Playing with the Eyes. A Media History of Eye Tracking

This chapter focusses on eye-controlled digital gaming (recording and analysis of eye movement) as Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices for gamers with disabilities. The main focus is Tobii Technology, which is one of the leading companies in the field of eye-tracking systems for varying systems and usages. In cooperation with game developers such as Ubisoft, Tobii offers hardware and software solutions for players with and without disabilities to enable and/or enhance player interactions. Based on Tobii’s eye-tracking systems and their underlying epistemology, the chapter reviews the media history of eye tracking, the computer game history of video games that can be controlled by the eyes, and the epistemic relevance of eye tracking in the field of AAC. The goal is to look at this alternative interaction option for video games from three perspectives and thus provide an overview of eye tracking as an interface for video games and AAC.