Sony’s new patent points players towards microtransactions
Microtransactions have always been the bane of gamers existence. They are nearly everywhere in multiplayer now, and some have even started to trickle their way into single-player games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. With Sony’s new patent, however, the likelihood of microtransactions becoming more common may rise further.
According to VG247, Sony has filed a patent for an ‘in-game resource surfacing platform’ that will give players suggestions, tips, tricks, and purchasable items to help players out. This will apparently help players based on what situation and/or section they are in in-game.
On the surface, this doesn’t seem to be all that bad. Tips and tricks can be found in many video games after dying a few times, or even during loading screens. However, the purchasable items are what makes us pause. This is just our humble opinion, but getting stuck on a video game shouldn’t lead to microtransactions to help make it easier.
Thanks to All Gamers, we know that within the patent documentation, a method of combining players’ data and using the natural language processing in order to give right hints that would help a person progress further in the game.
As you can see above, the platform would work with voice commands and would point players in the direction of a resource that would help. Whether this would be a simple trick or tip, or a resource that you would need to spend actual money on, is entirely dependent on the situation.
Still, for parents with young children, who you’ll often see in the news complaining about how much their kid has spent on microtransactions, this may be something that they should keep their eye on.
Sony’s new patent may end up being scrapped. But until there is confirmation of whether this new in-game resource platform is a done deal or not, we’ll remain curious, but sceptical.
Header source: PatentScope
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