A patent application titled “Method and System for Auto-Playing Portions of a Video Game” from Sony Interactive Entertainment has been published online, teasing a new feature that would effectively allow players to sit back as their PlayStation hardware and/or software plays their games for them. Sony came up with the idea after realizing that some portions of a video game may be “less exciting or less interesting” to play than other portions of the game, impacting the player’s overall enjoyment.
Sony says its system could be used for:
- Portions of the game in which the players are required to perform repetitive tasks
- A portion of a video game that involves a bad or uninteresting quest
- A portion of a video game that is not compatible with the player’s skill set
- Any other portion of a game that could “adversely impact” a player’s overall enjoyment of a game
The system, visualized:
Diagram notes:
- FIG. 1 is a simplified schematic diagram that illustrates a user playing an online video game via streaming (cloud) gaming, in accordance with one embodiment.
- FIG. 2 is a simplified schematic diagram that illustrates accessing a user play model during a gaming session to identify anticipated grinding content (AGC), in accordance with one embodiment.
- FIG. 3 is a flow diagram that illustrates additional details regarding the auto-play notification process, in accordance with one embodiment.
- FIG. 4 is a simplified schematic diagram that illustrates a process for training the user play model using state data, in accordance with one embodiment.
- FIG. 5 illustrates components of an example device that can be used to perform aspects of the various embodiments of the present disclosure.
An abstract for the idea reads:
A method for providing an auto-play mode option to a user during gameplay of a video game includes accessing, by a server, a user play model, which incorporates extracted features related to gameplay by the user and classification of the extracted features. The accessing of the model is triggered at a current time during gameplay. The method also includes identifying, by the server, predicted interactive activity that is predicted to occur ahead of the current time of gameplay. The method further includes identifying, by the server, at least part of the predicted interactive activity to be anticipated grinding content (AGC). The method also includes providing a notification, by the server, to a display screen of a user device, where the notification identifies the AGC in upcoming gameplay and provides the user with an option to use the auto-play mode during gameplay of the AGC.
Discussion (5 replies)
Join Discussion →Here is an idea: If you don't play the game you're not the player. Isn't it just a terrible animated movie at that point?
Yes.
Such follks shouldn't even be allowed to own a console at that point.
Let's hope that this is a "catch and kill" designed to prevent unwanted emergent technology by filing a patent on it and then doing nothing with it. This could also be a way to go after auto-bot cheat makers by suing them for patent infringement.
Agreed.
Though I will admit to - on the original version of Zelda II: Link on the NES, finding a spot where a low level monster spawned really predictably, and when forced by my mom to "go out and play" I would tape the down button and the attack button (on a controller with a rapid repeat function) and come back a long time later and the character would have leveled up :p
I was like 8 years old at the time through :p