Methods and systems for monitoring a game to determine a player-exploitable game condition

• US 7,517,282 B1
• Filed: 08/04/2003
• Issued: 04/14/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Pryor, Leon
• Primary Examiner(s): Jones; Scott E
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shah; Milap
• Application Number:
  US10/633,816
• Time in Patent Office: 2,080 Days
• Field of Search: 463 23- 25, 463 29- 31, 463 40- 42
• US Class Current: 463/42
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/35 Details of game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/75 Enforcing rules, e.g. detecting foul play or generating lists of cheating players
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/535 for monitoring, e.g. of user parameters, terminal parameters, application parameters, network parameters
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/5586 for enforcing rights or rules, e.g. to prevent foul play
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/32 for games, toys, sports, or amusements
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3237 about the players, e.g. profiling, responsible gaming, strategy/behavior of players, location of players
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3241 Security aspects of a gaming system, e.g. detecting cheating, device integrity, surveillance computer security G06F21/00

Abstract

A player-exploitable game condition is monitored within a game. In certain versions, the play of certain players can be monitored, logged, and then examined. In one version, the monitoring includes comparing some quantifiable player activity against some threshold value. In one version, the monitoring is based on the rate at whish the player is acquiring virtual property.

Claims

1. A method implemented at a computing device, the method comprising:

monitoring, by a game server comprising the computing device, one or more players in a game executed at the game server;

determining, by the game server, based on the monitoring, one or more player-exploitable game conditions, the player-exploitable game conditions being programming conditions, situations, or aberrations produced within the game that give the one or more players an advantage against other players without the one or more players hacking the game, the determining comprising;

setting a threshold against which the play of the one or more players is compared, the threshold being modified in real time on basis of a rate at which the scores and virtual objects of the one or more players are acquired during the game;

triggering, by the game server, a player monitor for one or more potential cheating players whose rate of acquiring the scores and virtual objects is greater than the threshold, the player monitor logging game data about activities of the one or more potential cheating players in the game, the activities including locations, enemies injured or eliminated, or objects gained or traded for each of the one or more potential cheating players; and

determining the one or more potential cheating players are cheating in the game based at least in part on the logged game data, and in an event the one or more potential cheating players are cheating in the game;

identifying the player-exploitable game conditions of which the one or more potential cheating players are taking the advantage in the game.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring is automatic.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring checks for the one or more potential cheating players.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein a cheater detection portion performs the monitoring.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending a notice to the one or more potential cheating players.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising terminating the one or more potential cheating players'"'"' privileges for a prescribed duration.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending a notice to players other than the one or more potential cheating players describing the activities of the one or more potential cheating players.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein one of the player-exploitable game conditions includes positioning the players at some location other than a ground plane within a virtual scene.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein one of the player-exploitable game conditions includes rollover of one of the players'"'"' score.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein one of the player-exploitable game conditions includes rollover of one of the players'"'"' expense.

11. An apparatus implemented at least in part by a computing device comprising:

a processor;

one or more computer readable media; and

a computer program encoding a game including a cheater detection portion that identifies one or more player-exploitable game conditions and detects players who are exploiting at least one of said player-exploitable game conditions, the player-exploitable game conditions being programming conditions, situations, or aberrations produced within a game that give the players an advantage without the players hacking the game, the cheating detection portion comprising;

a player game scoring portion configured to keep a record of how well the players are performing in the game;

a player monitor portion configured to determine whether the players are likely to be cheating based on the record provided by the player game scoring portion, the determination being performed by comparing actual rate of acquiring scores by the players against a threshold;

a criteria based logging portion configured to log game data including scores and virtual objects of the potential players in the game over an extended duration, the game data being analyzed to identify the one or more player-exploitable game conditions in the game and detect the players who are exploiting the one or more player-exploitable game conditions; and

an alert portion configured to transmit alert messages reporting the one or more player-exploitable game conditions and players who are exploiting the one or more player-exploitable game conditions.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the cheater detection portion includes an asynchronous activity pump.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the cheater detection portion is included as a portion of a network.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the cheater detection portion is included as a portion of a stand-alone computer system.

15. A method implemented at a computing device, the method comprising:

setting a threshold for a game, wherein the threshold is set based on a rate at which virtual property is acquired and the threshold is configured to be modified in real time;

monitoring, from a game server comprising the computing device, a game play of a plurality of players for one or more player-exploitable game conditions, the one or more player-exploitable game conditions comprising one or more of a rollover situation and a dupping situation in which one or more cheating players take an unfair advantage by exploiting such situation without hacking the game, wherein;

the rollover situation happens in the game where numbers of digits for scoring, purchasing or other game activities are too low to describe all potential transactions; and

the dupping situation happens in the game where the one or more cheating players duplicate an item by exploiting buffer overrun code in a manner that causes the game server to crash and recover with user data reflecting game status of the one or more cheating players prior to the game server crash;

determining, from the game server, whether the threshold is exceeded for any of the players of the game;

logging the game play of the players whose play exceed the threshold to a computer storage media; and

identifying the one or more player-exploitable game conditions and the one or more cheating players who exploit the player-exploitable game conditions based at least in part on the logged play, whereby the cheating players are dealt with to prevent from further occurrence.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising changing the threshold when the game is being played.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the threshold is configured to be reset.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising punishing the one or more cheating players.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising modifying the game based on the one or more cheating players.

20. A computer readable medium having computer executable instructions that, when executed by a processor of the game server, cause the processor to perform:

monitoring, from a game server, one or more players in a game;

determining, from the game server, based on the monitoring, one or more player-exploitable game conditions, the player-exploitable game conditions being programming conditions situations, or aberrations produced within the game that give the one or more players an advantage against other players without the one or more players hacking the game, the determining comprising;

setting a threshold against which a game play of the one or more players is compared, the threshold being modified in real time on basis of a rate at which scores and virtual objects of the one or more players are acquired during the game;

triggering, from the game server, a player monitor for each of one or more potential cheating players whose rate of acquiring the scores and virtual objects is greater than the threshold, the player monitor logging game data about activities of the one or more potential cheating players in the game, the activities including locations enemies injured or eliminated, or objects gained or traded for each of the one or more potential cheating players; and

determining the one or more potential cheating players are cheating in the game based at least in part on the logged game data, and in an event the one or more potential cheating players are cheating in the game;

identifying the player-exploitable game conditions of which the one or more potential cheating player are taking the advantage in the game.

21. The computer readable medium having computer executable instructions of claim 20, wherein the determining the one or more potential cheating players are cheating is based in part on logging play of the one or more potential cheating players whose play exceeds the threshold.

22. The computer readable medium having computer executable instructions of claim 20, wherein the threshold is configured to be reset.

23. The computer readable medium having computer executable instructions of claim 20, wherein the computer executable instructions that, when executed by the processor of the game server, cause the processor to further perform punishing the one or more potential cheating players who are determined to be cheating in the game.

24. The computer readable medium having computer executable instructions of claim 20, wherein the computer executable instructions that, when executed by the processor of the game server, cause the processor to further perform modifying the game based on the one or more potential cheating players.