U.S. Patent No. 10,818,142: Creation of winner tournaments with fandom influence
Issued October 27, 2020, to Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC
Filed/Priority to February 28, 2018
Overview:
U.S. Patent No. 10,818,142 (the ‘142 patent) relates to filling vacancies in esports tournaments with remote, nonprofessional players. The ‘142 patent details a method which first involves establishing an esports tournament with different professional players and ranking them to establish matches between them. Remote viewers are identified as eligible players for tournament participation. The professional player winner from the first match is determined and gameplay statistics are generated. When a vacancy in the tournament is present, an eligible remote player is selected to fill the vacancy and a connection is established between the selected player and the tournament to facilitate participation and provide the player with a reconstructed view of the tournament. When selected, a remote player will get an authorization which they must confirm, sometimes with a limited timeframe to accept. Eligibility can be determined by finding a valid ticket purchase or subscription, a certain skill level, social media-demonstrated fandom of a professional player, and/or a compatible computer with the esports tournament. In the instance where a fan of a professional is selected, a handicap could be applied to the professional. The ‘142 patent could increase remote audience investment in esports tournaments and give unrecognized, skilled players the chance to be discovered.
Abstract:
The present disclosure describes methods and systems directed towards creation of winner tournaments. Instead of using traditional tournament bracket structures which establish pre-set match-ups between participating players in a tournament at an e-sport event, the present disclosure broadens the scope of participants who may be eligible to also participate within the same tournament but who may not initially be attending the e-sport event. With the e-sport competitive scene, not only do professionals compete against each other during a live e-sport event but remote users remotely viewing the e-sport event can also be introduced into the tournament structure as well. These remote users can be introduced into the live e-sport event for the purpose of also competing against competitive players as well as being introduced as an exhibition match with the professionals (e.g. fans of the professionals selected based on social media). Therefore, the systems and methods would select and facilitate eligible remote users to compete with the professionals even if the remote user is not at the live e-sport event venue.
Illustrative Claim:
- A method for creating winner tournaments, the method comprising: establishing an e-sport tournament having a plurality of different professional competitors; generating rankings for each of the professional competitors, the generated rankings used to establish matches between the competitors; identifying one or more remote viewers eligible to participate in the e-sport tournament, each of the remote viewers remotely viewing the e-sport tournament on a respective computing device, wherein the identification includes processing user information about each of the remote viewers; initiating matches of the e-sport tournament between the matched competitors, wherein a conclusion of the initiated match provides a winning competitor and gameplay statistics; detecting that a vacancy within the e-sport tournament is present; selecting one of the identified eligible remote viewers to fill in the detected vacancy; requesting the selected remote viewer for authorization to participate in the e-sport tournament; establishing a player communication channel between the selected remote viewer and the e-sport tournament, wherein the established player communication channel facilitates participation by the selected remote viewer with the e-sport tournament and has a lower latency than a distribution communication channel that is used to remotely view the e-sport tournament; and providing the selected remote viewer with a reconstructed viewpoint of the e-sport tournament using collected information from the e-sport tournament at a specified point in time.