Farr

波兰年轻创业者Lukasz Twardowski最近有惊人发现。通过分析电子游戏相关数据，他认为自己能够预测，玩家是否是色盲，是否有阿兹海默症（又称老年痴呆症），或是存在各种学习和发展问题。

他可以通过此数据判断玩家是否赌徒、是否是骗子或是未成年人，Twardowski表示，因此有关用户身体情况的分析就不再遥远。

Twardowski在采访中表示，“游戏是最丰富、最有意义的人机交互（游戏邦注：即HCI）形式。我们可以凭此进行完整的用户行为分析。”

HCI from venturebeat.com

自2009年成立以来，Twardowski的公司Use It Better就着眼于通过分析数据和分析功能帮助开发者发现欺骗者，主要通过分析这些玩家如何同游戏进行互动。欺诈检测已成为初创公司价值主张的重要元素。就如公司网址所述：“这无法阻止用户行窃，但能够告诉你谁是偷窃者。”

Twardowski表示，“通过追踪用户体验方式，我们可以学到很多。这未来将成为我们的重大职责。”

乍看之下，Use It Better似乎不是即将带来重大突破的公司。这个11人团队主要由20来岁的开发人员组成，公司驻扎于波兰，两位创始人将自己的时间分配于波兰和美国之间。网站依然有体现出其商业目标，但没有Twardowski所谓的“大目标”。

创始人的当前目标是说服中等规模的游戏公司相信，分析玩家如何在游戏关卡中前进的平台能够提高用户体验质量及获取几率。公司将自己形容成“玩家的闭路电视”，同闭路电视能够持续监视公众场所呼应——宣称其解决方案是统计数据同用户界面&用户体验设计“缺失的联系”。

这一技术能够判断用户做决策需要耗费多长时间，或者它能够捕获鼠标移动和点击情况，将其整齐编辑进报告和“热度图”中。例如，分析数据能够显示，一群玩家在随机地点进行点击操作，因纯粹说明性的图像而分心。这些玩家也许会心生沮丧，放弃进一步体验。简单设计修复能够让这些用户沉浸于体验中。

Use it Better目前和Kabam之类的大中型公司展开合作， Kabam每月支付他们1万美元，从中获取用户体验方式的分析报告。Use It Better下个月将向公众推出自己的分析平台。公司已在游戏行业获得认可，最近获得一项Global iGaming Summit and Expo (GiGse)大奖。Twardowski对于当前平台的初步成绩表现淡定，但他有更宏伟的计划，这计划主要围绕分析数据、人机互动及游戏间的交叉点。

学术人员开始更严肃看待游戏，将其看作是人类精神的窗口。游戏富有沉浸性和成瘾性，旨在控制我们的时间和注意力。还有什么是比这更合适的心理和身体情况测试平台？优质游戏会挑战我们的极限，促使我们利用大脑的分析和直觉元素。

斯坦福大学教授Byron Reeves（游戏邦注：被视为“游戏化”领域的重要专家）表示，“这是个全新领域，但我觉得其前景非常广阔。”Reeves表示，这一领域（即基于体验特点分析用户）将引起大型游戏工作室及美国军方的兴趣。

最近的HCI研究表明，电脑游戏对于具有学习障碍和特殊需求的学生来说非常有价值。例如，斯坦福大学的一群博士生发现，多人电脑游戏能够给患有自闭症的青少年带来安慰和激励效果。

Twardowski引用相关调查：研究人员可以在几秒钟里判断玩家是男性，还是女性。Use It Better挖掘出众多玩家相关信息。如何处理这些数据不是他的职责所在。但这对某些人来说非常有价值。

他表示，“我们可以判断出你是男孩，还是女孩，聪明，还是呆板，年长，还是年轻。我们可以判定你是否是赌徒，是否是孩子，是否是色盲，是否有红绿色盲症状。所有这些信息都是通过游戏发现。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Games could predict whether you’re color blind, a gambler, or have ADD

By Christina Farr

Lukasz Twardowski, a young Polish entrepreneur, recently made an unexpected discovery. By analyzing data from video games, he thinks he’ll be able to predict whether players are color blind, have Alzheimer’s disease, or suffer from various learning and development disorders.

He can already use this data to tell whether players are gamblers, cheaters, or minors, so the profiling of medical conditions is not that distant, Twardowski claims.

“Games are the richest and the most meaningful form of human computer interaction,” said Twardowski in an interview with VentureBeat. “We can use [them] to build a full user behavioral profile.”

Since its launch in 2009, Twardowski’s company, Use It Better, has focused its analytics and profiling capabilities to help developers catch cheaters, based on an analysis of how these players interact with the game. Fraud detection has become an important component of the startup’s value proposition. As the company’s website explains: “It can’t prevent people from shoplifting, but it can show you who’s the thief.”

“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.”

On first look, Use It Better does not seem like the kind of company on the brink of a major breakthrough. The 11-person team, primarily comprised of 20-somethings developers, is based in Poland, and the two founders divide their time between Poland and the U.S. The website still reflects the commercial goal and does not contain any mention of what Twardowski describes as “the big vision.”

The founders’ current focus is to convince mid-sized gaming companies that an analytics platform to track how players move through levels of a game can improve user experience and acquisition. The company describes itself as a “CCTV for gamers,” echoing the way closed-circuit TVs enable continuous monitoring of public spaces — and touts its solution as the missing link between statistics and user interface and user experience (UI/UX) design.

The technology can see how long a user takes to make any decisions, or it can take snapshots of mouse movements and clicks and compile them neatly in reports and “heat maps.” Analysis, for example, might reveal that a group of players is clicking in a random spot, distracted by a purely illustrative graphic. These gamers might be frustrated and deterred from playing further. A simple design fix could keep these users immersed in the experience.

Use it Better is currently working with mid- to large-sized studios like Kabam, who pay them about $10,000 a month to access analytics reports on how users are typically playing their games. Use It Better is launching its analytics platform to the public next month.

The company is already gaining recognition in the gaming industry, recently taking home an award from the Global iGaming Summit and Expo (GiGse). Twardowski is poised for early success for the current platform, but he has a grander vision, one that sits at the intersection between analytics, human computer interaction (HCI) and games.

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.

“This is a new field but I think the prospects here are pretty good,” said Byron Reeves, a professor at Stanford University, considered one of the foremost experts on a new field known as “gamification.” Reeves told me that this area — analyzing users based on the characteristics of the play — would be of interest to the large gaming studios and the U.S. military.

Recent HCI studies show that computer games are valuable to students with learning disorders and special needs. For instance, at Stanford University, a group of doctoral students found that a multiplayer computer game had a comforting and motivating effect on teens with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Twardowski also references a related study where researchers could determine if a game user is male or female within seconds. Animatedly, he described how Use It Better can figure out so much more about players. What to do with all this information is not necessarily his responsibility. But it’s going to be valuable to someone.

“We can tell if you are a girl or buy, smart, dumb, old and young…we can tell if you’re a gambler or not, if a kid is color blind and confusing red and green,” he said. “All this, just from a game.”（Source：venturebeat）