Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/40—Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/47—End-user applications
  • H04N21/478—Supplemental services, e.g. displaying phone caller identification, shopping application
  • H04N21/4781—Games
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F13/00—Video games, i.e. games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions
  • A63F13/30—Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers
  • A63F13/33—Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers using wide area network [WAN] connections
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F13/00—Video games, i.e. games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions
  • A63F13/30—Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers
  • A63F13/35—Details of game servers
  • A63F13/352—Details of game servers 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
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F13/00—Video games, i.e. games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions
  • A63F13/70—Game security or game management aspects
  • A63F13/79—Game security or game management aspects involving player-related data, e.g. identities, accounts, preferences or play histories
  • A63F13/795—Game security or game management aspects involving player-related data, e.g. identities, accounts, preferences or play histories for finding other players; for building a team; for providing a buddy list
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F13/00—Video games, i.e. games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions
  • A63F13/85—Providing additional services to players
  • A63F13/87—Communicating with other players during game play, e.g. by e-mail or chat
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
  • H04L12/02—Details
  • H04L12/16—Arrangements for providing special services to substations
  • H04L12/18—Arrangements for providing special services to substations for broadcast or conference, e.g. multicast
  • H04L12/1813—Arrangements for providing special services to substations for broadcast or conference, e.g. multicast for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms
  • H04L12/1818—Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties

Definitions

• the present application relates to online gaming environments, and more specifically, to party rooms or chat rooms used while playing games.
• Party rooms are online chat environments where gamers may voice chat, text chat, video chat, etc., while playing games or online games, during a game or during a break in a game.
• One of the problems with party rooms is that they are transitory and do not persist from session to session.
• party rooms must be recreated anew by the user whenever everyone leaves a room and when anyone wants. to return to that party room or join a new one. This approach may be inefficient from an end-user point of view.
• Implementations of the present application provide for persistent party rooms that are persistent and that can be bookmarked and returned.
• a method for using persistent party rooms including: initializing, via a computing device, a global array according to a hierarchical server architecture; determining, via the computing device, whether or not to create a new persistent party room or to join a previously bookmarked persistent party room; creating, via the computing device, the new persistent party room within a position indexed in the global array; and joining, via the computing device, the previously bookmarked persistent party room by searching for the previously bookmarked party room utilizing the global array.
• a non- transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program, the computer program including executable instructions that cause a computer to perform a method for using persistent party rooms, the method including:
• a system of using persistent party rooms including: at least one computer system including persistent party room software; at least one server storing persistent party room
• FIG. 1 illustrates a screen shot of an example
• FIG. 2 illustrates a server architecture in accordance with an implementation of the present application.
• FIG. 3 illustrates a flowchart showing a method for creating and joining persistent party rooms in accordance with an implementation of the present application.
• FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart showing an
• FIG. 5 illustrates a flowchart showing a method to create a new persistent party room in accordance with an embodiment of the present application.
• FIG. 6 illustrates a flowchart showing a method that occurs for a first route when a bookmarked room is joined, in accordance with an implementation of the present
• FIG. 7 illustrates a flowchart showing a method that occurs for a second route when a bookmarked room is joined, in accordance with an implementation of the present
• FIG. 8 illustrates a flowchart showing a method that occurs for a third route when a bookmarked room is joined, in accordance with an implementation of the present
• FIG. 9A illustrates a representation of a computer system and a user in accordance with an implementation of the present application.
• FIG. 9B is a functional block diagram illustrating the computer system hosting a logger in accordance with an implementation of the present application.
• a persistent party room is a pseudo-permanent party room that may appear to the user as a permanent party room but may be destroyed and then created when any user returns to the party room, which can be bookmarked.
• the party room is used to keep friends or online players together while they jump from game to game and still engage in voice chat, text chat, video chat, etc., even if they are playing different titles.
• friends may bookmark or save a party room in order to easily join the same party room again at a later time.
• a bookmarked persistent party room is a central place friends coordinate to go when they are in the mood to play games with one another. For instance, a bookmarked
• persistent party room could be named "FPS" for friends of a user who like to play First Person Shooters, or a room called “Racing” for friends who like to play racing games.
• a user can then join any of the persistent party rooms depending on which game the user wishes to play, the user's mood, or which persistent party room may have more or less people in it.
• the backend of software used to administer persistent party rooms stores an associated unique ID of the persistent party room. When a user wishes to join a persistent party room, the system searches to determine if a bookmark of the associated unique ID exists. If a
• a party room implementation allows a user to create one party room which friends can then be invited to join or be allowed to join, usually via some search.
• the persistent party room as disclosed by the present application solves this inefficiency problem by bookmarking or saving a persistent party room via an associated unique ID so that it can be quickly referenced or used at a later time. Users may be able to create different types of
• persistent party rooms centering around different types of activities with their friends. Additionally, if friends are having a good time in a persistent party room, they can choose to bookmark the persistent party room and coordinate their activity so that all or some of their friends join them in the same persistent party room the next time they are available to play. The scheduling of games is further made convenient by using a joined game acknowledgment
• persistent party room software may be stored and executed by a computer system to create persistent party rooms where users can group together to play games, text chat, voice chat, video chat, etc.
• the computer system may be a next generation game console such as consoles from, for example, Sony Playstation ® .
• FIG. 1 illustrates a screen shot of an example
• Persistent party room 100 includes current persistent party room toolbar 102,
• persistent party room chat box 104 current member list 106, persistent party room list 108, user chat GUI window 110, user chat buttons 112, and user information box 114.
• a user launches the persistent party room application a screen that may appear similar to persistent party room 100 comes up.
• Current persistent party room toolbar 102 displays which persistent party room the user is currently in.
• the heart icon in 102 may be grayed out if the current
• the user touches the grayed heart icon the heart icon will turn red, and the current persistent party room will be bookmarked and the relevant bookmark data information (such as the associated unique ID of the room) may be saved to local storage.
• the bookmark information saved in local storage may be compared against the bookmark information for party rooms that are occupied by friends or other users .
• Current member list 106 shows the users or friends who are currently in the present persistent party room. If the room occupied by a user matches a room that has previously been bookmarked, the heart icon in 102 turns to red next to the name of the room. Furthermore, touching a user listed in current member 106 would bring up a profile of that user in a user information box. In one implementation, a user information box would hover near a cursor if the cursor was positioned over a user's name. In another implementation, clicking a user' s name would open up another page showing a user information box, or open up a smaller window showing the user information box.
• Persistent party room list 108 provides a list of bookmarked rooms so that the user can decide to join them at anytime.
• the heart icons next to the room names also indicate whether or not a room has been bookmarked. If a bookmarked party room does not exist and the user wishes to create one, then the persistent party room will be created on the server with an associated unique ID.
• User chat GUI window 110 allows a user to type in text, videos, links, or other information, to communicate with other users.
• User chat buttons 112 reflect various modes of communicating with other users (text, video, phone, etc.), and these modes of communication are not limited to the buttons shown.
• User information box 114 compiles
• FIG. 2 illustrates a server architecture in accordance with an implementation of the present application.
• FIG. 2 illustrates server architecture 200 which shows at least one server 202, each of the servers 202 having at least one world 204, and each of the worlds 204 having at least one room 206.
• the room 206 is where the persistent party room is stored, and each persistent party room (of room 206) exists in one world 204, which exists on one server 202.
• each server 202 has multiple worlds 204 in it and each world 204 has multiple rooms 206 in it.
• Each persistent party room (e.g., room 206) may be created on a particular server 202 and world 204.
• Each room 206, world 204 and server 202 may have an associated unique ID (e.g., room ID, world ID, server ID).
• each room ID uses the world ID and the server ID in this unique ID.
• each world ID uses the server ID inside of its unique ID.
• each of the IDs can track data about information associated with its other IDs (e.g., each server ID can locate information about its associated world ID and room ID, each world ID can locate information about its associated server ID and room ID, and each room ID can locate information about its associated server ID and world ID) .
• FIG. 3 illustrates a flowchart showing a method 300 for creating and joining persistent party rooms in
• method 300 may start in box 302, but may also start from anywhere else in FIG. 3 and the below described boxes may also be performed in any order.
• box 304 an initialization process (which is further explained below in conjunction with the description of FIG. 4) is performed.
• decision box 306 a decision is made of whether to join a bookmarked persistent party room or to create a new persistent party room. If the answer to decision box 306 is to create a new persistent party room, then the next box is box 310, where a new persistent party room is created.
• decision box 306 If the answer to decision box 306 is to join a bookmarked persistent party room, then the next box is decision box 308, which may branch out into at least one of three different scenarios: route A and then box 312, route B and then box 314, or route C and then box 316.
• Box 312, after route A, is the scenario where no bookmarked persistent party rooms are found and where no duplicate persistent party rooms are found, and is further explained below in conjunction with the description of FIG.
• Box 316, after route C, is the scenario where bookmarked persistent party rooms are found, and is further explained below in conjunction with the description of FIG. 8.
• decision box 318 inquires as to whether or not the method 300 is done processing (i.e., whether or not any more persistent party rooms should be created or joined) . If the answer to decision box 318 is no, then the method 300 goes back to box 306.
• the above boxes may be performed by a system implementing the
• FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart showing an
• box 3040 may continue from the box 302 in FIG. 3.
• the below-described method may start in box 3040, but may also start from anywhere else in FIG. 4 and the below described boxes may also be performed in any order.
• Box 3041 gets a list of server IDs.
• a list of world IDs is received from each server ID.
• an array (entitled, for example, GlobalWorldlDListArray) is created that includes the world IDs across the servers. For example, if there are two servers having four worlds each, the list for the world IDs across the servers would have eight items total.
• the array is stored for later usage, for example, when persistent party rooms are created (as further detailed below) .
• the array may also be sorted by world ID for safety in order to assure that the array would be uniform and substantially similar (e.g., having the same order) across clients. Then everything finishes in box 3046, and in one implementation the next box from box 3046 may be box 306 in FIG. 3.
• the above-described process may get a list of all server IDs, from each server ID get a list of all world IDs, create an array containing all the world IDs across all the servers, and sort the array for safety to assure it will be the same and in order across all clients.
• FIG. 5 illustrates a flowchart showing a method to create a new persistent party room of box 310 (FIG. 3) in accordance with an embodiment of the present application.
• box 3100 may continue from box 306 in FIG. 3.
• the below-described method may start in box 3100, but may also start from anywhere else in FIG. 5 and the below described boxes may also be performed in any order.
• a bookmark UID (user ID) is created by using a network platform ID and the current time.
• the bookmark UID may be a data structure that contains the network platform ID and a snapshot of the current time.
• the network platform ID is just the user name or login name for the current user who is logged into the network utilized by the persistent party room software.
• the bookmark UID is
• the bookmark UID may also be used to decide which world ID (from the array, e.g., GlobalWorldlDListArray) to create a persistent party room in.
• the bookmark UID is used to decide in which world ID from the array to create a persistent party room by adding up the data contained in the bookmark UID, for example, in 16 bit chunks and storing it in another world list array (entitled, for example, WorldListChunk) .
• the word list array may be another 16 bit (or 2 byte) value, and all the bytes in the bookmark UID structure are summed up and saved as a 16 bit value named, for example, WorldListChunk.
• the overflow that may occur during summing up is arbitrary, and the goal is to obtain some randomness by using all the bytes in the bookmark UID structure.
• GlobalWorldlDListArraylndex represents an index into the GlobalWorldlDListArray and also contains the world ID in which to create the persistent party room, and where % represents the modulo operator and also where Count is the length of the GlobalWorldlDListArray. Therefore, the bookmark UID is used to index into the
• GlobalWorldlDListArray In box 3104, GlobalWorldlDListArraylndex is used as an index into the GlobalWorldlDListArray, which will contain the world ID in which to create the persistent party room. Then, in box 3106 the process finishes, and in one implementation the next box may be box 318 in FIG. 3.
• FIG. 6 illustrates a flowchart showing a method of box 312 (FIG. 3) that occurs for a first route when a
• Box 312 follows route A in FIG. 3. In one implementation, box 3120 may continue from decision box 308 in FIG. 3. In one
• box 3120 may also start from anywhere else in FIG. 6 and the below described boxes may also be performed in any order.
• Box 3121 gets the bookmark UID and the
• decision box 3123 the branch guestion is asked whether any of the party rooms with the bookmark UID already exist. If the answer to decision box 3123 is no, then the next box is box 3124, where a new persistent party room is created. In box 3125, the new persistent party room created in box 3124 is joined with the bookmark UID, and then the method goes back to box 3122 to perform another search to determine how many persistent party rooms exist with the current bookmark UID. Then, boxes 3123 and 3126 may be repeated to finish in box 3127. In one implementation, the answer to decision box 3123 on the first pass may be a no.
• the answer to decision box 3123 is yes, then the next box is box 3126, which verifies if only one persistent party room exists (the current persistent party room) with the same bookmark UID as above. If only one persistent party room exists, then the method finishes in box 3127, and in one implementation may go onto box 318 in FIG. 3. In one implementation, the answer to decision box 3123 may be yes on the first pass which would imply more than one bookmarked room was found.
• FIG. 7 illustrates a flowchart showing a method of box 314 (FIG. 3) that occurs for a second route when a
• Box 314 follows route B in FIG. 3. In one implementation, the box 3140 may continue from decision box 308 in FIG. 3. In one
• box 3140 may also start from anywhere else in FIG. 7 and the below described boxes may also be performed in any order.
• Box 3141 gets the bookmark UID and the
• decision box 3143 the branch question is asked whether any of the party rooms with the bookmark UID already exist.
• box 3146 If the answer to decision box 3146 is no, then box
• the answer to decision box 3146 on the first pass may be a no.
• decision box 3143 a determination is made whether the current persistent party room is the first one that comes up in the search results when more than one persistent party room exists with the same bookmark UID. If the answer to
• decision box 3146 is yes, then the method finishes in box 3148, which in one implementation may go onto box 318 in FIG. 3.
• the answer to decision box 3123 may be yes on the first pass which would imply more than one bookmarked room was found.
• box 3145 the new persistent party room created in box 3144 is joined with the bookmark UID, and then the method goes back to box 3142 to perform another search to determine how many persistent party rooms exist with the current bookmark UID. Then, boxes 3143, 3146 and 3147 may be repeated to finish in box 3148.
• FIG. 8 illustrates a flowchart showing a method of box 316 (FIG. 3) that occurs for a third route when a
• Box 316 follows route C shown in FIG. 3.
• box 3160 may continue from decision box 308 in FIG. 3.
• the below-described method may start in box 3160, but may also start from anywhere else in FIG. 8 and the below described boxes may also be performed in any order.
• Box 3161 gets the bookmark UID and the
• a searchable attribute to determine if any of the persistent party rooms already exist with the world ID.
• box 3163 if one or more rooms are found with the bookmark UID, then the first one returned in the search results is joined.
• the search results which may be shown as room IDs - which specify which persistent party room to join, will always return the same bookmark UID in the same order for box 3163. If this is not the case, the persistent party rooms in GlobalWorldlDListArray can be sorted by room ID, for example, when GlobalWorldlDListArray is initialized, and the first room in the sorted search results may be used as a result.
• the method finishes in box 3164, which in one implementation may continue on to box 318 in FIG. 3.
• a joined game acknowledgment feature may be integrated into the persistent party rooms.
• a joined game acknowledgment is a feature that may be supported by certain games. The joined game
• acknowledgment feature allows a player playing a game to reserve a slot for another player, without having to take the player's attention off the current game being played. That is, the reservation and organization of the slots is done behind the scenes. For instance, player A is playing a game while player B is interested in joining the same game player A is playing. Instead of waiting for an open slot to become available and waiting around with an open game screen or instead of unnecessarily launching into the game only to found out that by the time Player B' s game was loaded, Player A' s game is now full, player B may use the joined game acknowledgment feature to reserve a slot in the game beforehand. Player B may also get a dialogue or dialogue box stating that Player A' s game is full before even attempting to launch Player A' s game. The game has the joined game acknowledgment feature, and works behind the scenes without having to get player A involved to reserve a spot beforehand for player B. Player B is then sent an acknowledgment that a given spot is reserved.
• the joined game acknowledgment feature supports an NP basic system.
• NP Basic may be a system that allows for the
• the joined game acknowledgment feature may be used in tandem with persistent party rooms and all types of party rooms (including non-persistent party rooms) so that users waiting in a party room may instantly join active games or reserve spots in active games and not have to wait around for slots to open.
• users in party rooms may also reserve game slots in each other' s games as long as they are in the same party.
• the join game acknowledgment feature further provides a better user experience for the users in any party room since users can immediately know if other games played by party members are full or invalid (e.g., game sessions do not exist anymore) .
• the load times for games can reach several minutes sometimes, so this can be irritating to the user if they must wait for a game to launch before they find out that another party member's game is full or invalid.
• the join game acknowledgment feature deftly avoids this problem by not having the user wait needlessly for something that may not materialize.
• the application programming interface of the persistent party rooms may support NP- Basic systems or NP-Basic program calls.
• the application programming interface of the persistent party rooms may also be implemented with flags (which may be stored for each party member) that are used to communicate the joined game acknowledgment feature and also whether certain games support the joined game acknowledgment feature and/or whether party members are playing a game that supports the joined game acknowledgment feature. What also may be supported is data describing whether party members in a persistent party room or any other type of party room are playing a given game and what session of the game is currently being played.
• FIG. 9A illustrates a representation of a computer system 900 and a user 902 in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.
• the user 902 uses the computer system 900 to create, search or join persistent party rooms.
• the computer system 900 stores and executes
• FIG. 9B illustrates a functional block diagram
• the controller 910 is a
• the controller 910 loads instructions (e.g., in the form of a computer program) from the memory 920 or an embedded controller memory (not shown) and executes these instructions to control the system. In its execution, the controller 910 provides the persistent party room software 990 with a software system, such as to enable the creation, searching or joining of persistent party rooms. Alternatively, this service can be implemented as separate hardware components in the controller 910 or the computer system 900.
• Memory 920 stores data temporarily for use by the other components of the computer system 900.
• memory 920 is implemented as RAM.
• memory 920 also includes long-term or permanent memory, such as flash memory and/or ROM.
• Storage 930 stores data temporarily or long term for use by other components of the computer system 900, such as for storing data used by the persistent party room software 990.
• storage 930 is a hard disk drive .
• the media device 940 receives removable media and reads and/or writes data to the inserted media.
• the media device 940 is an optical disc drive.
• the user interface 950 includes components for
• the user interface 950 includes a keyboard, a mouse, audio speakers, and a display.
• the controller 910 uses input from the user to adjust the operation of the computer system 900.
• the I/O interface 960 includes one or more I/O ports to connect to corresponding I/O devices, such as external storage or supplemental devices (e.g., a printer or a PDA) .
• the ports of the I/O interface 960 include ports such as: USB ports, PCMCIA ports, serial ports, and/or parallel ports.
• the I/O interface 960 includes a wireless interface for communication with external devices wirelessly.
• the network interface 970 includes a wired and/or wireless network connection, such as an RJ-45 or "Wi-Fi" interface (including, but not limited to 802.11) supporting an Ethernet connection.
• a wired and/or wireless network connection such as an RJ-45 or "Wi-Fi" interface (including, but not limited to 802.11) supporting an Ethernet connection.
• the computer system 900 includes additional hardware and software typical of computer systems (e.g., power, cooling, operating system) , though these components are not specifically shown in FIG. 9B for simplicity. In other implementations, different configurations of the computer system can be used (e.g., different bus or storage
• the computer system is a next generation game console from, for example, Sony Playstation ® .
• the computing device includes one or more processors, one or more data-storage components (e.g., volatile or non-volatile memory modules and persistent optical and magnetic storage devices, such as hard and floppy disk drives, CD-ROM drives, and magnetic tape drives), one or more input devices (e.g., game controllers, mice and keyboards), and one or more output devices (e.g., display devices) .
• the computer programs include executable code that is usually stored in a persistent storage medium and then copied into memory at run-time. At least one processor executes the code by retrieving program instructions from memory in a prescribed order. When executing the program code, the computer receives data from the input and/or storage devices, performs operations on the data, and then delivers the resulting data to the output and/or storage devices .
• a software module can reside in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory, EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, registers, hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, or any other form of storage medium including a network storage medium.
• An example storage medium can be coupled to the processor such that the processor can read information from, and write information to, the storage medium.
• the storage medium can be integral to the processor.
• the processor and the storage medium can also reside in an ASIC.

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• 2012
  • 2012-05-03 WO PCT/US2012/036371 patent/WO2013165427A1/en active Application Filing
  • 2012-05-03 EP EP12875762.2A patent/EP2724248A4/de not_active Ceased
  • 2012-05-03 CN CN201280040563.2A patent/CN103765405B/zh active Active
  • 2012-05-03 JP JP2015510237A patent/JP6147331B2/ja active Active

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