Video game with simulated evolution

• US 20080176658A1
• Filed: 08/20/2007
• Published: 07/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Electronic Arts Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Electronic Arts Incorporated
• Inventors: Wright, Will
• Granted Patent: US 7,867,093 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/42
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/10 Control of the course of the game, e.g. start, progess, end
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/12 involving interaction between a plurality of game devices, e.g. transmisison or distribution systems protocols for networked virtual reality, networked games H04L29/06034
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/30 Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/335 using Internet
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/45 Controlling the progress of the video game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/63 by the player, e.g. authoring using a level editor
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/77 involving data related to game devices or game servers, e.g. configuration data, software version or amount of memory
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/79 involving player-related data, e.g. identities, accounts, preferences or play histories
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/552 for downloading to client devices, e.g. using OS version, hardware or software profile of the client device
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/556 Player lists, e.g. online players, buddy list, black list
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/6018 where the game content is authored by the player, e.g. level editor or by game device at runtime, e.g. level is created from music data on CD
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8058 Virtual breeding, e.g. tamagotchi
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/004 Artificial life, i.e. computing arrangements simulating life

Abstract

A video game that provides a player game play experience that simulates an evolution process is disclosed. In each stage of the evolution process, the player can create game content that is uploaded to a server. Other players'"'"' game content can also be downloaded into the player'"'"'s game. In an embodiment of the present invention, the player-defined content can be automatically uploaded to a server, where it can be automatically downloaded to players'"'"' games in accordance with criteria such as heuristics that are relevant to the game, player preferences, rankings, community preferences and combinations thereof.

Claims

1. A video game client configured to play a video game, comprising:

logic to couple the video game client to a game server via a network;

a game content editing module for creating player-defined game content wherein the player-defined game content includes an identification tag that associates the player-defined game content with a player;

an upload module for uploading the player-defined game content to a game server for storage in a game content repository, wherein the game repository stores player-created and publisher-created game content;

a download module for downloading a local copy of game content from the game content repository on the game server; and

a content matching module for selecting publisher-defined content and player-defined content from the data repository; and

logic to integrate downloaded player-defined and publisher-defined content into a video game.