DYNAMIC ALLOCATION OF CONTEXTUAL ASSISTANCE DURING GAME PLAY

• US 20190232168A1
• Filed: 01/29/2018
• Published: 08/01/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Benedetto, Warren M., Noss, Landon
• Granted Patent: US 10,441,886 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/422 automatically for the purpose of assisting the player, e.g. automatic braking in a driving game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/5375 for graphically or textually suggesting an action, e.g. by displaying an arrow indicating a turn in a driving game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/67 adaptively or by learning from player actions, e.g. skill level adjustment or by storing successful combat sequences for re-use
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/798 for assessing skills or for ranking players, e.g. for generating a hall of fame computing the game score A63F13/46
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/85 Providing additional services to players
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/174 Facial expression recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/63 for estimating an emotional state

Abstract

The present disclosure describes methods and systems directed towards a dynamic allocation of contextual assistance during gameplay. By analyzing user gameplay and reactions of a user while the user is participating in a video game, appropriate gameplay assistance can be assigned. The different assistance information can be offered and/or provided to the user based on a current state of the user performance within the game. The system and methods allow for customization of what type of gameplay assistance can be provided to each user and when the assistance should be provided. In this way there is a balance between assisting the user to minimize the level of frustration and letting the user experience the video game to minimize spoilers.

Claims

1. A system for dynamic allocation of contextual assistance during gameplay, the system comprising:

a first party platform that obtains user data, the user data pertaining to user reactions within a video game, the user reactions indicative of a level of user frustration;

an assistance server that stores assistance information associated with the video game, wherein the assistance server transmits corresponding assistance information that assists the user to overcome a challenge within the video game; and

a performance server that;

monitors the user data to identify a level of frustration of the user within the video game,

compares the identified level of frustration against pre-determined thresholds associated with corresponding assistance information to be provided to the user,

instructs the assistance server to transmit assistance information based on the comparison between the identified level of frustration and the pre-determined thresholds,

monitors a first subsequent user data after the user receives the assistance information from the assistance server, the first subsequent user data indicating that the user has not overcome the event and includes an updated level of frustration,

instructs the assistance server to transmit assistance information based on the updated level of frustration,

monitors a second subsequent user data after the user receives the additional information from the assistance server, the second subsequent user data indicating that the user has overcome the event, and

modifies a user profile associated with the user, the user profile storing a general trend of the performance of the user that correspond to the pre-determined thresholds, wherein the modification modifies the general trend of the performance of the user based on the monitored first and second subsequent user data.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first party platform includes sensors used to collect biometric information from the user used to characterize the user reaction within the video game.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein biometric information collected by the sensor includes the heart rate of the user.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the first party platform also includes a microphone used to collect voice inputs from the user used to characterize the user reaction within the video game.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the voice inputs includes expletives.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein a frequency of detecting expletives is also detected using the microphone.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the first party platform includes a camera used to collect facial expressions from the user to characterize the user reaction within the video game.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the pre-determined thresholds are based on the video game.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the pre-determined thresholds are based on a current difficulty of the video game.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the pre-determined thresholds are based on normalized data from other users who played the same video game as the user.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the pre-determined thresholds are unique to a particular video game the user is participating in.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the pre-determined thresholds are unique to a particular genre of video game.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the pre-determine thresholds are unique to a particular user.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the general trend characterizes user data regarding a particular challenge over a period of time.

14-1. A method for dynamic allocation of contextual assistance during gameplay, the method comprising:

storing assistance information associated with the video game, wherein the assistance server transmits corresponding assistance information that assists the user to overcome a challenge within the video game;

monitoring the user data to identify a level of frustration of the user within the video game;

comparing the identified level of frustration against pre-determined thresholds associated with corresponding assistance information to be provided to the user;

instructing the assistance server to transmit assistance information based on the comparison between the identified level of frustration and the pre-determined thresholds;

monitoring a first subsequent user data after the user receives the assistance information from the assistance server, the first subsequent user data indicating that the user has not overcome the event and includes an updated level of frustration;

instructing the assistance server to transmit assistance information based on the updated level of frustration;

monitoring a second subsequent user data after the user receives the additional information from the assistance server, the second subsequent user data indicating that the user has overcome the event; and

modifying a user profile associated with the user, the user profile storing a general trend of the performance of the user that correspond to the pre-determined thresholds, wherein the modification modifies the general trend of the performance of the user based on the monitored first and second subsequent user data.