Team matching

• US 7,846,024 B2
• Filed: 11/17/2006
• Issued: 12/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Graepel, Thore KH, Herbrich, Ralf
• Primary Examiner(s): Coburn; Corbett B
• Application Number:
  US11/561,374
• Publication Number:
  US 20070265718A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,481 Days
• Field of Search: 463/42, 700/91
• US Class Current: 463/42
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/32 for games, toys, sports, or amusements
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3276 wherein the players compete, e.g. tournament

Abstract

Players in a gaming environment, particularly, electronic on-line gaming environments, may be scored relative to each other or to a predetermined scoring system. The scoring of each player may be based on the outcomes of games between players who compete against each other in one or more teams of one or more players. Each player'"'"'s score may be represented as a distribution over potential scores which may indicate a confidence level in the distribution representing the player'"'"'s score. The score distribution for each player may be modeled with a Gaussian distribution and may be determined through a Bayesian inference algorithm. The scoring may be used to track a player'"'"'s progress and/or standing within the gaming environment, used in a leaderboard indication of rank, and/or may be used to match players with each other in a future game. The matching of one or more teams in a potential game may be evaluated using a match quality threshold which indicates a measure of expected match quality that can be related to the probability distribution over game outcomes.

Claims

1. A method performed by one or more computers comprising a processor and memory, the comprising:

maintaining a database of scores of players of one or more online games, each score of a player comprising a mean and a variance;

receiving a request to match two teams;

given a plurality of teams each comprised of some of the players in the database, retrieving from the database the scores of the players in each of the teams, and for each team, computing a team score based on the means and the variances of the players in the respective teams;

for a first team from among the teams, computing quality scores of the first team with respect to each of the other teams, respectively, where a quality score between the first team and any second team from among the other teams is computed based at least on the team score of the first team and the team score of the second team, wherein the quality score comprises a distribution function of probabilities of game outcomes if the first team and second team played the one or more online games;

determining a match quality threshold;

selecting the second team from among the plurality of teams based on a comparison of the quality scores and the match quality threshold; and

providing to the first team an indication of the selection of the second team.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining the team score of the first team including a team mean and a team variance from the player means and player variances of the players in the first team.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the quality score corresponding to the second team includes determining a probability of a draw between the first team and the second team.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein determining the probability of a draw includes removing a dependence of a fixed draw margin from the probability of a draw and the probability of a draw is based at least on a fixed latent score variation parameter.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein determining the match quality threshold includes determining a probability of a draw based at least on a score mean difference of approximately zero, a score variance of approximately 2 times an initialized value of variance, and the fixed latent score variation parameter.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein determining the match quality threshold includes determining probability of a draw based at least on a difference between the first mean and the second mean, a score variance of approximately zero, and the fixed latent score variation parameter.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein each team score comprises a corresponding mean and variance, and the second team is selected based on a range comparison of the means or the variances of the team scores of the first and second team.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the range comparison includes determining if the mean of the first team is less than a sum of the mean of the second team μ

_B and a square root of a logarithm of an inverse of the draw quality measure q* less the variance of the second team

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the range comparison includes determining if the mean of the first team is greater than a difference between the mean μ

_B of the second team and a square root of a logarithm of an inverse of the draw quality measure q* and the variance of the second team

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the range comparison includes determining if the variance σ

^A of the first team is less than a difference between an inverse of the draw quality measure q* and the variance of the second team

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a score estimate of at least one player of the first team based on a difference between the mean of the first team and a conservative level indicator multiplied by a square root of the variance of the first team.

12. One or more computer readable storage media including at least one computer storage media, the one or more computer readable media containing computer readable instructions that, when implemented, cause one or more computers to perform a method comprising:

receiving a first plurality of scores of a-players on a first team, each score in the first plurality including a mean and a variance corresponding to outcomes of prior electronic games the corresponding player on the first team participated in;

receiving a second plurality of scores of players on a second team, each score in the second plurality of scores including a mean and a variance corresponding to outcomes of prior electronic games the corresponding player on the second team participated in;

based on the first plurality of scores, computing a first team score comprised of a first team mean and a first team variance;

based on the second plurality of scores, computing a second team score comprised of a second team mean and a second team variance;

determining an expected score gap between the first team and the second team based at least in part on the first team score and the second team score, the expected score gap comprising a computed probable difference in respective scores if the first team were to play the second team;

matching the first team with the second team based on a comparison of the expected score gap and a match quality threshold; and

providing an indication of the match to the first team and/or the second team.

13. The computer readable storage media of claim 12, wherein determining the expected score gap includes calculating a difference between the first team score and the second team score.

14. The computer readable storage media of claim 13, wherein the match quality threshold is defined by user input.

15. The computer readable storage media of claim 12, wherein matching the first team with the second team includes determining the match quality threshold by determining a probability of a draw based at least on a score mean difference of approximately zero, a score variance of approximately 2 times an initialized value of variance, and a fixed latent score variation parameter.

16. The computer readable storage media of claim 12, wherein matching the first team with the second team includes determining the match quality threshold by determining a probability of a draw based at least on a difference between the first mean and the second mean, a score variance of approximately zero, and a fixed latent score variation parameter.

17. One or more computer readable storage media containing instructions that when executed by a computer perform a process comprising:

updating a first score of a first team and a second score of a second team based on an outcome of a game between the first team and the second team, the updating comprising updating scores of individual players on the first team and on the second team according to the outcome, computing the updated first score of the first team based on the updated individual scores of the players on the first team, and computing the updated second score of the second team based on the updated individual scores of the players on the second team, wherein each of the first score and the second score comprises a mean and a variance;

matching the first team with a third team based on the updated first score, a third score of the third team, and a match quality threshold, the third score based on individual scores of players on the third team; and

providing an indication of the match to the first team or the third team.

18. The computer readable storage media of claim 17, the process further comprising identifying the third team from a plurality of teams available for playing a game with the first team.

19. The computer readable storage media of claim 18, wherein the identifying includes filtering the plurality of teams based on a range check of the score of the third team.

20. The computer readable storage media of claim 17, wherein the matching includes determining a probability of an outcome of a game as a draw between the first team and the third team.