Sony Interactive Entertainment appears to have filed a patent application for a new system that would allow spectators of a game to remove toxic or "substandard" players from the action.
Being able to report players that aren't behaving nicely is nothing new, of course. However, this patent suggests a much more responsive system in which viewers can pretty much instantly vote on whether or not to boot bad actors and bar them from rejoining the session entirely. More concerningly, the patent also references the ability to boot players just for not playing well.
Take a look at the heartwarming moment a gamer dad won a special-edition Sonic PlayStation 5 below:
Originally spotted by SegmentNext, SIE filed the application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in January 2020. It was made public last week, on July 15.
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The patent outlines a number of "game-playing attributes" that might lead to a player getting booted, including "bad behavior, poor sportsmanship, and substandard performance". A benched player can also be substituted for another.
So how exactly does it work? Well... kind of like Among Us, actually. According to the patent, spectators would be able to vote to remove a player. If the decision isn't approved by the majority, that player would be able to remain in the game. Bizarrely, the patent also reference some kind of payment system in which spectators are charged for their votes.
"In one embodiment, the interface to enable providing of feedback to the cloud gaming system enables a spectator to pay in full a fixed price to have a player removed from playing the video game, and the removal of the player is performed by the cloud gaming system when payment in full of the fixed price is received from the spectator," the patent reads.
"In another embodiment, the interface to enable providing of feedback to the cloud gaming system enables a plurality of spectators to pay a part of a fixed price to have a player removed from playing the video game, and the removal of the player is performed by the cloud gaming system when combined payment in full of the fixed price is received from the plurality of spectators each of whom paid a part of the fixed price to have the player removed from playing the video game."
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It's worth noting that patents are rarely indictive of a final product, and often just a company making its claim to an idea - not that I'd be particularly proud of owning this one if I were Sony. Letting viewers ban toxic players? Awesome idea! More of that please. Giving them the chance to pay to remove players for not performing very well? That's a truly horrible idea that would get abused in about a million different ways.
Featured Image Credit: SonyTopics: GAMING, News, PlayStation