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Can you get better at a video game just by playing it? According to the minds behind Statespace, the key to esports athleticism lies in the realm of neuroscience, A.I. and good old fashioned hard data.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Statespace’s first tool Aim Lab recreates the look and feel of a typical First Person Shooter, while slipping real science under the hood.[/perfectpullquote]

Formed by two New York University postdoctoral fellows, the startup wants to build a suite of tools that measure and heighten the fundamental skills needed by gamers, including reaction time, accuracy and perception.

Jay Fuller, PHD and Statespace co-founder told The Esports Observer: “We ran into a couple of people that are running esports franchises, and they’re saying ‘we’re trying to get more data to quantify players’.” While the traditional sports world is awash with high-performance training and evaluation metrics, esports science is still very much in its infancy. Statespace’s first product Aim Lab recreates the look and feel of a typical First Person Shooter, while slipping real science under the hood.

“What’s the equivalent of the forty-yard dash in esports? What’s the equivalent of a strength or agility test? How do you quantify those things?”

Jay focused on sports medicine for his degree, while his co-founder and fellow PHD Wayne Mackey studied computational neuroscience. After extensively researching hand-eye coordination, and how the brain affects eye-movements, the pair brought their ideas out of academia and into the InnoVention start-up competition at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering.

Their first place project eventually lead them to Expa Labs. This hybrid incubator and Venture Capital program is run by notable entrepreneurs such as Garret Camp, one of the founders of Uber, and Naveen Selvadurai, a Foursquare co-founder.

With $500,000 seed funding and tech industry tutelage at hand, Statespace worked on an app that would let gamers frag away in laboratory controlled conditions. “Things like vision and reaction time seem like simple things to measure, and in the lab they are,” says Wayne Mackey, who in the past has seen patients literally fall asleep during routine cognitive experiments. “Stare at this dot on a black screen, remember where it was for three seconds and tell me later…if that was a game no one would play it.”

The A.I. in Aim Labs creates gamer personality profiles, designed to help players understand where their skills lie.



In Aim Lab, the “subjects” complete FPS challenges, while the software captures and analyzes their data. Naturally, the game can measure one’s accuracy with different weapons (pistols, shotguns etc.) and at different distances, but it also tells the player where their individual skills reside. “We can go ‘are you someone’s that’s more run and gun, or lay and prey?’,” says Wayne.

“Do you like to shoot when you’re on the run, or do you stand still before you take shots? The game will actually adapt and present more targets where you’re not good, to help you train in those areas.”

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Jay Fuller, PHD: “What’s the equivalent of the forty-yard dash in esports? What’s the equivalent of a strength or agility test?”[/perfectpullquote]

Wayne developed Aim Labs on his own through the Unity engine. It focuses primarily on the core aspects of an FPS, such as visual perpetuity, perceptual decision making and memory, but there are custom modes to match your preferred title. For example, if you’re an Overwatch player who can’t ever seem to hit Genji, Aim Lab can generate a double jumping target.

“People who play a sport don’t just play that sport all day,” says Wayne. “They try to focus on the fundamental skills that are important for that sport, and improve those additionally.”

According to Jay, these unique focus areas are what make neuroscience more applicable to esports athleticism than it currently is in trad sports. “It’s applicable to traditional sports, and to a lot of other things like training F-16 fighter pilots and combat training,” he says. “Esports is only about these things. There’s nothing about how fast you can run, jump, and strength doesn’t matter. All that matters is you’re taking information in, making some decisions, and putting out fine motor movements.”

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Wayne Mackey, PHD: “Stare at this dot on a black screen, remember where it was for three seconds and tell me later…If that was a game no one would play it.”[/perfectpullquote]

The company publicly unveiled itself this week, and Aim Lab is now open for closed beta sign-ups. In the short term, Jay and Wayne want to take the project from Steam’s early access store to a full release on PC, Mac and console. “I mean, obviously we’re trying to run a big science experiment in the form of a video game,” says Jay. “So we’re doing a closed testing right now, and then we’ll open it up early next year.” Long term, they want to add another tool to Statespace’s suite more focused on decision making, spacial awareness etc. in the context of a MOBA game.

There are increasing opportunities for esports players to demonstrate their worth and seek recognition. With online prize pools, esports university scholarships, and semi-pro qualifiers on the line, the classic Reddit advice “get good” isn’t enough for the average player. “That’s one thing we really want to provide people,” says Jay. “So you can work out “hey, what are my skills compared to these top players?”, and now I have an objective means to measure myself against those people.”