Sure, it's gonna be expensive as shit but imagine the datamining. This serves literally no purpose apart from massive datafarms.
I don't think that's entirely accurate.
While you're right that it can technically only gather data, and while we can only speculate because nothing like this TRULY exists yet, there are several gaming applications this could be used for.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdFuJhXupPA
For example, with things like cognitive flexibility, we can (at least theoretically) detect if a player is finding a puzzle too easy or too difficult, and adjust the difficulty accordingly. Obviously we can already do this now based on metrics like time taken, number of failed tries etc, but this would be a lot more accurate and just "automatic", even on your first playthrough. Games like Left 4 Dead already try to gauge "stress levels" of players, and send a horde when they are too calm (and reduce enemies when they are too stressed). Combined with technology like this, that could do amazing things for accurate balancing of things like hordes in a theoretical Left 4 Dead VR Game.
ALL THAT SAID, you are absolutely right to question the motives behind doing stuff like this. I am already terrified of what evil things Faceboo...*cough* Meta will do with things like
Cambria's eye tracking data, so this isn't just theoretical for some future technology - it's happening now.
The GOOD news is that BCI's currently can't read anything super advanced like your thoughts etc without an implant. At least for now. So it's only vague data like stress/attention levels, etc.
VR headsets are very spooky devices already - full of cameras, microphones, accelerometers, and other data-gathering devices. Worse, while open-source application-layer software like OpenVR exists to interface between games and the headset (so at least Games can't track that sort of data without permission, although they might also be unplayable without access to those sensors), almost all VR device firmware on the market is extremely proprietary, and often requires proprietary driver software to also be installed on a PC to actually use them (at least in link-mode. For standalone like with the Quest 2, you only have to worry about the software on the device).
Still, I feel that the current market dominance of an ad company (Meta) within the VR space is far more terrifying than BCI information, and I am more concerned about eye tracking data right now. But if Meta decides to add BCI to a headset, run for the hills as fast as you can, it's not going to end well.
In fact, and this is cutting directly into my bottom line as a developer, but if you care about privacy, I would recommend not buying a VR headset at all, with or without BCI technology. I personally will be avoiding this, or at the very least, keeping it to the absolute minimum if possible (depending on if I need a BCI enabled headset for dev work).
