Dynamic spectator mode

• US 8,025,572 B2
• Filed: 11/21/2005
• Issued: 09/27/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Spanton, Brian, Babale, Bachir, Coliz, James
• Primary Examiner(s): Ahmed; Masud
• Application Number:
  US11/283,067
• Publication Number:
  US 20070117635A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,136 Days
• Field of Search: 463/31, 463 40- 42, 345/473, 345/752
• US Class Current: 463/42
• 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 13/352 involving special game server arrangements, e.g. regional servers connected to a national server or a plurality of servers managing partitions of the game world
• 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 13/86 Watching games played by other players
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/409 Data transfer via television network
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/577 for watching a game played by other players

Abstract

Methods and systems for broadcasting game sessions to be viewable by spectators are disclosed. After receiving game information from game participant clients, the title server determines whether the broadcast the game session to spectators, analyzes and repackages the received telemetry data, optionally embedding additional data, and rebroadcasts the repackaged telemetry as a spectator feed to non-participant spectator client devices for viewing by users of the spectator client devices. Embedded data may include commentary data, a director'"'"'s cut specifying camera information, instructional data, etc. Each spectator client device can analyze and manipulate the received telemetry data using a copy of the video game executing on the spectator client device, or may simply playback the feed when the feed includes a complete audiovisual file. Spectator clients may submit feedback to the participant clients through the title server.

Claims

1. One or more tangible computer readable media having tangible physical structure storing computer executable instructions for performing a method to enhance an intra-game spectator feed of a first multiplayer game session played over a computer network during the game play, prior to broadcast of the spectator feed to one or more spectator clients connected to the computer network, said method comprising:

receiving game telemetry data generated by a plurality of participant clients of the first multiplayer game session from the plurality of participant clients, at a broadcast service server;

providing, by a filter server, a preview of the spectator feed, the preview being based at least on the game telemetry data from the plurality of participant clients and being provided to a commentator for an analysis of the preview, wherein the analysis includes audio commentary and spectator instruction by the commentator;

receiving, at the filter server, the analysis of the preview including the audio commentary and the spectator instruction; and

embedding, at the filter server, data in the spectator feed during the game play prior to sending the spectator feed to one or more spectator clients, wherein the data is based at least on the analysis of the game telemetry data and includes audio commentary data and spectator instruction data embedded in the spectator feed subsequent to the receivings.

2. The tangible computer readable media of claim 1, wherein the analysis of the game telemetry data comprises specifying camera data to view events occurring over time in the multiplayer game session, and wherein the embedding comprises embedding an indication of each specified camera data in the spectator feed.

3. The tangible computer readable media of claim 1, wherein the analysis of the game telemetry data comprises determining a type of the spectator feed from a plurality of predetermined types, and wherein the embedding comprises embedding the type in the spectator feed.

4. The tangible computer readable media of claim 3, wherein each type corresponds to a channel on which the spectator feed is listed by each spectator client.

5. The tangible computer readable media of claim 3, wherein the type indicates that a first participant player in the first multiplayer game session has a player rank meeting a predetermined minimum player rank.

6. The tangible computer readable media of claim 3, wherein the type indicates that a first group of participant players in the first multiplayer game session has a group rank meeting a predetermined minimum group rank.

7. The tangible computer readable media of claim 3, wherein the type indicates that the first multiplayer game session is part of an online tournament.

8. The tangible computer readable media of claim 3, wherein the type indicates that the first multiplayer game session is specifically targeted for viewing by others to learn one or more game play aspects of a video game title to which the first multiplayer game session corresponds.

9. The tangible computer readable media of claim 1, wherein the providing the preview of the spectator feed to the commentator includes saving the game play, at least momentarily, just before and/or while the commentator is adding commentary.

15. One or more tangible computer readable media as recited in claim 1, said method further comprising:

selecting the spectator feed of a first multiplayer game session to be broadcast when one or more first predetermined conditions are met;

determining whether enough Player by Spectator (PxS) bandwidth is available for broadcasting an additional spectator feed, wherein PxS bandwidth represents the bandwidth for the number of players multiplied by the number of spectators;

selecting, based on the determining, the additional spectator feed from the plurality of multiplayer game sessions to be broadcast when one or more second predetermined conditions are met.

16. The tangible computer readable media of claim 15, wherein the one or more second predetermined conditions comprises analyzing user-setting data corresponding to the additional multiplayer game session to confirm a decision by the participant players of the additional multiplayer game session to allow the spectator feed to be broadcast.

17. The tangible computer readable media of claim 15, wherein the one or more predetermined first conditions comprises determining that the first multiplayer game session corresponds to an official tournament for a video game title to which the first multiplayer game session corresponds.

18. The tangible computer readable media of claim 15, wherein the one or more first and second predetermined conditions comprises determining whether any participant players of the multiplayer game session have a ranking above a predetermined minimum player rank.

19. The tangible computer readable media of claim 18, wherein the predetermined minimum player rank is a selected percentile rank of all players who have played a same game title within a predetermined historical period of time.

20. The tangible computer readable media of claim 15, wherein the one or more predetermined first and second conditions comprises determining whether any group of participant players of the multiplayer game session has a group rank above a predetermined minimum group rank.

21. The tangible computer readable media of claim 15, wherein the one or more predetermined conditions comprises determining that a broadcast guarantee corresponding to the first multiplayer game session has been obtained.

22. The tangible computer readable media of claim 1, wherein:

the analysis of the game telemetry data is performed at a filter server and comprises;

specifying camera data to view events occurring over time in the multiplayer game session;

providing instructional information of the events occurring over time in the multiplayer game session;

determining a type of the spectator feed from a plurality of predetermined types of spectator feeds; and

the embedding includes;

embedding the audio commentary provided by the commentator in the spectator feed;

embedding an indication of each specified camera data in the spectator feed;

embedding instructional data provided by the commentator in the spectator feed; and

embedding the type of the spectator feed in the spectator feed.

10. One or more tangible computer readable media having tangible physical structure storing computer executable instructions for performing a method to provide intra-game feedback during game play to one or more participant clients of a multiplayer game session played over a computer network, said method comprising:

receiving game telemetry data generated by at least one of the one or more participant clients of the multiplayer game session from the at least one of the one or more participant clients, at a broadcast service server;

providing, by a filter server, a preview of the spectator feed, the preview being based at least on the game telemetry data from the at least one of the one or more participant clients and being provided to a commentator for an analysis of the preview, wherein the analysis includes audio commentary and spectator instruction by the commentator;

receiving, at the filter server, the analysis of the preview including the audio commentary and the spectator instruction;

embedding, at the filter server, during the game play, data in the spectator feed prior to sending the spectator feed to one or more spectator clients, wherein the data is based at least on the analysis of the game telemetry data and includes audio commentary data and spectator instruction data embedded in the spectator feed subsequent to the receiving the game telemetry data and the analysis;

broadcasting the spectator feed corresponding to the multiplayer game session to the one or more spectator clients not a part of the multiplayer game session;

receiving feedback from a spectator client at a feedback server;

receiving feedback from a participant client that is part of the multiplayer game session at the feedback server; and

providing feedback data to the one or more participant clients aggregated from the feedback from the spectator client and the participant client for the participant clients to be used during the multiplayer game session.

11. The tangible computer readable media of claim 10, wherein the providing the preview of the spectator feed to the commentator includes saving the game telemetry data, at least momentarily, just before and/or while the commentator is adding commentary.

12. The tangible computer readable media of claim 10, wherein a delay is inserted in said spectator feed to prevent cheating.

13. The tangible computer readable media of claim 10, wherein said feedback data indicates a number of spectator clients receiving the spectator feed.

14. The tangible computer readable media of claim 10, wherein said feedback data comprises an indication of respect from one or more spectator clients.