US 12,330,070 B2
Spectator participation in esports events
Celeste Bean, San Mateo, CA (US); Alessandra Luizello, San Mateo, CA (US); Genie-Rose Luluquisin, San Mateo, CA (US); Benaisha Patel, San Mateo, CA (US); and Olga Rudi, San Mateo, CA (US)
Assigned to SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC, San Mateo, CA (US); and SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT INC., Tokyo (JP)
Filed by SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC, San Mateo, CA (US); and SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT INC., Tokyo (JP)
Filed on Jul. 21, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/870,021.
Prior Publication US 2024/0024787 A1, Jan. 25, 2024
Int. Cl. A63F 13/86 (2014.01); A63F 13/355 (2014.01); A63F 13/358 (2014.01); A63F 13/48 (2014.01); A63F 13/847 (2014.01)
CPC A63F 13/86 (2014.09) [A63F 13/358 (2014.09); A63F 13/48 (2014.09); A63F 13/355 (2014.09); A63F 13/847 (2014.09); A63F 2300/535 (2013.01); A63F 2300/577 (2013.01)] 23 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer-implemented method for spectator-based interactions in virtual esports environments, the method comprising:
establishing an interactive session at one or more gaming servers associated with rendering, on a display, a virtual esports environment for a plurality of user devices each connected to the one or more gaming servers via a communication network, wherein a first subset of the user devices is associated with one or more designated players, and a second subset of the user devices is associated with one or more designated spectators associated with respective spectator avatars within the virtual esports environment;
receiving data from one user device of the second subset of the user devices over the communication network, the data indicating input received by the one user device;
identifying a spectator action based at least in part on the data;
identifying the spectator action is associated with an avatar associated with one of the designated players determined to have met a condition in the same interactive session as a spectator avatar of the respective spectator avatars; and
modifying the display of the virtual esports environment based on the spectator action, wherein modifying the display of the virtual esports environment includes providing a virtual action to the spectator avatar, wherein the virtual action is limited until the modification is made to the virtual esports environment.