Learning to play fighting games at a competent level, like any other skill, requires a great deal of study and practice. Even those we consider naturals, such as Justin Wong, wouldn’t be where they are today without focusing on their gameplay and constantly striving to improve.
But raw practice can only take a competitor so far. More recently, we’ve seen folks like Infiltration keep track of notes on character and player matchups, checking between sets to remind themselves of specific details they may have overlooked thanks to the often chaotic nature of tournament competition. This integration of separate technology with gameplay hasn’t been a revolutionary step in the way we approach fighting games, but one piece of equipment may see some interesting applications in the near future.
Earlier this year, Danish manufacturer SteelSeries released the Sentry Eye Tracker which, as the name so aptly describes, tracks your eye movements to provide a visual representation of what you were watching while playing a game. Though the entertainment benefits are obvious with the advent of professional streaming, the replay feature can also give competitive gamers the ability to watch their matches and develop strategies around the way they ingest information.
To highlight its usefulness, 4Gamer took the Sentry for a spin, but in a way that’s sure to interest members of the fighting game community. Instead of casually applying the overlay to a random game, they tapped HORI’s Sako Naoto to give the peripheral a whirl while playing Ultra Street Fighter IV.
What resulted, as you can see in the video above, is an incredibly detailed look at how Sako approaches a competitive match from a visual standpoint. While his eyes may be drawn to any number of menu indicators during downtime, the way in which his focus shifts and stabilizes says a lot about the resolve he (and likely many other high-level players) show when entering a game, not to mention his emphasis on tracking the space between himself and the opponent.
As more and more money is poured into events and competitive gamers begin to make a decent living off their skills, the need to stay one step ahead of your contemporaries, even by a tiny margin, becomes an important part of maintaining one’s career. Communities like StarCraft and League of Legends have seen teams sequester themselves to train for months at a time, sharing knowledge and leveling up in an environment conducive to fostering their abilities much like professional football teams hold training camps for weeks before the season begins.
Keeping with the football comparison, one could logically see fighting game players using this technology to condition themselves to concentrate on specific parts of the screen much like linebackers and safeties learn to read quarterbacks, perhaps to improve how they approach the neutral game.
In any case, with $500,000 on the line at Capcom Cup 2015, a possible $50,000 heading to Killer Instinct’s prize pool at Evo 2015, and Mortal Kombat X making huge strides with ESL, the time is ripe for players to seek out technology like this and find new ways to improve their training. Unfortunately, the $200 price tag will likely put it out of reach for most of the fighting game community.
What do you think? Could this prove to be a valuable resource for fighting game players or is it just a fun novelty? Feel free to drop your opinion in the comments below.