Get into Games: £12.5m to fund cutting edge games research

A consortium of UK universities has won a major slice of a £350m government investment to fund doctoral research into games. York University, Goldsmiths College, University of London and the University of Exeter are partners in the scheme, which is supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and could benefit up to 55 doctoral applicants. The money, which is expected to total £12.5m, will be used to establish a training and research network in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence (IGGI) across the institutions.

The multidisciplinary project, led by York Professor Peter Cowling, will see students undertake a four-year PhD. They will conduct cutting edge games research and complete industry placements. Prof Cowling says: “The aim is to get more advances into games. My own field is artificial intelligence and we can make a substantial impact. We are also looking at areas such as human-computer interaction.

“The game industry is different to others in that when it comes to trying out ideas they are very open – past developments such as the Wiimote and Kinect show that. Now we are looking at how to use machine learning and the way data mining is used in mobile games as part of a tight feedback loop.”

Prof Cowling’s research focuses on decision making in games. He is interested in the Monte-Carlo tree search technique, a system of playing out scenarios based on in-game decisions to inform development.

“It’s about constructing possible futures in order to evaluate decisions,” he explains. “If I have a range of decisions or strategies I can take at a given time for a game agent, I construct a number of futures based on the outcomes and work out which future has the best outcome.” And in abbreviated terms the best outcome for developers using this methodology is improving user engagement and maintaining the ‘fun’ factor.

Professor Atau Tanaka, Goldsmiths College.

Professor Atau Tanaka is Goldsmiths College, University of London’s IGGI lead. He deals with ‘whole body interaction’ seen in products such as Kinect. He says his research field has created significant advances over the last ten years, most notably in terms of motion sensing and motion capture.

Prof Tanaka believes gestural control remains key to the future of games, but for him whole body interaction takes those ideas a step further. “I am dealing with physiological signals, such as muscle tension picked up by electrodes as a way to control graphics and interactive sound,” he explains. And his rsearch is not limited to the confines of the lab as he performs music using body interaction and is tourin venues with colleagues.

“The funding for IGGI allows us to train the next generation of cutting edge researchers and industry professionals and we are working with 60 industry partners from the likes of Sony and BT down to SMEs.

“A key part of the programme is that each PhD student has an opportunity to do a placement. So in consultation with industry we will develop a research topic so it has to be deep research. It can’t be product driven. It can be R and D which leads to a future product.

And Prof Tanaka believes the industry focus is what makes this scheme such an attractive prospect. “This funding allows us to take a long view to create not just next year’s hit product, but the core technologies that will keep the UK games industry a leader worldwide five years down the road,” he says, adding, “Once those graduates are in industry they will be setting the pace to keep the UK a leading player for another ten years.”

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