What Focus Measures
Focus is measured through blink tracking:
- The longer a player doesn’t blink, the more focused we assume they are.
- When calculating this metric, we rely on data about both eye movement and blink duration to estimate the level of visual concentration.
Why Blinks? Blink frequency has been shown to correlate with cognitive engagement. A player who’s immersed in content — e.g., reading dialogue, searching in a hidden object scene — often reduces their blink rate. Focus time, therefore, becomes a proxy for content-driven concentration.
Application in Testing
Not all games — or genres — are designed around rapid dopamine loops of action and reaction.
Certain genres (like hidden object games or puzzles) and gameplay elements (such as character dialogues or tutorials) are intentionally built to slow the player down and deepen focus at specific moments.
These deliberate pauses often act as emotional springboards: sustained concentration during a tense puzzle may lead to a spike in arousal when a last-second win or plot twist lands.
By combining focus tracking with arousal analysis, we examine both the reflective and reactive sides of player experience, revealing not just what draws attention but also what drives motivation.
Example Use Case
In a hidden object level during a first-time user experience, players explore without a timer. One player found the first few items quickly — within 20 seconds. The last item, however, took them 17 seconds to locate.
During the initial phase of this search, both focus and arousal increased, indicating strong engagement and motivation to win. But after the 5-second mark, arousal began to steadily drop — the level started to feel more difficult.
Despite high concentration, the experience was shifting from “exciting challenge” to “frustrating search.”
By 17 seconds, focus also declined — the player lost visual persistence and eventually used a booster.
This behavior is valuable — boosters drive monetization — but it also flags a friction point: during early gameplay, long searches can turn enthusiasm into churn risk.
Designers can intervene before focus starts to fall, using gentle nudges like progressive hints, subtle booster prompts, or contextual guidance — helping preserve engagement and drive conversion.
Reporting the Metric
In client reports, we convert raw focus data into a simple, intuitive format — a normalized score ranging from 0 to 1.
This focus index helps quickly interpret player behavior at each step of the gameplay and identify moments of high engagement or potential drop-off.
A score of 0.88 suggests the player spent significantly more time in a focused state vs. distracted.
Currently, the focus is used as a contextual metric — a tool for analysts to explain behaviors, not a primary optimization metric. Understanding focus and emotional response helps uncover not just what players do, but why they do it.
It gives developers an additional lens to interpret friction, engagement, or hesitation during key moments.
This perspective is especially useful when working with complex genres or layered gameplay that isn’t driven by immediate feedback loops.