Patent Grant
8267778
The invention relates to acquiring data regarding the users of computer software relating to gaming. More specifically, the invention seeks to provide information that will allow a software developer to enhance their gaming software based upon user interaction data.
Increases in the computing power available to consumers and business people have resulted in the use of a wide variety of new and complex software applications. In addition, the widespread adoption of the Internet, a broadband distributed public network, supports communication between various users via various devices. Further, the Internet allows users to update their software by contacting specific Internet addresses associated with the publishers of the their software and downloading updated and enhanced versions of their software.
These advances in computing have also supported tremendous growth in the adoption and play of video games. In the last decade, personal computer games have widely adopted the concept of connecting remote gamers and allowing them to play together, typically via an Internet data connection. Similarly, some game consoles support network data connections suitable for supporting gaming sessions featuring remote gamers.
The market for providing gaming hardware and software is very competitive and many games have a very brief shelf life. In addition, the increases in hardware and software capabilities have resulted in increasingly expensive and complex game development. That said, video games that are widely adopted are often remarkably profitable. With this in mind it is critical that a game developer understand their market. In some ways, the development of video games is often analogous to the design of toys in that, as the product is often designed to appeal to consumers that are in a different age group than the developer it is often difficult to predict what will be a successful and engaging video game experience versus an unappealing and unmemorable one.
In addition, in some very popular video games that support virtual persistent environments, it is known to hack certain game assets. As some gamers will participate in a game for an extended period of time just to acquire such a game asset, the unauthorized duplication (or hacking) of such game assets acts to reduce the appeal of these games and results in gamers playing the games for shorter periods of time. This is of particular concern when the gamers pay a monthly fee in order to participate in the virtual persistent environment.
It would be beneficial to provide comprehensive feedback information regarding the use of video game software. In addition it would be beneficial to provide enhanced control of the use of game assets.
The invention teaches a method comprising:
The invention provides a non-volatile storage medium comprising instructions for being executed by a computing device, the instructions comprising:
Further, the invention teaches a method comprising:
in response to receiving the second gamer input signals:
The invention is now described with reference to the drawings in which:
The prior art teaches the use of conventional marketing techniques to provide user information regarding gamer behaviour. For example, it is common practice for a video game to be provided with a user registration card. The user registration card readventures that the gamer provide various information regarding, for example, what types of video games they play, how many new video games they play in year and, how many hours of video game playing they do in a week to name a few. With the widespread adoption of the Internet, such registration is often carried out in an electronic format. While user registration systems provide valuable data, it is apparent that these systems are limited. Specifically, it is unlikely that a gamer keeps an accurate record of how often they play a video game. Similarly, a gamer might have difficulty describing the games they play as “simulations” versus “first person shooter” depending on the type of game. Clearly, the appeal of certain games is that they do not fall easily within such categories. Most importantly, this information is typically provided before the gamer plays the game. The software developer would like to know if the user enjoys the game, if certain parts of the game were more enjoyable than others, which portions of the game the gamer is likely to play again and, if the game provides a challenge without being overly frustrating. Typically, this information is simply not available when the gamer registers their software because they typically have yet to play the game. In addition, some gamers do not feel a desire to register their software. Playing a video game is a fun, exciting experience and registering software typically is not.
Thus, while the data collected using traditional feedback information processes is certainly better than not obtaining any data, it is clear that the data provided in a prior art registration process has a adventureionable degree of accuracy and is not very detailed.
Some embodiments of the invention are provided to overcome this problem by providing feedback regarding game play. For example, a suitably designed video game stores specific data regarding what predetermined objectives a gamer achieves.
The prior art teaches providing feedback data associated with gamer interaction with a virtual environment of a video game. For example in U.S. Pat. No. 6,036,601 by Heckel, issued 14 Mar. 2000, feedback data indicative of the presentation of an advertisement during a video game session is provided to an external server. More specifically, Heckel teaches recording a duration of time in which an advertisement is displayed and, a size in pixels of the advertisement among other data. Similarly, US patent application 2002/0120589 A1 by Aoki, published 21 Aug. 2002 teaches the notion of providing feedback data regarding the quality of an advertising impression. Specifically, Aoki provides feedback data regarding the presentation of an advertisement in a video game, and the relative size of the advertisement in comparison with the total viewing area of a video display that it appears in. Aoki then suggests that the advertiser pay the video game developer an amount associated with a summation of the impressions.
Referring to
The reporting of the achievement of an objective is optionally provided with other related data. For example, in a game in which a gamer navigates a character or an character within a virtual environment, when the gamer views a map, an objective is recorded along with a length of time that the gamer is viewing the map. Similarly, if the gamer chooses to pause the game, a duration and frequency of pausing is optionally reported. A person of skill in the art will appreciate that a wide variety of data relating to other interactions of the gamer with the virtual environment is optionally reported such as score data, shooting accuracy, remaining fuel, average speed, and so forth depending in part on the type of game.
A person of skill in the art will also appreciate that gaming software is optionally provided with a version identifier. The identifier provides information regarding the version of the software. For example, a first version of the software supports a first language while a second version supports another language. If progression within the game involves clues in the form of text or audio messages, then a gamer is likely to experience difficulty if the translation of the text and audio messages is incorrect or ambiguous. Using a method that incorporates tracking a language version of the video game, quickly and easily identifies where a frustration is occurring and allows such errors to be conveniently located and fixed. Further, the information is beneficial to the game provider as it helps to determine desirable features and options for future versions of the video game. Clearly, it is in the best interests of the game developer to provide a high quality gaming experience to encourage garners to purchase other game software from the same game provider, such as expansion packs, sequels and related games.
Preferably, the game play data reported is other than merely score data. While missing the opponent may not adversely affect the score earned by the gamer, a statistic regarding a percentage of hits is optionally maintained. In addition, many video games feature a variety of options for achieving a same score. Thus, it is clear that providing score data to a server does not convey information regarding how the gamer achieved their score, and more specifically, game play progression—what portions of the video game the gamer is playing to get their score.
Referring to
When, the computing device has a hardware identifier—a serial number encoded electronically therein, the feedback data optionally comprises data indicative of the hardware identifier. When the hardware identifier is provided along with the identifier of the software, feedback data comprising a same software identifier and different hardware identifiers received simultaneously or from geographically disparate locations within close temporal proximity is likely to indicate software piracy and/or resale. Thus, using the identifiers for the hardware and software, a number of active unmonetised copies of the software is estimatable. This information is useful in determining the effectiveness of the overall piracy protection of the software and for determining a cost on a per game and per platform basis of the piracy.
Referring to
Optionally, when a gamer acts to introduce a character into a gaming environment, a function checks the game assets associated with the character prior to introducing the character into the gaming session. Alternatively, gamers having an account history can create new characters within their accounts with predetermined asset support without completing the necessary adventures. Then, the game provider sells assets to these characters or they share assets with their current group of gamers—their friends.
Clearly, if the game assets are the property of an operator of the virtual environment then the operator of the virtual environment has the option of manipulating the various data records. Thus, when the flag indicative of a hacked game asset is set the operator optionally deletes any reference to the hacked game asset with regards to that character record. Alternatively, the character record found to be in possession of the hacked prized game asset is also removed.
This serves to provide enhanced control of game assets within a virtual gaming environment. A person of skill in the art will appreciate that other aspects of the video game are protectable in a similar fashion. For example, in many video games it is known to attribute a “level” to a character. The level typically is indicative of some of the capabilities of the character. In addition the level increases as the character completes game objectives. Here, the use of character history data records associated with the characters facilitates management of these characteristics. When a character completes a game objective that results in a change in level, a change level routine is initiated. The change level routine stores information associated with the change in level in a level record. Optionally, such information comprises a value of time within the virtual environment when the change in level occurs. In addition the information comprises information uniquely associated with the instance of the character within the virtual environment. Thus, each character of the virtual environment has a unique identifier and data associated with the identifier of the character is stored, for example a unique character name. When a character enters a new gaming session, the level record of the character is verified for authenticity. If the level record indicates that the level record is valid, that character is permitted to participate in the gaming session. If the level record is not valid, then the character is optionally prevented from participating in the gaming session. Clearly, the way in which characters that display evidence of hacking are treated is subject to the discretion of an administrator of the virtual environment. In this way, a hacker is prevented from simply copying level data associated with a first high level character and attributing that level data to a lower level character to hack the lower level character to the higher level. Further alternatively, the level data record is associated with the subscriber therefore allowing them to create new characters up to a level at which they have and are accustomed to playing.
Storage data records associated with completion of specific game objectives are used in gathering of valuable feedback data and to inhibit the unauthorized duplication of game assets. By providing feedback data records comprising character data records, one or more data records are optionally used to track a wide variety of gamer interactions within the video game. In addition, transferring this data within a single record provides information to the game provider regarding when and how a hacker has attempted to corrupt the video game. More specifically, a hacker is likely to attempt hacking a video game numerous times in a relatively similar fashion. Using the teachings of the invention a skilled programmer provides a video game that has substantially enhanced security regarding resistance to hacking, the enhanced security providing information for use in further enhancing security after game deployment. Specifically, hacked records are recognizable and, optionally, accounts that support hacked records are carefully monitored for other efforts to hack the video game. These advantages are achieved while also receiving other benefits.
For example, tracking of game play is useful for providing hints, help messages, software patches, software upgrades, design of future games, providing service offerings, providing serial game offerings, and generally for improving gamer enjoyment of the gaming environment of the overall gaming experience.
Though encrypted is used above when referring to obfuscating of data, a more accurate term is ciphered which includes encrypting, decrypting, digitally signing, hashing, and so forth.
The embodiments of the invention are illustrative in nature. Numerous other embodiments will be apparent to one of skill in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
This application claims benefit from U.S. Provisional Patent Application Nos. 60/636,016 filed Dec. 15, 2004; 60/636,877 filed Dec. 20, 2004; 60/636,534 filed Dec. 17, 2004; and 60/636,537 filed Dec. 17, 2004, the entire contents of which is incorporated herein by reference.
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