Which of the five senses would you prefer games put more research and development efforts toward?
Poll started by Metafiz with 2,544 votes and 80 comments. Browse the poll archive.
(625 votes)Sight
(647 votes)Hearing
(140 votes)Taste
(205 votes)Smell
(927 votes)Touch
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Touch!
All my other sense suck. Except maybe hearing, but I'm perfectly find with all the sounds that come out of my games.
(buried)
Taste no, turning your computer into a scratch and sniff is gay, I don't feel comfortable with touch being a factor, and even if touch would be pretty weird to implant.
function fucktheuser()
hurt( head, "a lot" )
Msg( "touch sucks!" )
end
hurr
Fail.
No, just your idea of Touch sucks.
Pretty weird poll this time around. Well, no one's going to make a game that smells and tastes good, so you might as well scrap those two choices right there. And game developers naturally already spend a lot of time making a game visually appealing. Not entirely sure what could be done to games have the player use their sense of touch more except for of course having a touch screen, in which case the Nintendo DS would be the only real example of that. I guess a PC game that utilized a touch screen might be kinda neat, but I personally have no problem using a mouse. Plus, I don't know how many people would wanna go out and buy a touch screen monitor.
There are however plenty of games that could use better music in my opinion. Sound effects too, particularly weapon sounds in FPS games, could use some work. I perfer that they sound as realistic as possible, which they usually don't.
honestly if games can produce smell/taste i think there would be a very large decline in zombie/horror games. It would be interesting to say the leased.
Taste the game! :)
Look beyond the simple confines of what the screen can do. Like older games such as Time Crisis, providing lightweight alternatives, or realistic weighted alternatives to actual objects for games can be considered adding touch. You could even explore having multiple tiers of touch based systems. For instance, if a person has a touch screen they can use that to open doors/push buttons or objects within the game like its an extension of their hands. The next tier can be the persons keyboard (its a form of touch) that can be used as a means to crack into computers within a game etc. Finally the last tier, giving the player a physical object to play with, like a gun etc. to truly make it an interactive experience.
I'm surprised that so many care about the senses not in gaming already (touch, taste, and smell) and leave Hearing with such a small share. Am I the only one that thinks sound, from voice-acting to gunfire, can make or break a mod?
The surround systems used in games are just ... you know what.
How comes that you hear stuff happening, when you're in an underground bunker?
Sounds stupid, but it's the issue with most games, except maybe Crysis, which has put some effort to address these issues, but the thing is still a bit buggy.
I've chosen smell. Wonder how City 17 smells like XD
Well, I would only play games which actually smell good.
FPS would be kinda smelly with all the blood and corpses and stuff XD
If you voted for audio, you should check out this hl2 mod Moddb.com It has no visuals at all.
Just the mod I was going to reference.
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Well, In my opinion, Thouchscreens is kind of lame, and boring, and they have kind of good sound already(well, atleast I'm not complaining).
And Sight... I mean, what kind of question is that? It's not like it'll ever be needed to improve right now...
But smell and taste though, that can be pretty awsome, taste would just be cool, since if you drink cola or somethig you can drink an infinite amount without getting filled, If you know what I mean...
But I think Smell makes better for gameplay, and realism, escpecially in games where you could have enhanced smell so you could track people, that would be kind of awesome
Hi all!
Twas I the original guy who suggested this poll (btw, I'm very grateful it got selected for front page!). I just wanted to explain a little more about what the choices mean.
Due to limitations on an overly long Poll title, I wanted to know which of the 5 human senses you would like to see further development put into over the next 5 years. The idea is that if game's companies were to concentrate their efforts and try to fully simulate one of the 5 senses - which would you be most intrigued to see developed. I too am interested to see what the overall outcome will be as I would like to use this in a future paper for my PhD into digital immersive technologies.
Try not to concentrate too much on what current games would be like with this extra facet of sense, but rather think what gaming could become with improved sensory feedback. I am very interested to read all the comments people make and their opinions of extra sensory gaming in the future.
Feel free to leave any comments on my user profile if you would like to discuss anything further :)
HAPPY VOTING!
Meh! and you say that now...
anyways, Then It'll probably be a tie between Touch, Smell & Taste for me.
Visual wouldn't really be needed so imporve much more, and sound is kind of good, as I said before.
But the other 3 would be kind of awesome, feeling how you touch things in the game, Tracking by smelling, and Tasting things...
if I play a vampire or zombie game, I want to taste blood dammit!
I put my vote down for hearing simply because this is neglected big time in games nowadays. If for example a model clips through a wall the game is considered bad programmed but walls not blocking sound or sound not adjusting to the environment ( muffling, reverb, dryness and more ) is still considered "common". Furthermore AI reacting to sound ( not "scripted" but included in the AI routines ) is often lacking a lot.
Things like smell, taste are a problem since a game is supposed to have a certain "distance" of the player. Not sure if somebody wants to play a game where he is physically hurt if shot or it stenches like hell.
Touch is another problem as mentioned above: get shot... what happens? I don't think people would play games where they can get "physically" hurt. Comments the next day in class "so many bruises... laggy connection? :D"
sometimes its the mappers fault
I could argue that 'rumble packs' are a very good example of 'touch'. But then I'm not about to fork out a heck of a pile of money for a rumble mouse that puts me at a disadvantage just yet.
I do agree though. Good audio is missing from games, which at the moment just push visuals. The only engine I can think of that actually has a super sound system, is Doom 3.
Unless you are on Linux ( shuttering sound which kills your ears ). But that's most probably more due to issues with OpenAL than their engine since it works fine on Windows. That said Quake games always had a good grasp on audio. After all I heard terms like "sound shaders" first from Carmacks direction after all. Definitely something to look into instead of what Creative is currently doing with their hardware ( please Creative, PLEASE... do something for sound shading or good sound on-the-fly processing instead of pushing features on your card like this stupid RAM extension which helps nothing in the endeavor to create good sounds ).
From what I gather, OpenAL has a lot of problems full stop at the moment. Unreal 3 will crash out completely if you enable OpenAL audio on a lot of different machines too, dependent on your drivers.
I couldn't agree more.
Smell. I'm imagining playing BF2 ans smelling the smoke, burning rubber, and spent clips. I think smell is the most logical added sense to a game, seeing as audio and visuals already are good enough and will only get better with time, In my opinion. I think smell could be used practically in the most games, since it's always there just like visuals and sound. I don't think that you would be tasting or touching as much when fighting. Besides, games that would focus on taste or smell seem so...like something Nintendo would think of.
I voted smell, silly as it sounds I think it would be really interesting and I agree with what bobwashere said up there. It would be really immersing to be playing a game and smell the smoke or air around you...hmmm perhaps they could have a little squirty thingy attached to your monitor and you plug different attachments on it for different games, haha and it squirts out different smells....lolzzz how fun! They should make one that squirts blood on you haha! gaming would be so funny if everyone stopped and had red paint all over their face.....hmm this question is making my imagination silly. I guess touch is kinda been done at the moment a bit with that gaming jacket.
Touch is probably the most realistic area that could benefit from R&D. The DS already uses a 'touch' screen, but
Anything more complex than scratch and sniff is miles off, taste suffers from expiry dates, so rule that out with current tech.
Touch, though, has some potential in terms of temperature input/output, more advanced force-feedback, and 'degrees of touch' like the touchpad equivalent of an analog-trigger that can detect when you're pressing hard and when you're pressing softly. Something like a gel pack that controls movement and speed based on the pressure of a liquid and the concentration of pressure over different parts of the input device (e.g. Left, Right, Top, Bottom) could give TRUE analog movement control.
I remember an article about adding senses, smells were added for a movie theatre audience and it ended up just wierding them out.
Touch, feel, and a sense of equilibrium (knowing when you're flipped upside down) for sure
But taste? unless your playing a game about being a cook it would just be strange.
Of course if a game tapped into the sixth sense that'd be awesome :p
definitely taste
imagine playing as a bestial carnivore, tearing apart your prey and tasting their lymph
that'd be a quality gaming experience
Actually I just realized a game like Katamari Damacy could be mixed with your idea.
You're a monster of some sort and run around eating the environment. You eat a chicken, it tastes like...well, chicken.
As you start rolling over things like cows and such, they taste like meat products. Roll over some brussel sprouts and lots of people would quickly veer away from the farms, etc.
Could be fun. You'd be forever searching for your favorite flavors!
touch. Imagine all those awesome adult games!
No, I'm kidding, but I voted for touch because that would bring an awesome "immersion" experience to any well designed game.
Thanks for all the comments guys! Really interesting to read all your different opinions of how this would integrate into a gaming environment.
Please let me know when you post your comments which way you voted, or if you had the chance to vote for more - which one's would you have chosen? My paper is trying to draw parallels that every situation we encounter as humans (be it game or real-life) generally requires only the use of 3 of the 5 senses we have at any one time. These can of course be in various cycles and combinations, but that the human brain can only really perceive several senses at once. So right now I am pleased that there seems to be a distinct banding of 3 catagories that backs up some of my initial project outcomes :) (not that that should sway you of course!)
I would really like to see some of the creative ways you guys think these senses could be put to use in a gaming environment. Be nonspecific or as detailed as you like - I want to see your pros and cons for which of these senses matter the most within the nest 5 years of research.
THANKS FOR YOUR TIME!
I have voted for touch, but you all seem to be missing something I find would be nice to have. Being able to feel out each texture, like blades of grass, or slime, or sandpaper. Touch isn't simply a touchscreen.
This is exactly right. Touch varies from waving a Wii-mote around like a sword, to feeling the texture on the grip of the pistol. Same goes for the other senses too of course :)
Smell, say a first person shooter, you smell burning bodies and buildings, vehicles, vegitation, plus smell is an effective way to enhance yourself, it unlocks many chemical reactions, therefore giving you a more realistic feeling.
then i would like sight(duh, useless blind) and hearing(need to hear) so in all, hearing, seeing, smelling. lol.
friggin right man. lol. but not just blood. BRAINSSSSSSSSSS!!!
Smell! Smell is the sense most directly connected to the limbic system... It would be really, really ******* crazy if they could pull that off.
I'm not sure how I feel about smelling a bunch of sprinting soldiers, propellant & carnage, but there's some good points made for it here.
Taste, taste would just be plain creepy. You know there'd just be griefers going around licking people & saying, "u haz a flavr!!1!!!111!"
I have to say that your second statement had me in stitches! XD
I'm finding out so much I probably never considered before! :)
This poll doesn't make sense - Smell and Taste are far from technologically developed, especially not to the point where a game could be doing stuff like that. Touch, yes, you've got stuff like force feedback in gamepads but again is not really well advanced, and any innovation done in that direction would be by hardware manufacturers first.
Which leaves me with two _feasible_ answers - sight and sound. Of course, visual effects boil down essentially to prettier graphics. I'd like to see more stuff happening like the Blink Monks Society business - using sound as an extremely useful gameplay mechanic.
More stuff with force feedback would be good too, but the problem is having a peripheral suited for multiple types of game _and_ able to do force feedback in a decent way.
Not all studies are meant to make a whole lot of sense to the test subject (in this case: the guy voting for one option or another). The useful information is derived from the majority view. You do raise some interesting questions and requests in you statement, and they will be duly noted :)
I just have to say this. Please forgive me.
Touch and Taste.
To bring those weird Japanese games to a whole new level.
You know, the ones featuring girls...
That most of the time have...
less
clothes
than
usual
*runs*
Do not feel ashamed to mention 'those' types of games, because it'll probably be one of the first industries to fully implement a game/experience utilising the entire human senses ;)
I would like smell to have more focus in games.
Of cause you can't do 'real' smell atm. (even though there is something like an experimental system for that), but what you CAN do is putting audiovisual clues ingame.
Take pain as an example of how it's done. You don't feel pain when you play a fps, but if you get hit there is typically a red flash, shaking screen, impact sound etc., all symbolising pain.
And enchanced hearing from Dystopia. You are able to hear footsteps, but the enchancement is that the exact position of the sounds show up on-screen, even if it is behind walls, doors etc.
I would like a system analog to that to do smells.
I like your interpretation on a visual/audial representation of smell. Certainly smell is very much linked in with the visuals we see, and the tastes that might follow a smell (e.g. mouth starts salivating when smell a burger patty frying).
No doubt when smell/taste make a debut they will probably be in signature games where you must navigate by each sense alone - but I think the one thing that most people have hinted at is that the smell to them in a game is a very subtle element to accompany the visual/sounds of the game.
Something like temperature would probably be classed as touch, but if you were to imagine a system by which you've just left a bloody battlefield, rifle holstered at the hip. It starts to rain as the darkened skies close in, the fresh smell and the sudden drop in temperature usually associated bring a sort of relief - letting the player know the action is over.
It's this type of subtlety that could make for a very powerful experience, and it's something which we believe the brain can process to the nerves and make us feel subtle changes without a direct need for a lot of equipment to heat/cool the players body. This type of study is still in it's early days, but we hope to be bringing some interesting design ethics to game design over the coming years.
Sight, as in head-tracking
been there and its been done, check out the wii inventions. they rock socks
vote touch for more giggity giggity