We all know that Video Games companies, like any other company, file for a lot of patents and trademarks to preserve their IPs, concepts and ideas. Some of these patents and trademarks eventually are used in one way or another while others never see the light of the day.
However, looking at these documents, we can understand the intent of these companies for the future and where we can be headed. Once such interesting patent has been filed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The patent description reads:
The method includes assigning a default gameplay profile to a user wherein the default gameplay profile includes a default gameplay style that simulates human gameplay, and wherein the default gameplay profile is configured to control gameplay for the user based on the default gameplay style.
Artificial Intelligence has come a long way in gaming. Developers are constantly pushing the boundaries to make AI better which ultimately results in engaging and challenging experiences. One prime example of that in recent times is “Nemesis System” introduced by Warner Bros in Shadow of Mordor. Or the procedurally generated worlds we have been receiving recently in different games have been quite impressive.
In this patent, Sony basically wants AI to learn about user behaviors based on their gameplay. Then if a user finds a task to be difficult to complete, the AI can take over and do that for user. Now we have already seen applications of this concept in some games, specially MMOs. The automatic drives and walks to the objectives. We have seen them in some Ubisoft games as well.
Moving towards objectives (on-foot or using some transport) can be a tedious task for gamers, so to make it less tedious, developers allow players to get to those far off objectives automatically using AI.
This is ofcourse, a small application. The current patent however, describes that players will be able to do any hard or tedious task with which they are struggling. It can be a boss fight, it can be a puzzle or it can even be a jumping sequence. So the AI will serve as a real-time guide or cheat as one may describe.
Again, while the concept seems interesting, we can’t say for sure that it will be used in games. More important questions however, is if this feature makes it way in games (which I think hasn’t yet in its entirety), will it be a welcome addition?