Ads in videogames have always been seen as a negative, but it’s often justified in free-to-play titles because the developers have to make money in some other way. So it’s always a little worrying when there’s news about new ad tech appearing in the videogames space. Microsoft appears to have a new patent describing just that. More specifically, the patent describes the ability to freeze games in the name of showing players ads.
The patent title is “Contextually Aware Management of Interactive Software Application Access”. While it’s not specified whether this is to apply to free-to-play or paid games, it’s ostensibly for the former, with mentions of gameplay credits being scattered throughout the patent. Though the duration of each credit varies, with windows of 30 minutes or simply one complete level with no amount of time specified.
Once that credit nears expiration, the tech checks for whether the game is in a high intensity moment, or if a player “is determined to be in a safe location” or moment. During such safe moments, the game shows you ads, and watching them earns you another credit. The game is also frozen so that you don’t miss anything while the ad is playing.
The mechanic of showing ads in exchange for being able to play the game more is your standard fare limit for mobile and free-to-play games, where you either sit through ads to push that limit further, or pay to be able to do so. With that in mind, it makes sense that the tech described in this Microsoft patent only applies to such games. The innovation here, to use the word loosely, is the integration of the ads into the gameplay itself, rather than having to navigate to a specific window to access it and its benefits.
But its videogames division is already adding limits to Xbox Game Pass, with the ability to extend those limits by paying for it. Because of this, it’s not difficult to imagine that this ad tech can be applied to the subscription service as well.
(Source: USPTO [PDF], Xbox)
