Konami filed 2 patents this quarter spanning Game Mechanics (1) and Monetization (1).
The Game Mechanics filing covers a bingo-style lottery system where squares at the top and bottom of each column wrap around to function as adjacent spaces, increasing the probability of completing lines. On the Monetization side, Konami describes technology that calculates audibility scores for in-game Audio advertisements by tracking factors like volume levels, headphone usage, mute status, and whether players are visually distracted during ad playback.
The single game mechanics patent reimagines spatial relationships in grid-based lottery games. Rather than treating each column as a linear sequence with fixed endpoints, the system allows the top and bottom squares to connect as neighbors. This wrapping adjacency changes the underlying probability model for line completion, as squares at column edges now have the same neighbor count as those in the middle, fundamentally altering how winning patterns emerge across the grid.
Konami's Monetization filing tackles a measurement problem in Audio advertising by moving beyond simple impression tracking. The system generates a composite audibility score by weighing multiple factors including whether Audio is enabled, the absolute and relative volume settings, frequency-band-specific analysis comparing ad volume to game sound, whether headphones are connected, and metrics indicating visual attention during ad playback. This multi-dimensional calculation aims to give advertisers a quality metric that reflects how well players could actually hear an advertisement, not just whether it played.