Nothing to worry about, it’s just Gabe Newell going in unexpected directions…

Valve has several job listings, including one for an economist, another for a statistician, and another for a psychologist, who has to know more about „human behaviour and about the motivations and influences underlying how and why people do what they do. We believe that all game designers are, in a sense, experimental psychologists. That is why we’re looking for an experimental psychologist with superior research skills to apply knowledge and methodologies from psychology to game design and all aspects of Valve’s operations. We want to leverage your experience with experimental design, research methods, statistics, and human behaviour to help craft even more compelling gameplay experiences for future Valve titles. We’d also expect you to research and weigh in on all topics that are relevant to improving the experiences of our customers, partners, and employees,” the listing says. The applicants have to have a graduate degree in psychology and at least four years of experience in experimental design and research methods to provide „relevant insight into human behaviour to shape gameplay and customer experience.” The listing also mentions researching new hardware technology.

„[W]hile current interaction patterns are restricted to interpretations of mouse, keyboard, gamepad, and gestural controls, future generations of interfaces may include the ability to interpret neurological signals in ways that promise quicker and more sensitive actions, much wider arrays of possible inputs, real-time adaptation of game state to a player’s internal state, and qualitatively different kinds of gameplay experiences,” Valve’s principal experimental psychologist, Mike Ambinder, spoke about brain-computer interfaces at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) last year.

The statistician would have to dig into data to create statistical models to „explain past behaviour and to predict future behaviour across all Valve products.” The economist has to develop „economic models to identify what leads to fun and rewards experiences in games and on Steam.” The fourteen job listings also include a software engineer with eSports experience and two writers.

So it seems like Valve and Gabe Newell has a significantly futuristic approach to their return to making games. It also explains why Half-Life: Alyx is a VR title…

Source: VG247

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