Gaming application state transfer amongst user profiles

• US 9,095,779 B2
• Filed: 05/01/2014
• Issued: 08/04/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/21/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Razer (Asia-Pacific) Pte. Ltd. (Razer Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Nextbit Systems, Inc. (Razer Incorporated)
• Inventors: Chan, Michael A., Bornstein, Daniel R., Tong, Linda
• Primary Examiner(s): SALAD, ABDULLAHI ELMI
• Application Number:
  US14/267,823
• Publication Number:
  US 20140287827A1
• Time in Patent Office: 460 Days
• Field of Search: 709204-205, 709227-228, 709/203, 463/24, 463/29, 345/213
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/493 Resuming a game, e.g. after pausing, malfunction or power failure
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/73 Authorising game programs or game devices, e.g. checking authenticity
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/79 involving player-related data, e.g. identities, accounts, preferences or play histories
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

At least one embodiment of this disclosure includes a method of sharing application states across different user profiles. The method can include: receiving a request from a first computing device associated with a first user profile to load an application state of a game application, wherein the application state is owned by a second user profile; verifying permission for the first user profile to load the application state owned by the second user profile; configuring a sharing instance of the application state of the game application by accessing gameplay state data of the application state associated with the second user profile in a storage service; and sending the sharing instance to be loaded onto the first computing device.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of operating an application state broker system to facilitate gaming application state sharing between at least a first user profile and a second user profile, comprising:

receiving gameplay state data associated with a time point and a first instance of a game application installed on a first computing device, wherein the gameplay data, when loaded in another device other than the first computing device, enables the other device to configure another instance of the game application as if the first instance of the game application that was running at the time point is continuing to run on the other device without any appearance of time lapse within a user environment provided by the target application, wherein the gameplay state data is associated with the first user profile and wherein the gameplay state data includes permission setting data associated with application gameplay state sharing;

generating an application gameplay state of the game application to store in a storage service based on the received gameplay state data;

authenticating a login from the second user profile operating from a second computing device;

receiving a request from the second computing device to load the application gameplay state of the game application, wherein the application gameplay state is owned by the first user profile according to the storage service;

verifying permission for the second user profile to load the application gameplay state owned by the first user profile against the permission settings associated with the application gameplay state;

configuring a sharing instance of the application gameplay state of the game application by accessing the gameplay state data of the application gameplay state associated with the first user profile in the storage service; and

sending the sharing instance to the second computing device to be loaded onto the second computing device.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein receiving the gameplay state data and generating the application gameplay state are based on an application gameplay state synchronization process to backup application gameplay states for the first user profile, wherein the application gameplay state synchronization process is independent of the request from the second computing device to load the application gameplay state.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein configuring the sharing instance includes transforming the gameplay state data to be compatible with a destination operating system of the second computing device associated with the second user profile, the destination operating system being a different operating system or a different operating system version from a source operating system running on the first computing device.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to receiving the request, determining that the game application is not installed on the second computing device; and

providing the game application or a link to the game application to the second computing device.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising authenticating the first user profile operating from a first computing device prior to receiving the gameplay state data associated with the game application.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

prior to configuring the sharing instance, determining whether the application gameplay state stored in the storage service is up-to-date;

requesting additional gameplay state data from the first computing device in response to determining that the application gameplay state in the storage service is not up-to-date; and

in response to receiving the additional gameplay state data, updating the application gameplay state of the game application based on the received additional gameplay state data before configuring the sharing instance that is to be loaded onto the second computing device.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

after sending the sharing instance, receiving new gameplay state data from the second computing device with updates to the application gameplay state of the game application; and

updating the application gameplay state associated with the first user profile in the storage service with the new gameplay state data from the second computing device.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

after sending the sharing instance, receiving new gameplay state data from the second computing device with updates to the application gameplay state of the game application; and

generating another application gameplay state for the game application to store in the storage service based on the received gameplay state data, wherein the other application gameplay state is associated with the second user profile.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the other application gameplay state is generated such that the other application gameplay state is also associated with the first user profile in the storage service.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein configuring the sharing instance of the application gameplay state includes configuring whether the sharing instance is sharable to a third computing device.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein configuring the sharing instance of the application gameplay state includes configuring whether new gameplay state data, generated after executing the sharing instance of the game application in the second computing device, is to re-integrate into the application gameplay state associated with the first user profile in the storage service.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein configuring the sharing instance of the application gameplay state includes configuring whether new gameplay state data, generated after executing the sharing instance of the game application in the second computing device, is to synchronize with a new application gameplay state, in the storage service, associated with the second user profile.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein configuring the sharing instance of the application gameplay state includes configuring the sharing instance as a session-only instance of the game application that expires in accordance with a schedule.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein configuring the sharing instance of the application gameplay state includes configuring the sharing instance as a session-only instance of the game application that expires when a condition is met while executing the session-only instance.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the storage service is implemented by one or more data storage devices directly accessible to the application state broker system, by a cloud-based storage service, or by a peer-to-peer storage service.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein receiving the gameplay state data includes receiving the gameplay state data that represents a differential update from a previously received gameplay state data of the game application stored in the storage service.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising receiving a link or a data stream to download the game application in response to requesting the application gameplay state, wherein requesting the application gameplay state of the game application occurs when the game application has not been installed on an operating system of the first computing device.

24. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising backing up the existing instance of the application gameplay state of the game application executing on the first computing device prior to configuring the game application with the sharing instance.

25. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein the sharing instance is configured as a session-only instance that expires in accordance with a schedule or a condition;

further comprising loading the backed up, existing instance of the application gameplay state on the operating system of the first computing device after the sharing instance expires.

26. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising synchronizing changes to the application gameplay state of the configured game application executing on the first computing device back to the application state broker device.

27. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein configuring the game application includes sending the sharing instance of the application gameplay state to the game application while the game application is executing on the first computing device or simultaneous to initiating the game application to execute on the first computing device;

and wherein configuring the game application is further based on logical instructions according to the game application.

28. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving a command, from the application state broker device, to pause or terminate the game application executing the application gameplay state associated with the foreign user profile; and

pausing or terminating the game application on the operating system of the first computing device.

17. A computer-implemented method of operating a first computing device, comprising:

providing authentication information to an application state broker device to verify a first user profile operating from the first computing device;

requesting an application gameplay state, associated with a foreign user profile different from the first user profile, of a game application from the application state broker device that maintains and stores one or more application gameplay states associated with one or more user profiles;

in response to requesting the application gameplay state of the game application, receiving a sharing instance of the application gameplay state from the application state broker device, the sharing instance configured with limited permission to load the application gameplay state in the first computing device for execution;

configuring the game application with the sharing instance of the application gameplay state to execute the game application on an operating system of the first computing device, wherein configuring the game application includes, while initiating the configuring, determining whether to backup an existing instance of the game application installed in the first computing device; and

executing the configured game application on the operating system of the first computing device.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, further comprising pausing or terminating the game application on the first computing device prior to configuring the game application, wherein requesting the application gameplay state of the game application from the application state broker device occurs when the game application is executing on the first computing device.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein configuring the game application includes initializing the game application with the sharing instance of the application gameplay state after the game application is paused or terminated.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein configuring the game application includes modifying a portion of memory, allotted for the game application, of the first computing device after the game application is paused or terminated.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein configuring the game application includes merging the sharing instance with the existing instance already executing on the first computing device by:

segmenting the application gameplay state into functional portions; and

assigning a first functional portion to load from the sharing instance and a second functional portion to load from the existing instance.

22. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, wherein the functional portions includes game progress data, game control configuration, multimedia output configuration including display configuration and speaker configuration, network configuration, virtual character attribute data, virtual property data, virtual finance accounting data, application memory data, application local storage data, hardware configuration data, user account configuration data, or any combination thereof.

29. A computer server system comprising:

a memory storing executable instructions implementing an application state broker agent to facilitate application state sharing between at least a first user profile and a second user profile;

a processor configured by the executable instructions to;

receive gameplay state data associated with a game application installed on a first computing device, wherein the gameplay state data is associated with the first user profile and wherein the gameplay state data includes permission setting data associated with application state sharing;

generate an application gameplay state of the game application to store in a storage service based on the received gameplay state data;

authenticate a login from the second user profile operating from a second computing device;

receive a request from the second computing device to load the application gameplay state of the game application, wherein the application gameplay state is owned by the first user profile according to the storage service;

verify permission for the second user profile to load the application gameplay state owned by the first user profile against the permission settings associated with the application gameplay state;

configure a sharing instance of the application gameplay state of the game application by accessing the gameplay state data of the application gameplay state associated with the first user profile in the storage service; and

send the sharing instance to the second computing device to be loaded onto the second computing device.

30. A computing device comprising:

a memory storing executable instructions implementing an application state broker agent to facilitate application state sharing between at least a first user profile and a second user profile;

a processor configured by the executable instructions to;

identify gameplay state data associated with a game application in the memory, wherein the gameplay state data is associated with the first user profile;

generate an application gameplay state of the game application based on the identified gameplay state data;

authenticate a login from the second user profile operating from an external computing device;

receive a request from the external computing device to load the application gameplay state of the game application;

verify permission for the second user profile to load the application gameplay state owned by the first user profile against permission settings configured by the first user profile and associated with the application gameplay state;

configure a sharing instance of the application gameplay state of the game application by accessing the gameplay state data of the application gameplay state associated with the first user profile; and

send the sharing instance to the external computing device to be loaded onto the external computing device.