Tracking pupil dilation has helped to improve World of Warships

Wargaming is dedicated to “delivering legendary online games” and is seemingly prepared to spare no expense to do so.

In conversation about World of Warships’ move from beta to full-fledged release, Wargaming’s Asia Pacific General Manager, Jasper Nicolas, explained that the publisher is all about feedback and using it to improve overall user experience.

Direct feedback from players is grabbed using traditional means… and some unorthodox ones as well.

“From the user experience level, we did a lot of tests to really focus on the way people react. How do people react when they see that their shells are achieving massive levels of damage? What kind of pupil dilation are we looking at when they’re manoeuvring? It’s a really scientific way of looking at the real life experience of interacting with our product,” Nicolas began. “I’d say that’s one of the key differentiators that we have right now; it’s not just statistical data that we’re looking at, but the emotional experience.”

Whoa, hold up for a second. Pupil dilation? I guess I’ll never game in my underwear again.

“We do it from a lab environment,” Nicolas asserted, laughing.

“We have a special room in Saint Petersburg,” Artur Polciennik, World of Warships Publishing Producer, further explained. “We lock you in and track you. Eye tracking; where you were looking and what that means. If you weren’t sure of what you were doing, we can tell.”

The special tracking room has three webcams per person; one is positioned to track eye movement, another watches your head from a profile view and the third, your entire body.

“That’s how passionate we are about delivering legendary online games,” Nicolas asserted. “We really take it to heart; we will invest in high levels of deep investigation on player experience to do that.”

World of Warships has gone into a full retail release today. You can head here to grab the free-to-play naval game.

Image credit: DeviantArt