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Microsoft patents system to freeze games and inject ads during downtimes — watching commercials earns ad-free playtime credits Is this patent a sign of things to come? More games are taking advantage of the free-to-play model, and Microsoft is building systems designed to deliver ads without disrupting the gaming experience. According to Respawn First, the system would first give players some ad-free playtime, which could either be based on time or in-game progress, such as levels and bosses. Once this expires, the company will then open a window and briefly serve “promoted content.” However, this system will not just show ads out of the blue. Instead, it will work with the game engine so that they will only appear during downtimes, like after a boss fight, at the end of a cutscene, while a new level is loading, when you complete a quest, or enter a menu. While the ad is being served, the game enters a frozen state to ensure that player progress isn’t disturbed. After you finish watching the ad, it resets the ad-free playtime, allowing gamers to play another round with no distractions. The patent application itself describes it as “a content management system” and that it could obtain a promoted content trigger event based partially on the game, suspend a user’s interaction with the game based on the promoted content trigger event, obtain promoted audiovisual content and present it to the user, commence the user’s interaction with the game, and establish “a credit based at partially on the promoted audiovisual content, wherein the credit delays suspension of the user’s interaction with the interactive software application during a credit duration.” Based on this description, it works similarly to some free-to-play mobile games, where ads are automatically served after you finish a round or after a few minutes of playing. The difference with this system is that it doesn’t serve ads arbitrarily; instead, it works with the game engine and even uses machine learning to determine when it’s the best time to show players the ad. While this is still a patent application and it’s not even clear if this has been deployed in actual games, it shows what Microsoft is considering for how it could monetize free-to-play games. We’ve seen similar moves with Xbox Cloud Gaming, with the company experimenting with an ad-supported free tier for the cloud gaming service. While the tech that Microsoft applied for a patent on could actually be a good thing, as it would make in-game ads less jarring, we could argue that it would encourage both gamers and publishers to focus on free-to-play titles. The idea behind these games and services is that it would allow more people, especially those who don’t want to spend cash, to enjoy gaming. However, some say that they’ve actually broken the diversity and innovation in the gaming industry, as developers and publishers focus more on monetization instead of unique games and quality titles. You can view the USPTO application here [PDF]. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics. - ezst036 I wish Tom's Hardware ran polling systems, or would run an opinion poll about this.Reply It strikes me that if we asked Linux gamers, and only Linux gamers, Is this the feature you are missing most? What would it take for you to reconsider your move to Linux, and then come back to the Windows ecosystem? I bet everybody would say yes. More ads. That's what I was missing in my life. If I just had more advertisements! I would love to come back to Windows for more advertisements. I just want more advertisements, please! This is the most compelling feature Microsoft has ever developed for bringing back users it lost. - DRagor Then you add to each such game paid battle pass that allows you to skip some of those ads. Because greed is infinite.Reply - smoolz Reply B-but, think of their shareholders! The profit margins! There's so much left to milk from these consumers!ezst036 said:I wish Tom's Hardware ran polling systems, or would run an opinion poll about this. It strikes me that if we asked Linux gamers, and only Linux gamers, Is this the feature you are missing most? What would it take for you to reconsider your move to Linux, and then come back to the Windows ecosystem? I bet everybody would say yes. More ads. That's what I was missing in my life. If I just had more advertisements! I would love to come back to Windows for more advertisements. I just want more advertisements, please! This is the most compelling feature Microsoft has ever developed for bringing back users it lost. - ezst036 Reply I really love ads. Especially at this time of the morning.Epoch4 said:Yeah just what we need, even more ads. God don't we just love ads? - Trake_17 Reply When I company incorporates, it's mission shifts from serve a market to make money to make money for detached investors who don't care about serving a market. And all the behavior shifts to garbage like this patent. Gabe Newell knows this and will always have greater credibility with me for that one simple reason. Money though he may seek, he doesn't view his market simply has crops to be harvestedezst036 said:I wish Tom's Hardware ran polling systems, or would run an opinion poll about this. It strikes me that if we asked Linux gamers, and only Linux gamers, Is this the feature you are missing most? What would it take for you to reconsider your move to Linux, and then come back to the Windows ecosystem? I bet everybody would say yes. More ads. That's what I was missing in my life. If I just had more advertisements! I would love to come back to Windows for more advertisements. I just want more advertisements, please! This is the most compelling feature Microsoft has ever developed for bringing back users it lost. - TechieTwo It looks to me like this new scam is criminal in nature as in: "Illegally accessing a PC". It would be good for legislators to immediately ban this criminal behavior and set very long prison sentences for those who dare to employ it.Reply - chriswf Oh okay. So I pay for the video game, pay for the os and the machine.Reply But now I have to earn "use/play time" to actually use the things I already paid money for. Good time to hop to Linux.
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