WO2005104418A2

WO2005104418A2 - A multi-user gaming system

Info

Publication number: WO2005104418A2
Application number: PCT/IB2004/001662
Authority: WO
Inventors: Reza Serafat; Thomas Schetelig; Andree Ross; Klaus Rateitschek; Peter Weingart; Jari Saarhelo; Sawako-Eeva Hayashi; Wolfgang Theimer
Original assignee: Nokia Corporation
Priority date: 2004-04-21
Filing date: 2004-04-21
Publication date: 2005-11-03

Description

TITLE

A multi-user gaming system

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the invention relate to a multi-user gaming system. In particular embodiments relate to a multi-user gaming system in which a primary player directly participates in and influences a game and a plurality of secondary players observe and indirectly influence the game.

BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION

There is a current trend in television show towards the involvement of the audience. Listeners to a radio show are encouraged to send emails with song requests and viewers of new programs are encouraged to vote using SMS messages on current news items. Television game shows such as 'Big Brother' rely upon the viewing audience voting to evict participants in the game and to select a winner. There is therefore a general trend in the media industry towards audience participation.

It would be desirable to extend the concept of audience participation into the gaming industry.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to one embodiment of the invention there is provided a multi-user gaming system in which a primary player directly participates in and influences a game and a plurality of secondary players observe and indirectly influence the game, comprising: a game server for enabling the participation of the one or more remote primary players in a game via a telecommunications network, wherein each primary player can directly influence the game, and for enabling each of a plurality of secondary players to observe the game and to indirectly influence the game via the telecommunications network; and an interface for connecting the game server to the telecommunications network.

According to another embodiment of the invention there is provided a method of providing a multi-user game, comprising: initializing the game by selecting one or more remote primary players for participation in the game; starting the game; enabling the participation of the one or more remote primary players in the game via a telecommunications network, wherein each primary player can directly influence the game; enabling each of a plurality of secondary players to observe the game and to indirectly influence the game via the telecommunications network; and ending the game.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the present invention reference will now be made by way of example only to the accompanying drawings in which: Fig. 1 schematically illustrates a multi-user gaming system 10 in which primary players 2A, 2B directly participate in and influences a game and a plurality of secondary players 4A, 4B, 4C observe and indirectly influence the game; and Fig. 2 illustrates a process that determines if a message received at the game server is from an authorized source, and if it is, whether it is from a primary player or a secondary player.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENT(S) OF THE INVENTION

Fig. 1 schematically illustrates a multi-user gaming system 10 in which primary players 2A, 2B directly participate in and influences a game and a plurality of secondary players 4A, 4B, 4C observe and indirectly influence the game, comprising: a game server 20 for enabling the participation of the one or more remote primary players 2A, 2B in a game via a telecommunications network 100, wherein each primary player 2A, 2B can directly influence the game, and for enabling each of a plurality of secondary players 4A, 4B, 4C to observe the game and to indirectly influence the game via the telecommunications network 100; and an interface 40 for connecting the game server 20 to the telecommunications network 100.

In more detail, Fig. 1 illustrates a multi-user gaming system 10 in which primary players 2A, 2B directly participate in and influence a game and secondary players 4A, 4B, 4C observe and indirectly influence the game.

The system 10 comprises: a game server 20; and an interface 40 for connecting the game server to a telecommunications network 100.

In this example, the telecommunications network 100 is a cellular radio telephone network. Each primary and secondary player uses a mobile cellular communications terminal 102, such as a mobile cellular telephone, to communicate in the telecommunications network 100. Each terminal 102 communicates via a radio interface 104 to a base station 106. Each base station services a cell 108 of the network and is connected to a switching centre 106. The terminals 102, base stations 104 and switching, centre 106 are part of a cellular communications network that may have been designed for mobile telephony but which is also suitable for mobile remote gaming. The switching centre 106 is connected to the gaming server 20 via the interface 40.

The game server 20 comprises: a processor 22; a memory 24 for storing a number of different databases; and an input/output interface 26 to the interface 40 to the telecommunications network 100. The processor is connected to provide signal to and receive signals from the I/O interface 26 and to read from and write to the memory 24. The game server 20 may be a computer. The memory 24 may comprise one or more of the following databases: a membership database 31 ; an influence database 32; a secondary player database for each game 33; and a primary player database for each game 34.

The membership database 31 stores the membership details for a gaming community. A person may, for example, become a member of the community by registering their details on the database by using their terminal 102 to access the game server 20 via the telecommunications network 100. A subscription may be payable by each member. A pre-requisite for a person becoming a primary or secondary player in a game is that the person should be a member of the gaming community. When a person becomes a member they are given or specify a unique alias identifier that is associated in the membership database 31 with their terminal address in the telecommunications network 100 e.g. the mobile telephone number for contacting that person's terminal 102 via the telecommunications network 100.

The influence database 32 maintains a record of the indirect influences a person has on a game when playing as a secondary player. Each time a secondary player influences a game, he will typically send a message from his terminal 102 to the game server 20 via the telecommunications network 100. A charge will be made by the telecommunications provider and a proportion of this may be paid to the owner of the gaming server 20. When a message is received at the I/O interface 26 of the gaming server 20, the originating telephone number of the message is identified. This is converted to an alias identifier using the membership database 31. A record is then made in association with that alias identifier in the influence database 32. The influence database 32 thus stores a record, for each member of the gaming community, of the extent to which that member has influenced the present and previous games.

The game server 20 may host a number of games simultaneously. For each game, there is typically a secondary player database 33 and a primary player database 34. The secondary player database 33 stores the alias identifiers of those persons authorized to participate in a game as secondary players. The primary player database 34 stores the alias identifiers of those persons authorized to participate in a game as primary players.

A charge may be made to a person when they are entered into the primary player database 34 and/or the secondary player database 33.

Although the above databases 31 , 32, 33, 34 have been described as separate databases they may be combined into one or more databases.

The input/output interface 26 receives messages sent from the terminals 102 via the telecommunications network 100 and sends messages to the terminals 102 via the telecommunications network 100.

The process that occurs at the processor 22, when a message is received at the I/O interface 26 is illustrated in Fig. 2. This process determines if the message is from an authorized source, and if it is whether it is from a primary player or a secondary player.

A message is received at step 70. At step 72, the telephone number of the originator of the message is extracted from the received message. At step 74, it is verified that the message has been sent by accessing the Membership database 31 and determining whether there is an entry corresponding to the extracted telephone number. If there is an entry, the alias identifier for that entry is returned.

At step 76, it is determined whether or not the message originated from a primary player of the game. The primary player database 34 is accessed using the obtained alias identifier. If there is a corresponding entry in the database, the process moves to step 80 and if there is not the process moves to step 78. At step 78, it is determined whether or not the message originated from a secondary player of the game. The secondary player database 33 is accessed using the obtained alias identifier. If there is a corresponding entry in the database, the process moves to step 90 and if there is not the process returns to step 70. This rejects the received message.

At step 80, the message from the primary player is interprete depending upon context. It will typically be a command relating to an action the primary player is taking in the game. This effect of this command will depend upon the nature of the game being played. It may, for example, control the movement of a gaming figure, it may select one of multiple options and it may include a text message. Thus the primary player can directly influence the game.

At step 90, the message from the secondary player is interpreted depending upon context. It may be a command for indirectly influencing the game e.g. changing the environment in which a game is played by, for example, changing the attributes of the roles in the game or the surroundings in which the game is played. It may be a vote, for selecting a winner of the game or it may be a message for a primary player. Thus the secondary player can indirectly influence the game.

The message sent by the secondary player allows direct communication from a secondary player to a primary player. The secondary player includes in the content of the message the alias identifier of the primary player to whom the message is intended. The message is then sent to the game server 20. The game server 20 parses the received message at step 80 to identify an alias identifier of a primary player. The game server then creates an outgoing message including the content of the received text message and sends it to the terminal 102 of the identified primary player. The required telephone number is obtained from the membership database 31 using the alias identifier. The message is typically a question which the primary player may answer. The primary player receives, at his terminal 102 , the message containing the question and may chooses to answer by sending a message in reply. When the game server 20 receives the reply message, at step 80 it stores the reply as well as the original question in an Internet server 42 . The internet server is accessible via WAP or HTML enabled terminals 102 via the telecommunications network 100. The Internet server 42 associates with each primary player the questions posed for which replies are received, and the replies. Members of the gaming community may access the Internet server via the Internet and read a history of questions and replies for each primary player. This may allow the secondary players to form a view of each primary player and make a vote for a winner. Thus the message sent by a secondary player may indirectly influence the game. The questions and replies may be moderated before posting on the Internet server 42.

The messages sent from the secondary players to the primary players and the messages sent in reply may be text messages like SMS,MMS, Email, but can also be voice messages such as, for example, voice messages placed by a phone call.

The internet server 42 may make use of media streaming technologies like DVB- T (Terrestrial Digital Video Broadcasting) for broadcasting the collected information to secondary players or even third parties who are observing the game but have not yet joined the game as secondary players.

Furthermore, although the game server 20 and internet server 42 are illustrated as separate components in Fig 1 , they may be integrated in a single component.

The game server 20 initializes a game by selecting one or more remote primary players 2A, 2B for participation in the game from a population of potential players. Typically, persons need to qualify for selection for example via auditions for gamesmanship and/or taking into account their participation in the gaming community. For example, selection may be dependent upon whether and /or to what the extent that person has previously indirectly influenced prior games as a secondary player. This influence is recorded in the influence database 32. Points may be allocated to a person in dependence upon their entries in the influence database according to an algorithm running on the processor 22. If the cumulative points total for a person exceeds a minimum threshold they may be eligible for selection, alternatively those with the highest points total may be automatically selected. The processor 22 may publish the cumulative point scores of members of the gaming community or their rankings on the Internet server 42 for viewing by the members of the gaming community.

The selection process may also involve an interrogation of a member's terminal 102 to check its functionality is suitable for participation in the game. For example, a minimum amount of processing power, memory, screen size may be required or the terminal may need a digital camera Once the primary player has been selected a legal agreement may be sent to the person's terminal for execution and return.

It should be appreciated that the present invention has application for many different types of games including role-play games, quiz games, strategy games and video games. It is particularly suitable for games that involve a plurality of non-physical game play roles where each of the primary players is associated with a game play role. In this example, each primary player provides commands via the telecommunications network 100 to control the actions of their role, which is typically represented as a character on a display.

Although embodiments of the present invention have been described in the preceding paragraphs with reference to various examples, it should be appreciated that modifications to the examples given can be made without departing frorn the scope of the invention.

I/we claim:

Claims

1. A multi-user gaming system in which a primary player directly participates in and influences a game and a plurality of secondary players observe and indirectly influence the game, comprising: a game server for enabling the participation of the one or more remote primary players in a game via a telecommunications network, wherein each primary player can directly influence the game, and for enabling each of a plurality of secondary players to observe the game and to indirectly influence the game via the telecommunications network; and an interface for connecting the game server to the telecommunications network.

2. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the game server is additionally operable to initialize the game by enabling selection of the one or more remote primary players for participation in the game from a population of potential players.

3. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in claim 2, wherein whether or not a person is selectable as a remote primary player is dependent upon whether and

/or to what the extent that person has previously indirectly influenced prior games as a secondary player.

4. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in claim 2, wherein the population of potential players comprises persons who have previously exerted at least a minimum amount of indirect influence on prior games.

5. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in any preceding claim, further comprising a memory for recording when a person indirectly influences the game as a secondary player.

6. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in any preceding claim, further comprising: means for allocating points to a secondary player when the secondary player influences the game; and means for determining a person's cumulative points to determine their eligibility to be a primary player.

7. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the gaming server includes a membership database that records the members of a gaming community, and wherein the primary and secondary players are members of the gaming community.

8. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the gaming server is operable to receive and process a message sent by anyone of the secondary players.

9. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in claim 8, wherein the gaming server is operable to provide a received message to a designated primary player for reply.

10. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the message is a question addressed to one or more primary players for public reply.

11. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in claim 10 , further comprising a database for storing, in association, the questions posed, for which replies are received, the replies and an indication of the primary player from which the reply was received.

12. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in claim 8, wherein the gaming server is operable to process a received message as a vote.

13. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the game involves a plurality of non-physical game play roles wherein each of the primary players is associated with a game play role.

14. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in claim 13 wherein each primary player provides commands via the telecommunications network to control the actions of their role.

15. A multi-user gaming system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the telecommunications network is a cellular radio communications network.

16. A method of providing a multi-user game, comprising:

initializing the game by selecting one or more remote primary players for participation in the game;

starting the game;

enabling the participation of the one or more remote primary players in the game via a telecommunications network, wherein each primary player can directly influence the game;

enabling each of a plurality of secondary players to observe the game and to indirectly influence the game via the telecommunications network; and

ending the game.