Mike Ambinder is an

experimental psychologist Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...

currently working as an affiliate assistant professor at University of Washington. Best known for his tenure at

Valve Corporation Valve Corporation is an American video game developer, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution platform Steam and the franchises ''Half-Life'', '' C ...

, his research is focused on user experience and HCI applied to video games. He has been part of the development of ''

Team Fortress 2 ''Team Fortress 2'' is a 2007 multiplayer first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It is the sequel to the 1996 ''Team Fortress'' mod for '' Quake'' and its 1999 remake, '' Team Fortress Classic''. The game was ...

'', ''

Left 4 Dead ''Left 4 Dead'' is a 2008 first-person shooter game developed by Valve South and published by Valve. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 in November 2008 and for Mac OS X in October 2010, and is the first title in the ...

'', ''

Alien Swarm ''Alien Swarm'' is a multiplayer top-down shooter video game developed by Valve. It is a remake of a mod for ''Unreal Tournament 2004'', and it was developed by the original team, who were hired by Valve during the course of the development pro ...

'', and ''

Portal 2 ''Portal 2'' is a 2011 puzzle-platform video game developed by Valve for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. The digital PC version is distributed online by Valve's Steam service, while all retail editions were distributed b ...

''. He is one of the pioneers in applying psychophysiological techniques in user experience assessment and adaptive systems in the game industry context. In February 2023, Ambinder announced that he had left Valve. Ambinder holds a B.A in computer science and psychology from Yale University, and a PhD in psychology from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has published in academic journals, and presented at main game developer conferences.Ambinder, M. (2011) Biofeedback in Gameplay: How Valve Measures Physiology to Enhance Gaming Experience. Game Developer Conference 2011

References

External links

Valve's Approach to Playtesting @ GDC09

Biofeedback in Gameplay How Valve Measures Physiology to Enhance Gaming Experience

Accessibility in Games, Gamasutra
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ambinder, Mike Living people Valve Corporation people Year of birth missing (living people)