Posted Wed May 30, 2012 at 07:30 AM PDT by Dick Ward
You know, this could actually be okay if properly applied. Or it could be the worst thing ever. Hard to tell yet.
Alright, so let's all agree that if our game paused for a commercial break right in the middle of play, we'd not only be furious, but completely taken out of the immersion that the game created for us. Sony's new patent details just that – a system that would pause games to show you an advertisement. Not in between levels or at checkpoints either. The patent specifically states that this would suspend playing to either display an ad or give you an interactive ad.
Obviously, this could be used for dreadful and reprehensible purposes in your already expensive games, but there are some positive applications where it could be used as well. Consider what it might be like if Sony let you have the next God of War game for free provided you watch the ads, allowing you to upgrade whenever you liked. Could be a cool way to get more than a demo's worth of a game before pulling the trigger.
Hopefully this is never applied to a multiplayer experience. We'd certainly see a rise in broken controllers.
Source: GameIndustry.biz
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