Advertising impression determination

• US 20070079331A1
• Filed: 09/30/2005
• Published: 04/05/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Zalewski, Gary, Datta, Glen
• Granted Patent: US 8,574,074 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/42
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/46 Computing the game score
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/50 Controlling the output signals based on the game progress
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/5258 by dynamically adapting the position of the virtual camera to keep a game object or game character in its viewing frustum, e.g. for tracking a character or a ball
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/61 using advertising information
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/803 Driving vehicles or craft, e.g. cars, airplanes, ships, robots or tanks
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/535 for monitoring, e.g. of user parameters, terminal parameters, application parameters, network parameters
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/5506 using advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/61 Score computation
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8017 Driving on land or water; Flying
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0244 Optimization
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0246 Traffic
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0257 User requested
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0276 Advertisement creation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25841 involving the geographical location of the client retrieval from the Internet by querying based on geographical locations G06F16/9537; arrangements for identifying locations of receiving stations in broadcast systems H04H60/51; location of the user terminal in data switching networks H04L67/52; services making use of the location of users or terminals in wireless networks H04W4/02; locating users or terminals in wireless networks H04W64/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 : involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47205 : for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4781 : Games
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47815 : Electronic shopping payment schemes, payment architectures or payment protocols for electronic shopping systems G06Q20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4825 : using a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlists
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 : involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 : involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8453 : by locking or enabling a set of features, e.g. optional functionalities in an executable program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8583 : by creating hot-spots
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/173 : with two-way working, e.g. subscriber sending a programme selection signal

Abstract

Systems and methods for defining and tracking advertising campaigns across a channel video game network are disclosed. The system allows advertisements to be dynamically activated in video games. Advertisements are tracked to determine user impressions and user exposure to the advertisement. In the system, an impression area is defined relative an advertisements in the game. Methods for redefining the impression area or for accounting for the existence of obstructions that distort the view of the advertisement are also provided

Claims

1. A method for establishing an impression area for an advertisement in a video game environment, comprising:

determining a first viewing angle relative the surface normal of the advertisement;

determining a second viewing angle relative the surface normal of the advertisement;

determining a maximum viewing distance from the advertisement, and

computing the impression area as the area between the first viewing angle and the second viewing angle, bounded by the maximum viewing distance.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first angle and the second angle are the same angle.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertisement comprises simulated printed media.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertisement comprises full motion video.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying an obstruction between a game character and the advertisement, the obstruction in the impression area,

determining and obstruction area based on the obstruction; and

redefining the impression area to exclude the obstruction area.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the obstruction comprises an object in the video game environment.

7. A method of determining the existence of an obstruction in an impression area, comprising:

sending an obstruction probe on a line-of-sight path between a game character controlled by a user and an advertisement; and

detecting the collision of the obstruction probe with one or more polygonal sides of at least one object on the line-of-sight.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the obstruction probe comprises a sphere.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising adjusting the radius of the sphere.

10. A method for verifying an advertising impression in a video game environment, comprising:

defining an impression area associated with an advertisement;

determining that a video game character is in the impression area; and

determining the video game character to have an at least partially unobstructed line-of-sight to the advertisement.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the line-of-sight of the video game character is a first-person point of view.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the line-of-sight of the video game character is a third-person point of view.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising calculating the amount of time the video game character is present in the impression area, the video game character having an unobstructed line-of-sight with the advertisement.

14. A system for verifying an advertising impression in a video game environment, comprising:

an advertising server configured to deliver advertising content to an end-user client device, the advertising content comprising metadata associated with defining an impression area; and

an end-user client device configured to process the metadata and render the advertising content in the video game environment, the end-user client device configured to determine when a video game character is present in the impression area as defined by the metadata.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the metadata further defines a time period the video game character must be present in the impression area to establish an advertising impression.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the end-user client device comprises an impression counter configured to determine the time period the video game character is present in the impression area.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the impression counter terminates determining the time period the video game character is present in the impression area when a line-of-sight of the video game character is obstructed by an object in the impression area.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the impression counter continues determining the time period the video game character is present in the impression area when the line-of-sight of the video game character is no longer obstructed by the object in the impression area.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the impression counter is reset when the line-of-sight of the video game character is no longer obstructed by the object in the impression area.

20. The system of claim 14, further comprising a payment processing center configured to process a payment when the video game character is present in the impression area.