Diego Saldivar dives into the world of neurogames with host Becca Chambers. Diego is a pioneering neurogame developer who explains how brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are reshaping gaming. He shares insights from his background in animation, digital arts, and game development research. Learn about transcranial magnetic stimulation, current neurogame applications, and the challenges of making these games accessible to mainstream audiences. The conversation also covers ethical and privacy concerns, the potential for integrating neurotechnology into existing games, and a look at the future of neuromodulation and virtual gaming.
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Becca Chambers:
Hello. Today we are joined by Diego Saldivar a pioneering neurogame developer who's working at the intersection of brain computer interfaces and gaming. Diego has spent the last few years making neuro game development more accessible to mainstream game designers and is challenging the status quo of today's neurogames by creating experiences where players can actually do the fun parts of playing video games. Diego brings unique insights from both VR development and gaming academia to reimagine what's possible in this emerging field. And I'm super excited. So welcome to the show, Diego.
Diego Saldivar (01:29.378)
Thank you very much, I'm very glad to be here.
Becca Chambers (01:31.934)
Yeah. All right. So I think just to get us kicked off and to get to know you a little bit, you are a neuro game developer. Can you tell us what that means and how you got into it and a little bit about your background?
Diego Saldivar (01:45.038)
Well, let's start from the very beginning. I have a bachelor's degree in animation and digital arts from the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and also a master's in game development and research from the Technische Hochschule Köln in Germany. That's where I started delving a little bit into brain computer interfaces for game development. My thesis is about using transcranial magnetic stimulation as a game mechanic in theory, of course, it's not yet
commercially available. Just a few.
Becca Chambers (02:17.066)
You're going to have to tell us what that means because you just said a bunch of words that I have no idea what they mean.
Diego Saldivar (02:20.418)
Yes, of course, course. About the thesis, I suppose. Well, transcranial magnetic stimulation is a kind of stimulation of the brain without having to open up the skull. So you stimulate the brain using quickly switching magnetic fields, which changes the way in which the neurons work. So this is currently being used for therapeutical purposes.
mostly for depression and some anxiety, right? But it has also been proven to be useful for sending certain kinds of very small information into a brain, such as making muscles twitch in a very specific side of the body, such as the hands, the legs, etc. Or to provoke phosphenes, which is flashes of light.
And in the University of Washington they have made some experiments in which they gamify this in order to communicate between people, such as some sort of telepathic communication. In some of these experiments they try to guide people blindly through mazes or kind of make someone press a button to fire a rocket in a game that they are not looking at but
Becca Chambers (03:44.308)
Wow.
Diego Saldivar (03:46.848)
another person is looking at in another building. it's kind of... Those are very small steps, of course. But I thought, how about this was actually applied in the mainstream games industry? What do we as game developers have to take into account in order to properly use this technology and protect our users, their safety physically, medically, also, well, also the privacy. At that point in time, we already had
some scandals with social media wherein they kind of violated our trust. So I thought what would be the next step and how do we use this correctly. So that was my master thesis back then. And then I have not yet even started with it.
Becca Chambers (04:33.13)
Wow. Wow. Carry on.
Becca Chambers (04:38.642)
I know, I mean it sounds so futuristic, I'm just soaking it all in. Carry on.
Diego Saldivar (04:42.964)
Yes, well, the point being, yes, so when I was teaching game development and animation in Norway, in Norway University College, I was encouraged to do my own research and publish some papers on different topics. But one of the topics that has always
tickled my imagination is neurology. I have a little bit of a regret that I did not study neurology. I instead went for game development. So I thought, why don't I mix these two passions of mine? Which is why I started trying to look for the path of list resistance. I knew that many years prior, people had started to work on connecting brain computer interfaces into gaming systems.
but I did not know exactly how to do that. So my first step in my research was figure out how to do this, right? So I got myself a brain computer interface and tried my best to use the tools available to connect it to a game engine so that one could make a game that can be distributed. That's the key word here because
In 25 years of research, very few brain-computer interface games or games that use BCI have actually been created with the objective to be sold or to be distributed, right? Most of them are more of an experiment or a use case, a demo for a conference or even just...
some sort of small demonstration of how certain technologies can be used mostly for therapeutical research. But very few of them have had the goal to be sold in a mainstream market. So as a game developer first, I thought, OK, so if I cannot distribute this, it's useless to me, right? And so that started a journey of three and a half years trying to create accessible newer games, but accessible not so much for
Diego Saldivar (07:02.168)
disabled people as is usually the case, but disabled, sorry, but accessible to the market in general. Everyone. So I started looking for brain computer interfaces that had three specific features in themselves. They have to be easy on the pocket, cheap enough, easy on the eye. They have to look nice. Just a bunch of cables is kind of not very attractive to the mainstream market.
And it also has to be easy on the developers. If they don't have an accessible plugin or SDK or a very torturous API, well, I discarded them. So that was my research for three years looking for the path of least resistance. And that's what makes me a neurogame developer, someone who makes games that use brain computer interfaces as part of their game mechanics.
Becca Chambers (07:57.49)
And so tell me about, I guess, the ones that exist right now, what are they being used for? And what do you envision these kinds of games being used for, you know, for the masses, like you said, not just for very specific use cases.
Diego Saldivar (08:12.91)
There are two kinds of neurogames in the market right now. Most of them are therapeutic. That is to say, they take a specific kind of reading from the brain in order to have neurofeedback when it comes to a specific state of mind. Most of the time it's to train people to relax or to concentrate. And they use gaming elements.
to make this a little bit less boring because these exercises are a little bit repetitive, which means that certain kinds of people may not take kindly to them or may not learn as much as they could from these very repetitive tasks. yeah, it's not engaging. So in order to drive up engagement, they use gaming elements.
Becca Chambers (08:59.922)
It's just not engaging. Yeah.
Diego Saldivar (09:08.492)
such as, well, look at a flame and then a flame grows or maybe you have an environment, it becomes more chaotic if you don't feel relaxed, but it becomes more calm if you feel calm. So that's the kind of therapeutic neuro games that do exist right now. And they do have their value, but their market is very narrow because they're meant for very specific platforms or very specific use cases.
They're meant to be distributed to thousands of people, not millions, as is the case of games. So that's one kind of neurogame. Another kind of neurogame are experimental use cases. These are mostly done by students and researchers. They try to prove that certain applications for machine learning and AI are...
feasible using brain computer interfaces and thus by using a game engine it is easier for them to demonstrate visually or auditorily certain kinds of feedback that come after having analyzed and cleaned up the data that comes from the BCI. So that's what one can find mostly.
Some therapeutic neuro games are available in a commercial manner, mostly in the stores pertaining to the Brain Computer Interface company specifically, right? We can name names such as Emotiv or BrainLink Pro, things like that. They do have their own websites, their own stores with their own games, but from a games industry perspective, they're not
successful enough to be understood as economically viable in comparison to other games such as let's say Flappy Bird which is a viral sensation or any game from the Mario or the Zelda franchises which are undeniably very successful which have millions of players there are yes
Becca Chambers (11:19.4)
And can I ask you, is the barrier to entry on that, like the physical hardware?
Diego Saldivar (11:25.134)
There is a big barrier of entry in the physical hardware. Most of the time, there's two kinds of barriers. The most obvious one is financial. Most of these hardwares are $1,000, if not more. Some of them are cheaper, hundreds of dollars, yes. But the second barrier of entry is mostly, some of them are very uncomfortable to the end user. If the end user is not
neuroscientist or a scientist with a lot of time to set up wet electrodes all over the hair or maybe just getting rid of your hair in order to be able to check them out. The most fancy ones, the ones that go inside of your skull, well, they require surgery, which is yet another bearer of entry, physically speaking, beyond having software that is not very friendly for developers and end users alike.
Becca Chambers (12:13.002)
You
Becca Chambers (12:23.668)
So what do you see then as the kind of the future of this? If there are those which seem like large barriers to entry, how do you democratize this and make it so that it's more accessible for people?
Diego Saldivar (12:36.14)
Of course. Well, there some companies that are trying to democratize this, but their prices are not low enough, in my opinion, for a device that's going to be adopted by the first generation. The first generation is going to have a lot of doubts regarding the potential of these technologies when it comes to entertainment. Are there enough neuro games to...
justify a thousand dollars worth of a BCI? That's the question. If you can make them cheap, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred dollars, people might be less reticent towards adoption. But I think that with enough hype, as we call it in the games industry, with enough noise and engagement and anticipation.
People would be able to spend far more than that, and they have already, of course. But in order to do that, we have to have playable neuro games that people want to play. Most neuro games in the market are 5 to 10, maybe 15 minutes long, which is not long enough for a gamer who expects dozens of hours of gameplay, 40 to 100 when it comes to AAA, that's to say high quality games by the most famous studios.
But if you can provide 10, 15 hours of gameplay, I think that would be enough to engage them. If you can maybe provide something that's easily replayable, like Flappy Bird, which is not supposed to be having very long gaming sessions, but it is very repeatable. You can keep playing over and over again. If you can do that, you can open wide the doors to the mainstream market. So...
Widespread adoption requires many elements. As I said, accessibility to the end user, but also something that is attractive from a software point of view. And beyond that, you need to really be in the news, really make a lot of noise. know, hey, there's neuro games, everyone can play them on your phone, on your PlayStation.
Becca Chambers (14:52.458)
Well, let me ask you this, is the ultimate end game for neuro games, therapeutic, education, fun, like all of the above, or is it specifically for a purpose like therapy to resolve some health issues? Or how do you envision that? Because that would open it up, right, if it's not just fun and not just health, but education too, or other avenues like that.
Diego Saldivar (15:23.128)
Well, currently that is what they're all about. They're about education, they're about therapy. But here's the thing, when it comes to the mainstream gaming market, the average gamer is tired of being in school all day, part of the evening. So the last thing they want to do when they come back home is to get back into that kind of environment where they have to sit still, sit quiet, and just try to...
lower their energies. They want to spend that energy that's spent up, right? They want to shoot, they want to jump, they want to fly, they want to do fantastical stuff. So if NeuroGames do not provide that, they will not be commercially viable in the larger market. They will not sell hundreds of thousands or millions of copies. It's impossible. If you want to kind of torture your player into behaving and being quiet after behaving and being quiet all day. So
Becca Chambers (15:56.618)
Yeah.
Diego Saldivar (16:19.662)
While the neurogames that we have today, most of them, are already there when it comes to education and therapy, I think that commercial neurogames have to stray far away from that, even if there is some therapeutical element to them in an accidental manner. For instance, if part of the gameplay is using your mind to shoot magic and then you get injured by the enemy and then you have to kind of meditate.
in order to raise your health points. That kind of meditation or just calming down could be incidentally therapeutic, but that's more of an accident, a happy one, rather than the goal of it. That's correct.
Becca Chambers (17:00.82)
You're not creating the game for that purpose. You're creating the game for fun. And then I know it's like, well, you know, my kids playing VR, they're not creating the VR headsets so that, you know, people can be best friends with their friends when they leave school, but it's a happy accident that happens as a result of it. But yeah, I totally agree. If it's not fun, people aren't going to keep doing it, right? It's like diet food has to taste good, right? So you have to figure out a way to...
Diego Saldivar (17:18.307)
That is correct.
Becca Chambers (17:28.35)
get people to not feel like it's a chore, and I totally agree with that. So how many people are working on this kind of neuro games right now, and how many people are working on it like you are where they're trying to bring it to the masses?
Diego Saldivar (17:44.556)
Well, I think it's less than 100 people working on neuro games, but far more than 50, of course. And I know this because I have developed certain neuro gaming templates so that people can plug and play and start developing if they already know how to make games. And I am taking count of how many people are requesting access to these templates. I have about 30 people who have just requested access to my template. have...
But I have also reason to believe that there's more people out there. I know some of them. They're not working on the same platforms or using the same BCI, but they are out there. Now, as to how many people are looking to make fun neuro games for the larger market. Well, as a developer, it might just be me, actively speaking. I know there must be some other people, but...
Becca Chambers (18:37.044)
Wow.
Diego Saldivar (18:42.818)
They... The games that I have seen in these past few years, maybe there's two of them that could be considered fun, but they don't seem to be meant to be distributed to the large market, but rather to the neurotechnology market or the therapeutic market. So as far as I know, I might be one of the very few people who are actively, proactively working on...
Becca Chambers (19:09.546)
That's wild.
Diego Saldivar (19:12.48)
on commercial games from a game industry perspective. I hope that I'm wrong, of course, if anyone out there listens to me and they're like, no, I'm doing that too, please reach out. I'm feeling lonely. yeah. Yeah.
Becca Chambers (19:24.446)
Do you think that there's an appetite for this, you know, in the gaming community and beyond? Yeah, that's cool. So you really are a pioneer. This is the, you're doing the first thing. Yeah.
Diego Saldivar (19:30.742)
Yeah, yeah, there is definitely an update time.
Diego Saldivar (19:37.678)
It might not be the first thing, I might be using simply a different commercial approach. Because other people have used game engines, of course, yes. But I see very few people using an entire game development pipeline from conception to virality. And I know there's a big appetite because...
There are some other people who are doing modifications to already existing games in order to use brain computer interfaces. One of the most famous, Peri Carioll right now. Hello, by the way. What she uses is she remaps the game controllers using a brain computer interface and she does have followers and there is a bit of a, not a cult, but more of a...
a community that's looking forward to her next experiment, right? Which means there is a big appetite for it. However, she cannot distribute this because it's a hack. So it's difficult to set up, number one. Number two, from a legal perspective, she does not have intellectual property rights to do so. So it can only stay in on Twitch, on her Twitch as a sort of
Becca Chambers (20:31.764)
That's cool.
Diego Saldivar (20:55.912)
showcase of what is possible.
Becca Chambers (20:56.926)
Yep. But I do wonder if that approach, like, you know, people like you who want to do this, if you, if the way it goes mainstream is by partnering with existing popular games and, you know, adding the BCI piece. So it isn't a stretch where it's like, here's a new game that you have to learn to use with your brain, but it's like, here's a game you already know and love. Now you're going to learn how to do stuff with your mind. That would mind boggling. So cool. Yeah.
Diego Saldivar (21:23.214)
That be nice, because you could be accelerating the development of newer games without having to have an entire pipeline from let's think of what kind of game could use this until you actually make it, which could take years. If you adapt something that's already existing, of course, it takes much less.
Becca Chambers (21:40.138)
And don't you think that the game, I mean, I have no idea. I don't know anything about the gaming industry, but don't you think that the game manufacturers would want to do something like that because it creates another stream of where you can use the same games and repurpose them for another reason and sell more hardware and you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Diego Saldivar (21:58.188)
Ideally they should, but right now we're going through a very slow time when comes to the games industry. About a decade ago, the biggest game company started working on safe products, meaning we know this is going to us returns very fast or at least reliably, which means that they're going to be remaking the same tried and true formula.
because innovation is costly and it's risky and right now they don't want to take that many risks and of course in this past couple of years there has been a lot of layoffs in the tech industry and in the games industry as well so this is showing us that they are not up for innovating right now they're they if they're not afraid at least they're reticent against innovation so
They should want to innovate, of course, but right now it's safer for them to not innovate. And I want to prove them wrong. This is why I'm doing this as fast as I can so that I can show, hey, yeah, it's viable. There's an appetite for it. There is a market for it and you're missing out. Please come with me. Let's innovate together because people want this and they are willing to pay for this.
Becca Chambers (23:06.41)
Yeah. Yeah.
Becca Chambers (23:12.255)
Yeah.
Totally. And it does seem like the logical next step in gaming, right? Like we already have VR, so why wouldn't we create a... You're already wearing a thing on your head, right? Why wouldn't we just create a thing that is also then, you know, using the brain that we can access in a non-creepy, invasive way? That's another question though. Does it bring up... Obviously there are privacy issues, but does it bring up like medical issues?
Diego Saldivar (23:36.204)
Right?
Becca Chambers (23:44.746)
Can you sell something that interacts with people's brains at scale? I don't, I just don't know.
Diego Saldivar (23:51.4)
Yes, yes, yes. And it does bring a lot of ethical issues as well from a medical perspective, which, yeah, especially if you're going to be sending information back to the brain using transcranial stimulation, whether it's magnetic, electrical, ultrasound, there are ethical concerns about sending stimulus to the developing brain in children.
Becca Chambers (23:56.222)
Yes. And for kids, right?
Becca Chambers (24:05.832)
Yeah. Right.
Diego Saldivar (24:21.442)
However, when it comes to just reading brainwaves, there is very few medical concerns there. And any medical concerns that come with using a brain computer interface that's reading brainwaves has already been addressed when it comes to, for instance, electrical discharge or when it comes to skin conductance and these kinds of things, right? So from a medical standpoint, simply reading brainwaves is not
very risky. However, from a privacy perspective, we have had about a decade experience when it comes to having our trust violated when it comes to our personal data. So, of course, things like neuro rights, which is basically an extension of the GDPR as we know it.
Becca Chambers (25:06.751)
Mm-hmm.
Diego Saldivar (25:16.27)
the general protection of privacy law, something, regulation in Europe. Anyway, so yeah, when it comes to privacy, we should be very concerned as consumers and we should be very proactive when it comes to protecting our privacy, whether it's our brains or whether it's our behavior online. So I, as a developer, I also have...
Becca Chambers (25:36.543)
Yeah.
Diego Saldivar (25:44.03)
A few things to say when it comes to protecting the privacy of our users when it comes to their brain data, as well as some transparency as to how we use it and how it's used and who has access to it and for which reasons, following the philosophies behind neural rights. So, yeah, and I mean, when I distribute my templates, I do have a bit of a manual as to how to use this, right? And part of the manual is neural rights and
how we should apply them as game developers.
Becca Chambers (26:16.83)
That's good because I actually think that that needs to be just in the DNA of anyone who's building products that include brain science, right? It can't be the thing that you add later. Just once you're ready to go to market, like it needs to be fundamental to the product or whatever you're developing because, you know, even if you're not collecting data for a reason, people can look at brain data and make assumptions about you, know, like you can be lumped into groups. and.
Like you said, it's just it's it's another frontier where you need to protect your own personal identifying data. And it's such a scary thing when you think about it being brain data. So companies that are and I know that there are building these products right now and aren't really putting this at the forefront. Like that feels. Risky to everybody, both to the company and to the users.
Diego Saldivar (27:12.704)
Indeed, and we should not be waiting until the next scandal to take proactive action here because we all know that it is inevitable that all technologies will eventually be misused. But if we already know this is going to happen, we might as well try to mitigate the risks early on.
Becca Chambers (27:31.822)
Or we know that regulation is coming. California is going to start calling that medical information, right? So that you, has to be handled differently than other data, which makes it more complicated and whatever. But that means that the people who are building these products need to be thinking about that as they're building it rather than like later where it's like, shoot, now we can't, people in California, we can't collect their data because we have no way to use it that is, you know, compliant with the new privacy regulations or what.
Diego Saldivar (28:02.626)
Yes indeed, and I am an advocate for early self-regulation while the government catches up, but the government has to catch up all around the world.
Becca Chambers (28:10.344)
Yeah, interesting. So what do you see as kind of like the next steps? Like, what are you doing? You are building these games and you're obviously talking to people and evangelizing this. What is the next step, the next hurdle to get over?
Diego Saldivar (28:25.198)
publishing a game that can be accessed by everyone. So this year I'm planning to launch a very small demo, if not a bit of a game, inspired on kind of Flappy Bird. Something quick, easy, but something that might get people engaged to play over and over again. So I'm using a freemium model, which in the games industry is basically you give the game for free, but it has some options to buy
perks or upgrades so as to be able to profit from it. So in that way I can at the same time distribute a neuro game that's supposed to be a game first and foremost and also I can try to prove to the industry that this is economically viable and profitable. Which is something, yes of course.
Becca Chambers (29:14.154)
So I have a question though. Can I make the in-app purchases with my brain or do I have to use buttons for the in-app purchases?
Diego Saldivar (29:22.644)
In this case, I would use your fingers for the in-app purchases because using it with the brain might not be very reliable with the model that I'm using. Number one, number two, for safety, security reasons and for transparency reasons, I would rather have the user be very conscious when they are pressing the purchase button rather than accidentally paying money, which I mean, it...
Becca Chambers (29:42.09)
Yeah.
Diego Saldivar (29:50.286)
could happen but I would rather avoid this mishap. So, no, you have to be very conscious of these purchases.
Becca Chambers (29:56.874)
Do you think that's the future of I don't know using apps?
Diego Saldivar (30:03.406)
It could be. mean, brain computer interfaces extend the overall mechanics and emotions and things that can happen in a game or even in an app. But in order to really integrate brain computer interfaces into our daily lives, we have to do a little bit more research and development in order to have something that's appealing to the general public. And I have seen
Some people trying to do that, trying to use brain-computer interfaces to, for instance, take a call when you're cycling or change the channel on the audio on Spotify, But it is kind of dislocated. It's not integrated in an overall environment where people could very easily do these things. I hope that in the near future, as the...
Public shows that they have great interest in brain computer interfaces integrated into their daily lives that larger companies will want to get into the game and start researching and developing ways to integrate BCI into the daily lives in a much more seamless manner. Because that is key here. If it's not seamless, people are much less likely to adopt it. So, yeah, that is a hope.
but we have to be proactive about it.
Becca Chambers (31:32.308)
How many years away do you think we are from mainstream neuro game adoption?
Diego Saldivar (31:39.138)
Well, if I play my cards right, two years. Otherwise, this might be a little bit more delayed. Maybe five to ten years. But we have to be proactive about it. We cannot passively wait for someone else to do this as we have in the past 25 years. If we're proactive, it could take less than five years to have mass adoption worldwide.
Becca Chambers (32:05.428)
Wow, that's crazy to think about. I mean, that is so soon and so futuristic all at the same time. Well, on the futuristic question, a question that I ask all of our guests is, what's an aspect of brain science that you think will completely surprise us once it's fully understood?
Diego Saldivar (32:10.37)
Yep. I know.
Diego Saldivar (32:25.454)
neuromodulation. Neuromodulation basically is modulating or changing how the brain works using external stimuli. Well...
targeted stimuli, we are changing how the brain works all the time with stimuli. It's lights and sounds and smells and tastes. But when you're using magnetic stimulation, electrical stimulation, ultrasound stimulation, what we have right now is a bit primitive in comparison to what we're dreaming about when it comes to the Matrix or Sword Art Online, where we can stream
entire images and worlds directly into the brain. That takes a lot of precision, which we don't yet have. And it takes a lot of understanding exactly how the brain encodes and retrieves memories in order to simulate whatever it is, whether it's how someone's face looks like, how your room was left when you closed the door, whatever it is.
Those things are not quite yet understood, but as soon as we understand them, and it can take decades, if not maybe a couple centuries, who knows, then we could properly integrate these technologies into having virtual games streamed right into our brains. But again, we have to be very proactive about it, because right now it's a nice thing to think about, but it's not a goal when it comes to research and development.
Becca Chambers (34:05.962)
That is so interesting and I wonder if AI will help kind of accelerate the understanding like you said of how our brains. Yeah, very cool. All right. Well before we wrap up is there anything else that you want to share with our listeners anything about what you're working on or like, you know, where to reach you anything like that?
Diego Saldivar (34:14.071)
It must.
Diego Saldivar (34:27.618)
Well, I do have a Discord channel. I'll send you the link. Maybe you'll have it in the description so that people can click on it and join the community. Also, I do have a YouTube channel where I post some of my thoughts and also some of my experiments. When I have a template, I make a lot of noise, like, hey, I have a new template. So if you want to check that out, I suppose that it's going to be in the description as well.
What else would I like to share with your viewers? I think that... I would like to share some hope. I know that right now it's not the best time in history for many people around the globe. But if we continue to work towards our own goals, if we continue to try to make the world a better place in spite of...
whatever other people are trying to do against that. I think we can get there, but we cannot lose hope. have to continue working even if we're tired, even if we're burnt out. And I do hope that your listeners will join me in this new step in your game development when it comes to developing games or trying them out or maybe even screaming at your favorite
developers. Hey, I want neuro games and they're possible. Diego and Perry Carriel are doing it. Just let us have them. So yeah, make some noise and keep up with the news. I hope that I will be able to have some excellent news this year when comes to the first commercially viable neurogame.
Becca Chambers (36:15.946)
Well that is awesome and definitely follow along Diego. We will put your links in the show notes so that people can reach you there. But it sounds like you have exciting stuff coming and I'm excited to watch your journey. So thank you so much for coming on the show and we'll talk to you soon.
Diego Saldivar (36:32.238)
Thank you. Talk to you soon.