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Sony Won’t Let Anyone Spoil Single Player Games Anymore With New Patent Spotted

Mista

Banned
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Sony Interactive Entertainment has filed a new patent that describes a system for blocking online video game spoilers. According to a patent discovered by RespawnFirst, Sony is working on a method to block users for spoiling narrative-driven video games for others online. The feature is possibly coming alongside the PlayStation 5.

Sony’s spoiler blocking program will identify in-game objects such as weapons, characters, story points, and so forth, that have been seen by each player. Based on collected data, the program will prevent that player from engaging with content (e.g user-generated content, trophies, lore objects, etc.) that they would prefer to discover in the game as a matter of course. Moreover, developers can mark spoilers to hide it from the players until they discover it themselves. But the user will have control over the spoiler block feature, it can be turned off at any time.

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A uniform data system will keep track of what in-game entities and activities users have engaged with, and thus help players in avoiding unwanted spoilers. The goal behind this system is to boost player engagement with gaming communities by lifting the fear of spoilers, according to the patent document.

 
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Sony Interactive Entertainment has filed a new patent that describes a system for blocking online video game spoilers. According to a patent discovered by RespawnFirst, Sony is working on a method to block users for spoiling narrative-driven video games for others online. The feature is possibly coming alongside the PlayStation 5.

Sony’s spoiler blocking program will identify in-game objects such as weapons, characters, story points, and so forth, that have been seen by each player. Based on collected data, the program will prevent that player from engaging with content (e.g user-generated content, trophies, lore objects, etc.) that they would prefer to discover in the game as a matter of course. Moreover, developers can mark spoilers to hide it from the players until they discover it themselves. But the user will have control over the spoiler block feature, it can be turned off at any time.

ps5-1.png

ps5-2.png

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A uniform data system will keep track of what in-game entities and activities users have engaged with, and thus help players in avoiding unwanted spoilers. The goal behind this system is to boost player engagement with gaming communities by lifting the fear of spoilers, according to the patent document.


My first reaction to the thread title was thinking this was somehow gonna be TLOU2 related.

I’ve read this a couple times and I still don’t quite understand exactly how it’s going to work in practice, is it basically expanding on the idea of keeping certain achievements/trophies hidden?
 

Mista

Banned
My first reaction to the thread title was thinking this was somehow gonna be TLOU2 related.

I’ve read this a couple times and I still don’t quite understand exactly how it’s going to work in practice, is it basically expanding on the idea of keeping certain achievements/trophies hidden?
Most probably filtering. Capturing crucial segments from a game will be recognised and filtered as a spoiler
 

ThatGamingDude

I am a virgin
My first reaction to the thread title was thinking this was somehow gonna be TLOU2 related.

I’ve read this a couple times and I still don’t quite understand exactly how it’s going to work in practice, is it basically expanding on the idea of keeping certain achievements/trophies hidden?
From how it sounds, yes. However, the phrase "By a data platform," leaves room for them to work with social media and other outlets.
From what I can make of it, they would use your profiles with specific companies and try to help filter information that way by ways of producing the framework and working with each entity to provide integration"
EDIT: Oh yeah, definitely the above, I had only glanced through their flows. That 100% is a system that would integrate with other platforms and remove spoilers from your data feeds
The key being "Remote Networked Services."
Local they at least made consumer reading friendly and said "On Console."
 
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Jigsaah

Gold Member
This thread sounds like prime real estate for people re-revealing spoilers from TLOU2, so I'll just say this then I'm out. Don't respond to this message as I won't be coming back. Sorry Mista Mista

Ok...here goes.

This sounds really cool. hope it works

Peace guys!
 

GreenAlien

Member
More censorship infrastructure?!
What else will they be filtering and can you turn all of it off or only the spoiler filter?
 

JimboJones

Member
I think alot of people will just buy an external video capture device instead.

Actually reading it a bit more just sounds like it's putting a spoiler tag on it which doesn't sound that bad.
 
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deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
Hypothesis:
I post a photo of a thing from the game that I think it was nice. It's a spoiler? I got reported by some douchebag and Sony blocks me from everything?
 

TacosNSalsa

Member
Isn't that gonna mess up streamers or even reviews/spoilercasts?

Also most people bypass this stuff with a Elgato anyway
and what are they going to do about external capture cards?
What I'm getting from this is it's only going to work in psn Dashboard. Like the what's new section, and communities section maybe even messages will be filtered. If a friend does something in game or takes a screenshot something will pop up in the what's new feed . Those with capture cards cannot post to the dashboard as far as I know
 

ThatGamingDude

I am a virgin
Isn't that gonna mess up streamers or even reviews/spoilercasts?

Also most people bypass this stuff with a Elgato anyway

I think alot of people will just buy an external video capture device instead.

Actually reading it a bit more just sounds like it's putting a spoiler tag on it which doesn't sound that bad.
and what are they going to do about external capture cards?

This wouldn't be working at the hardware level; you're thinking HDCP which is encryption and negotiation of content

This is more akin to search filtering using a database of profiles and matching those to users:

Sony is creating a server (The UDS in the diagram) which is fed data from local (The console), the game server (Likely to be a 2nd/3rd check) then is reported up to the USD

The USD will also pull data from outside resources, say, Facebook, and add some sort of flag (Likely a metatag) to say "Hey, this content fits X criteria to meet a spoiler, flag this post as potential spoilers for this profile of users."

Now the real ACTUAL question is, is are they going to get into contracts with all these different companies in some way shape or form that allows for Sony's reporting to affect their platforms
To me, it would seem what they would do is when you link your social media profiles, hide the content when you're on the console and no where else, unless they have you install like an app/plugin to your profile which would then affect all levels of the service, if said company even supports that sort of thing

tldr; it'll search posts for things like picture content and key words and throw a flag in some back end of some system where it rates whether or not you'll care to see it based upon what you typically do
 
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DansDans

Member
Maybe I’m reading it wrong but seems to be at the users end

ie streamer sends everything
viewer 1 has spoilers enabled, sees everything
viewer 2 has spoilers blocked, sees just basic things.
 

GeorgPrime

Banned
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Sony Interactive Entertainment has filed a new patent that describes a system for blocking online video game spoilers. According to a patent discovered by RespawnFirst, Sony is working on a method to block users for spoiling narrative-driven video games for others online. The feature is possibly coming alongside the PlayStation 5.

Sony’s spoiler blocking program will identify in-game objects such as weapons, characters, story points, and so forth, that have been seen by each player. Based on collected data, the program will prevent that player from engaging with content (e.g user-generated content, trophies, lore objects, etc.) that they would prefer to discover in the game as a matter of course. Moreover, developers can mark spoilers to hide it from the players until they discover it themselves. But the user will have control over the spoiler block feature, it can be turned off at any time.

ps5-1.png

ps5-2.png

ps5.png


A uniform data system will keep track of what in-game entities and activities users have engaged with, and thus help players in avoiding unwanted spoilers. The goal behind this system is to boost player engagement with gaming communities by lifting the fear of spoilers, according to the patent document.


DualSense will further improve the system... everytime you want to spoil something... the "Spoiler Hand" comes out of the DualSense controller and slaps you in the face.

Feel the sense of spoiling pain
 

Mista

Banned
This patent probably has to do with Share button and Dashboard kind of community uploads.

Capture cards unaffected.
Yeah. They can’t control anything else

So lets say someone captures a huge segment of a game, it’ll be labeled with a spoiler in the feed and be blurred. I think thats how it’ll work
 

Birdo

Banned
Could have done with this decades ago.

Someone told me that Mario defeats Bowser in Mario 3. It ruined my playthrough.
 

kiphalfton

Member
Not like it matters since youtube always has spoilers for movies, games, etc. on the front page. Can't stop it from happening. People just like to spoil stuff for others.
 

D.Final

Banned
Share-button.jpg


Sony Interactive Entertainment has filed a new patent that describes a system for blocking online video game spoilers. According to a patent discovered by RespawnFirst, Sony is working on a method to block users for spoiling narrative-driven video games for others online. The feature is possibly coming alongside the PlayStation 5.

Sony’s spoiler blocking program will identify in-game objects such as weapons, characters, story points, and so forth, that have been seen by each player. Based on collected data, the program will prevent that player from engaging with content (e.g user-generated content, trophies, lore objects, etc.) that they would prefer to discover in the game as a matter of course. Moreover, developers can mark spoilers to hide it from the players until they discover it themselves. But the user will have control over the spoiler block feature, it can be turned off at any time.

ps5-1.png

ps5-2.png

ps5.png


A uniform data system will keep track of what in-game entities and activities users have engaged with, and thus help players in avoiding unwanted spoilers. The goal behind this system is to boost player engagement with gaming communities by lifting the fear of spoilers, according to the patent document.


Holy sh#!
 

Bartski

Gold Member
Of course, capture cards will bypass it but they're used for a different purpose, like sharing outside of PS internal ecosystem, like twitch etc. What exactly is the problem here?
If I choose not to have games I haven't played yet spoiled in my dashboard by friends sharing gameplay pics and clips, I can enable this feature and browse my dashboard spoiler free.
If I dont give a shit, I can turn it off and see everything. How is that a bad thing?
 
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JSoup

Banned
"But the user will have control over the spoiler block feature, it can be turned off at any time. "
Now, the question is how full is full control and does it extend to content streaming?
The PS4 autoblocks trophy popups and certain developer chosen sections when streaming with no option by the player to not do all that (other than using outside technology to bypass the built in version).
 

Zenaku

Member
Sounds convoluted. It'd be easier to just have games tag screens and videos with situational information (in-battle, in-cutscene, chapter 3, end-game area, multiplayer, etc) and use that.

Their way sounds as though they'll use image processing on the images and videos to identify objects and use that to determine if it can spoil.

Or maybe they are just gonna store tags in the media metadata and they're just wording it strangely.
 
You can still whip out your phone with 4K video and record what is going on screen and post it on youtube. This prevents nothing really except to use direct capture footage from your PS5.
 

Zannegan

Member
You can still whip out your phone with 4K video and record what is going on screen and post it on youtube. This prevents nothing really except to use direct capture footage from your PS5.
You've got it backwards. It's not trying to stop people who want to spoil the game, but trying to help those who don't want to be spoiled. If it works as described, it will track what you've seen (somehow) and then filters out any captured content that includes stuff you haven't seen.

Without the process described in the patent, you basically have to to choose between engaging with the community and going into the game blind. With it, you don't have to wait until you've finished the campaign to start checking out gameplay videos/gifs/memes/etc.

I don't care for watching other people play games and I'm not very social on consoles, so this does nothing for me. But, I know I'm in a minority. I can see how it might "drive player engagement" for a lot of folks.
 

Paracelsus

Member
Imagine being so hell-bent on making movies you develop patents to stop movie spoilers instead of making games that can stand on their own regardless of the plot.
Like, what if someone got spoiled the plot of Resident Evil 4 before launch.
 
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D.Final

Banned
Sounds convoluted. It'd be easier to just have games tag screens and videos with situational information (in-battle, in-cutscene, chapter 3, end-game area, multiplayer, etc) and use that.

Their way sounds as though they'll use image processing on the images and videos to identify objects and use that to determine if it can spoil.

Or maybe they are just gonna store tags in the media metadata and they're just wording it strangely.

True
 
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