Sony patent application detects and showcases “disruptive behaviour” in multiplayer games

A Sony Interactive Entertainment patent application is suggesting a system where “disruptive behaviour” in multiplayer games can be identified and attributed to a player or play space.

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Published on the World Intellectual Property Organisation website, the patent application titled “methods and systems for processing disruptive behaviour within multi-player video game” was filed back in May of this year, with it being published this month.

It needs to be noted that this doesn’t mean any sort of automatic disruptive behaviour detection will 100 per cent be coming to PlayStation consoles, or even that Sony will end up owning the patent and using it. This just showcases an interesting possibility for warning players of disruptive behaviour patterns in other players and specific game spaces.

By the looks of the Sony patent application, the idea is that in different games, players can report others for disturbing play, be that by hacking, griefing, offensive language or anything else. These reports would be correlated and verified, and the player would then have a “behavioural profile” showing how many times they’ve been reported by others and what for, helping warn others online about their activity.

This gets even more interesting as these reports would “[include] generating current real-time player behaviour demographic data for each of a plurality of online game rooms”. Which as some of the figures show, would tell players entering specific online game spaces (this looks as though it could mean servers, areas of the map, etc) how many disruptive events there have been, how many players are there, and what the likelihood of another disruptive event is.

All of this seems to go the other way as well, as more figures show players being noted for things like helping and team play, and allow them to decide what types of behaviour they find acceptable, like arguing and cursing.

In theory, this Sony patent application could help players avoid online lobbies, maps, and servers filled with cheaters and trolling, and also identify specific bad actors as well, as long as there are consistent reports.

In other news, a new event for both Vanguard and Warzone has been announced called “Festive Fervor”, and will include plenty of festive activities and rewards across both games.

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