This month's User Interface & Experience category includes 4 granted patents from 3 companies: Sony (2), NetEase (1), and Riot Games (1).
The patents cover a range of screen and controller interface technologies, from how game-relevant information gets displayed to players during live gameplay to how platform features are surfaced based on user behavior. Riot Games addresses readability on small screens by using a rule-based system to display off-screen enemy indicators built from modular UI elements, while NetEase describes a touch camera control that distinguishes flings from slow drags to handle movement and action separately. Sony's 2 patents cover a controller lighting system that illuminates specific buttons based on their in-context role, and a platform-side system that monitors user activity to determine when and how to present relevant features, then adjusts based on user response.
Riot Games received 1 patent focused on making MOBAs playable on small touchscreens. The system uses a rule set to determine when an icon for an off-screen enemy should appear at the edge of the display, and that icon is assembled on the fly from a library of components carrying information about the enemy's identity, health, and direction. A fog-of-war check is part of the filtering logic, so the indicator only appears when the game's visibility rules would permit it, keeping the screen from being cluttered with information that shouldn't be visible in the first place.
NetEase received 1 patent addressing a longstanding awkwardness in touch-based top-down games, where a single swipe gesture can mean very different things depending on how it's performed. The patent describes a system that reads the parameters of a touch gesture and routes it down 1 of 2 paths: fast flings trigger a buffered camera glide and also fire a game action, while slower, more deliberate drags receive a compensating adjustment to the view. The key distinction from earlier approaches is that both the camera easing and the secondary game action are tied to the classification of that same gesture, rather than requiring the player to switch modes or use a separate input.
Sony received 2 patents, and both deal with how a platform communicates information to the person using it, though through very different mechanisms. The first covers a controller lighting system where individual buttons can be lit according to their current role in the game, with the lighting effect driven by control signals sent from the game apparatus itself, allowing the hardware to respond dynamically to moment-to-moment gameplay state rather than displaying a fixed pattern. The second describes a platform-level system that monitors what a user is doing and uses that context, along with a personalized profile, to decide when to surface a relevant feature, what that feature is, and how to present it, then updates its own model based on whether the user responded.
All data sourced from USPTO patent filings. Google Patents may take several weeks to index recent publications. If a link is unavailable, search for the patent number at USPTO Patent Public Search.