Looks like Arrogant Sony Might Be Coming Back!

[Chocolat_GiddyUp]

https://www.dualshockers.com/sony-patent-ai-sells-microtransactions-ps5/

 

From the article:

 

Sony’s New Patent Is For An AI That Sells You Microtransactions

Could salesmen AI be coming to the PS5? A new patent from Sony involving AI to help players progress in games might suggest that.

We all find ourselves stuck in games sometimes, I’ll be the first to admit that. I have looked up wikis and walkthroughs for most games that I play, especially if I want a certain outcome. So what if, instead of using YouTube or a wiki, you could ask your console how to beat a boss or solve a puzzle? Sony has an answer for that, but it’s going to sell you some microtransactions, too.

According to its latest patent, Sony is developing an AI that, in essence, will help you get unstuck if you’ve hit a rough part of your game. Of course, the official description is much more convoluted, but it does give some useful examples of when this tech would be used. For instance, when a player asks “how do I beat this boss,” the AI would look through data collected from other players. This data would include other players’ character builds and whatever items or skills they used to win. The AI would then show the player whatever this item is, and assumedly the quickest way to get it. This can lead to microtransactions being the best way to beat a boss, although that’s not always the case. In some cases, the resources pointed out to a player are simply acquired in-game, without spending any real-world money. Others, however, could be easily obtained through microtransactions, and the AI will point the player in that direction.

This premise is eerily similar to Google Stadia’s built-in AI-helper, although it seems a bit more fleshed out. That being said, this is just a patent document with no actual technology for us to see. We’re going to have to wait if Sony actually brings this tech to us, possibly with the PlayStation 5. There’s not much info out on the PS5 yet, but its site was recently launched: you can read about that here.

[Property_Damage]

Yeah i saw ReviewTechUSA talk about this on his youtube channel

nintendo microsoft and sony ALL files dozens if not hundreds of patents every year and they dont always get implemented, lets hope to god this doesnt cuz you know EA and Activision will exploit the hell out of it

[NathanielJohn]

Sony: Files patent (like they do literally every single day, often about idea that they don't actually end up implementing in any way) to present gamers with information about how successful various resources are at accomplishing certain tasks in the game.

 

Internet: "OMG SONY IS TRYING TO SELL US MICROTRANSACTIONS!! SCUM!!!"

 

If the goal was to shove microtransactions in your face, they wouldn't need to file a patent to do it. They could just pop up a dialog box that says "Having trouble beating this boss? Buy this resource!" after you die 3 times. This is a complete non-story.

[Sinastran]

"Guys, just don't buy the MTX."

Edited February 12, 2020 by SinisterPledge

[Beyondthegrave07]

This is such a click-baity article. The article just says that the AI will help you beat games by using other player's data when you get stuck. How it makes the assumption that Sony is selling microtransactions is beyond me.

 

Sure, EA or Activision COULD exploit this for microtransactions, but who on Earth would buy that game? Negative feedback would be too powerful imo.

 

What you SHOULD be worried about is trophies becoming meaningless from this. It's pretty much saying that I can piggyback off someone else's hard work on let's say... SMB and earn the plat by using other's runs on levels. I never played SMB, admittedly, but I can see this being exploited this way.

 

I personally wouldn't even call this arrogance by Sony either. 1. Because it's not currently being used. 2. It doesn't even mention the word microtransaction or that you'd have to pay to use it. We have no idea if/how this would be implemented.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Beyondthegrave07

[Dav9834]

I don't think based on the subject in the article that PlayStation is getting more arrogant.

 

However when Sony took notice of how much money PlayStation was raking in years ago and then subsequently started to take more control from the team, that's when I noticed they started to change. I have high hopes for PlayStation, but Sony is in itself probably getting arrogant imo yes. 

[starcrunch061]

Hmmm. I have (dare I say?) mixed feelings about this. I'm going to ignore the microtransaction angle, because as others have said, I think Sony would be foolish to sell the ability to pass difficult parts of a game, precisely for reasons I'll give below.

 

So anyway, on the PRO side of this, you know, I understand people's frustrations with having a story-driven game be locked behind difficult boss encounters, etc. I've always been a fan of games putting difficulty levels in place for exactly this reason. For example, taking an RPG, but making it almost impossible to progress the story without beating numerous difficult encounters, can be a real drag for a variety of reasons. With such an AI in place, a poorer player could use the ability of a better player to get past a nasty combat segment, and get back into the story part of the game. That feels like a positive to me.

 

But on the CON side, yeah, I don't like the idea of people being able to earn trophies this way. Let's say, in this same RPG scenario, that there was a trophy for beating this particularly nasty boss. I have no problem with a person being able to get past that boss and get on with their game, but I have much more issue with that person being rewarded for actually defeating that boss himself.

 

Of course, there are simple ways around this conundrum for me, but Sony has never shown any real subtlety in these types of ideas, and I would guess they won't here. 

[MatThaRiPP3R84]

Sony will be struggling in the future, even if they continue with the best games.. if they pump enough cash into psnow the download and stream service could do well but who knows. truth is the future of gaming is down to how many people are able to play your product and of those number of people, how well marketed is your product to them, thats the question that sony will need the answer to, right now it's clearly not looking good as of theese micros.

 

nintendo have got worse and worse, sony just feel it's their turn I guess, this shite was inevitable though.

Edited February 13, 2020 by MatThaRiPP3R84

[gernboes]

This gets blown WAY out of proportion, in my opinion. As long as this isn't implemented all anybody can speculate about it is just that. Speculation! This could just be a stat that tells you for example 75% who beat this boss did it with the shotgun or waterbased spells or whatever. Yes, this stat could say hey, 45% per cent who beat this boss used the weapon instaslay9000, which is paid DLC. However, this system only tells you about DLC that's in the games now as well, it doesn't put new DLC in the games...

This could be a way to implement it. Will it be this way? none of us can tell...

However, in my opinion, it is far more likely than buying runs of other players and let the game beat itself. As far as I know, there is nothing indicating that will be what they'll do...

[dmland12]

20 hours ago, Beyondthegrave07 said:

What you SHOULD be worried about is trophies becoming meaningless from this. It's pretty much saying that I can piggyback off someone else's hard work on let's say... SMB and earn the plat buy using other's runs on levels. I never played SMB, admittedly, but I can see this being exploited this way.

 

It really doesn't sound like this at all to me.  You can already see how other people do things on Youtube and find out strategies in trophy guides or forum posts etc.  Seeing how to do something and actually doing it is a huge gap in games like that.

 

Patent rumors are the dumbest rumors, but overall this one doesn't even sound that bad, if you ignore the baseless speculation.  There's plenty of games that will give you hints if you're stuck somewhere and that didn't ruin anything.  There's also games out that that will give you stats on what other people are doing or let you see their "ghost" going through the level or whatever.  And that didn't ruin anything.

 

I mean, sure I guess some kind of system that's trying to help you find resources on how to beat whatever could be implemented really really just beyond stupidity.  But, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that either it won't be implemented at all, or it will be better than the worst case scenarios people can dream up.

[Bloodytears1666]

Just recently beat up Darkeater Midir for the third time and through all pain and tears wished cheat codes to exist, and here we now, AI going to be legal cheats:). 'Course I'm against it right now, but damn, this could be useful if going through NG plus with aim to pass hard annoying parts and get straight to the action you came for.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Bloodytears1666

[Leo Leopold Leon III]

I mean to me this sounds like a pop-up that is trying to sell you a time-saver pack or smth cause it sees you are struggling, nothing more, nothing less
you don't even have to take the offer and there would probably be an option to turn the thing off as is with almost all of the things like this

[Beyondthegrave07]

17 minutes ago, dmland12 said:

Seeing how to do something and actually doing it is a huge gap in games like that.

That's kind of my point though. It pretty much makes all skill-based trophies effortless. The patent doesn't really explain the extent of how this would be used other than the "hard boss" example, but doesn't it feel kind of cheap that people may be able to use your data to beat a really hard boss that took you 2 hours to beat? I feel like this is far more likely than microtransactions thrown in your face.

 

I do agree with you though that we'll probably never actually see this, and it'll probably be very limited in how it's actually ever used even if it somehow makes it to the ps5.

[thefourfoldroot]

Arrogant Sony has been clear since they decided their rules on what should be allowed are more valid than actual law. Censorstation.

This is fine. It's a voice internet search. Sure microtransactions will be featured, amongst other things, no big deal. Options are fine.

[Conor]

Probably won't happen. But if it does then I'll just do for the console what I do for games that implement this kind of shit: buy it second-hand so they get no money from me whatsoever.

[dmland12]

19 minutes ago, Beyondthegrave07 said:

That's kind of my point though. It pretty much makes all skill-based trophies effortless. The patent doesn't really explain the extent of how this would be used other than the "hard boss" example, but doesn't it feel kind of cheap that people may be able to use your data to beat a really hard boss that took you 2 hours to beat? I feel like this is far more likely than microtransactions thrown in your face.

 

No it doesn't feel cheap.  People can already use Youtube to see how it's done.  If there's anything that anyone wants advice for that they can't already find, I'll give it freely if asked.

 

I don't see anything here about the AI beating the boss for someone, just giving them information on how to do so.  And that ship already sailed a long time ago (with game guides and the internet in general).

[damon8r351]

This will be fun to watch if a microtransaction selling bot becomes real, because then I'll be able to tell who didn't grow up learning to ignore Clippy the Microsoft Assistant by which people complain the most about it.

Edited February 13, 2020 by damon8r351

[DaivRules]

So this patent theoretically will take information we have freely available in our guides and show it to a player and somebody spculated it could show microtransactions for games we would already know have microtransactions available that make the game less challenging?

 

Why is there any kind of hoolah about this?

[scemopagliaccioh]

Yikes. Yet another thing to fuck up trophy percentages.

[Beyondthegrave07]

31 minutes ago, dmland12 said:

 

No it doesn't feel cheap.  People can already use Youtube to see how it's done.  If there's anything that anyone wants advice for that they can't already find, I'll give it freely if asked.

 

I don't see anything here about the AI beating the boss for someone, just giving them information on how to do so.  And that ship already sailed a long time ago (with game guides and the internet in general).

Okay, that's fair. I thought it was directed more at actually copying the gameplay of the player (as in do it for you), but it seems to just walk you through how to get the same load out/set up that was used against a boss and still requires you to do it yourself. I misunderstood the aim of the patent.

 

Even if this was somehow implemented, I can't imagine there NOT being an off button for it. Still being blown out of proportion by the article.

[Joe Dubz]

As long as this isn't actually the AI completing hard parts for people, then whatever. It's one thing if it is offering guidance based on what others did to accomplish said feat, but it is a whole other ballgame if someone still unlocks trophies for having the AI do the dirty lifting! That's what I interpreted this to be initially, but sounds like that's not necessarily the case. All it sounds like is Sony making it so people can be lazy and not do a little research on their own so they can make a few extra bucks... if it even ends up being implemented! 

[Helyx]

2 hours ago, Beyondthegrave07 said:

but doesn't it feel kind of cheap that people may be able to use your data to beat a really hard boss that took you 2 hours to beat?

 

I carry people through games all the time. Shit that took me hours or even weeks to complete, I can blast through and help other people in a fraction of the time. If there was a way for me to automate this and get a slice of the pie, then I'd support the ability to upload my characters for people to rent.

[majob]

All this sounds like is an AI automatically detecting things giving you trouble and handing out advice instead of someone doing a manual Google search. To even make it sound like it's PUSHING something just reeks of spin. 

8 minutes ago, Helyx said:

 

I carry people through games all the time. Shit that took me hours or even weeks to complete, I can blast through and help other people in a fraction of the time. If there was a way for me to automate this and get a slice of the pie, then I'd support the ability to upload my characters for people to rent.

The AI isn't playing the game for you though, it's just giving advice. It's no different than looking up a game guide. You can be given the knowledge but the execution is still up to you. A person can watch Street Fighter how to videos all day but you're not going to turn into Daigo overnight

[punkshepherd]

Companies have done and do sell microtransactions on Playstation already. 

 

I dont really see the big deal bout a damn patent. Surely there must already be some form of patent for the current type of mtxs.

 

People who want to buy them will likely will still be able to. 

 

Altho il still be in the school of "This is a horrible practice and needs to have an 18 warning on the box if theyre gonna even try it"

[Happy]

You have to keep in mind that Sony has an insane amount of patents, many of which are far more questionable, that they have never used. I am certain that arrogant Sony will make a grand return, but we shouldn’t make assumptions about what technology they will and will not implement just yet.