Having a hard time beating a boss? Can’t navigate your way through a complicated map? Sony has filed a patent that would allow struggling gamers to connect directly with expert players who can offer assistance.
The team at Patent Scope, says the patent appears to speak to the point in which “a user may reach a point in a video game that is seemingly impossible to navigate through or solve.” The would be to stop the player from “quitting the game because the user can find no way to advance.”
With gamers turning to walkthrough guides, Twitch, and YouTube videos to solve some complexities in games, the patent seems like a more expensive alternative. At the same time, connecting to a pro gamer may appeal to players looking for a higher level of advice, perhaps with some real-time visual demonstrations.
There are still a lot of questions, for example, Sony doesn’t appear to place any emphasis on what an “expert” is, instead saying, “any player can register as an expert after at least playing a portion of the corresponding gaming application.” Later in the patent Sony addresses the question of what makes an expert, saying “a player can only register as an expert after reaching a qualification standard.”
While Sony already offers Activity Cards for PS5, this new solution may allow for an expert to walk through users directly and perhaps even take over their gameplay during certain activities.
This isn’t exactly the first foray into expert-level gaming help. The team at
Gamersensei allows users to take full-on lessons from professional gamers. Gamersensei is owned by Corsair. From 1987 to 2005 Nintendo ran a phone-in hotline that provided gamers with access to Nintendo trained experts who were capable of walking players through hard to defeat levels and bosses.
What do you think, would you pay for real-time help from an expert? We prefer to struggling until we prevail but given the high number of people who flock to Twitch for carries in games such as Destiny 2, we can see there being a market for this type of platform.
