Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.

Olga Rudi

Steven Osman

Mahdi Azmandian

Celeste Bean

Jorge Arroyo Palacios

Elizabeth Ruth Juenger

Kristine Young

Victoria Walker

Katie Egeland

Sepideh Karimi

Kristie Ramirez

Courtney Yingling

Lachmin Singh

Charles McCoy

Victoria Dorn

Jennifer Sheldon

Katrine Chow

Jin Zhang

Rui Yang

Brielle Powell

Angela Bartolome

Benaisha Patel

Alessandra Luizello

Hsin-Yi Chien

Rebecca MacDonald

Lucie Roberts

Miho Michigami

Sarah Karp

Tatianna Manzon-Gutzman

Morgan Fryer-McCulloch

Tatianna Forget

Genie-Rose Luluquisin

Ravi Coimbatore Madhavan

Steve Osman

Aslanta Chen

Phoenix Nitta-Hill

Methods and systems are provided for rendering assistive chat during play of a video game. An example method includes tracking a gaze of a first player interacting with a scene of an environment of the video game. The method includes identifying a gaze focus of the first player. The gaze focus is toward a character in the scene. The character is associated with a second player. The method includes processing state data of the environment to identify an event occurring in the environment of the video game. The method includes surfacing an indicator to the first player that is suggestive of participating in a chat communication with the second player. The surfacing is configured to be triggered responsive to the gaze focus being toward the character and the identified event.

Methods and systems for assistive chat interactivity

Systems and methods of intelligent reporting within online communities are provided. A current communication session associated with a plurality of user device may be monitored. The current communication session may include a stream of audio-visual content generated in real-time based on interactions between the user devices. A recording trigger may be detected within the current communication session. A recording of a portion of the stream of audio-visual content may be recorded in response to the detected trigger event. The recording may be analyzed to attribute one or more sub-portions within the recording to one or more of the user devices. At least one of the sub-portions attributed to an identified one of the user devices may be determined to meet a moderation event. A report regarding the identified user device may be generated that includes the at least one sub-portion that meets the moderation event.

Intelligent reporting within online communities

A method for providing adaptive game assistance during gameplay is described. The method includes providing access to play a game for a game session by a user via a game controller and accessing a profile model of the user during the game session. The profile model is a machine learning model used for predicting gaming skills from select game contexts in games. The method further includes detecting a context in the game during the game session where the profile model predicts that the user lacks a gaming skill to advance in the game and activating a haptic cue to the game controller, wherein the haptic cue is a vibration to a specific region of the game controller. The vibration to the specific region is suggestive of a type of input to be made using the game controller to advance in the game.

Systems and methods for enabling interactive game assistance during gameplay

Techniques are described for smooth switchover of computer game control. The current states of game input is communicated to a new player assuming control. The new player is allowed time to catch up to the game. New player control is detected, and any errors are communicated to the new player. If there are differences between the old control scheme and that of the new player, they are reconciled. The outgoing player is adjusted to the transition.

Smooth switchover of computer game control

To protect a user's privacy by reducing a malicious developer's ability to eavesdrop on unwitting HMD users by converting signals from a motion sensor in the HMD to speech or speaker recognition, a microphone can record ambient sound and voice which is subtracted from the motion sensor data before the sensor data is made available to the game developer. In another technique, a band pass filter subtracts frequency in the sensor signals within the voice range. Still a third technique blends statistical noise into the motion sensor signal before passing to game developers to obfuscate the user's speech. The amount by which voice components in the motion signal are eliminated or obfuscated can be tuned by a person or app.

Tunable filtering of voice-related components from motion sensor

A method for providing an auto-play mode option to a user during gameplay of a video game includes accessing, by a server, a user play model, which incorporates extracted features related to gameplay by the user and classification of the extracted features. The accessing of the model is triggered at a current time during gameplay. The method also includes identifying, by the server, predicted interactive activity that is predicted to occur ahead of the current time of gameplay. The method further includes identifying, by the server, at least part of the predicted interactive activity to be anticipated grinding content (AGC). The method also includes providing a notification, by the server, to a display screen of a user device, where the notification identifies the AGC in upcoming gameplay and provides the user with an option to use the auto-play mode during gameplay of the AGC.

Method and system for auto-playing portions of a video game

The present technology provides solutions for spectator-based interactions in a virtual esports environment. A method can include establishing an interactive session associated with the virtual esports environment, the interactive session including a plurality of user devices, wherein a subset of the user devices is associated with designated players, and another subset of the user devices is associated with designated spectators; receiving data from one of the user devices over a communication network, the data indicating a spectator action performed by a spectator associated with the user device; identifying that the spectator action is associated with one of the players in the virtual esports environment; and modifying the virtual esports environment based on the spectator action and the association with the identified player.

Spectator participation in esports events

A method of controlling online gaming behavior. The method including monitoring at a game server a plurality of game plays of a plurality of players playing a video game in a gaming session over a period of time. The method including extracting features from the plurality of game plays related to a plurality of activities associated with the plurality of game plays, the plurality of activities being controlled by the plurality of players. The method including running the features through an artificial intelligence (AI) learning model configured to classify the plurality of activities. The method including classifying an activity as abusive behavior.

Classifying gaming activity to identify desirable behavior

A method and system for providing gaze-based generation of virtual effects indicators correlated with directional sounds is disclosed. Gaze data is tracked via a camera associated with a client device to identify a point of focus within a three-dimensional virtual environment towards which one or both eyes of the player are focused. When the point of focus indicated by the gaze data when the point of focus does not move towards the source location within the three-dimensional virtual environment when the directional sound is received indicates that a virtual effect indicator associated with the directional sound type of the indicated directional sound is should be generated.

Gaze-based coordination of virtual effects indicators

Certain aspects of the present disclosure include systems and techniques for generating content that indicates a sensation associated with audio. One example method generally includes monitoring audio to be played during display of an associated portion of an interactive content stream provided over a communication network to at least one viewing device during an interactive session, and analyzing, via a machine learning component, the audio to determine a sensation associated with at least a portion of the audio. The method may also include determining an effect indicating the sensation, wherein the effect is associated with one or more output devices associated with the at least one viewing device, and outputting an indication of the effect to the associated output devices, wherein the effect is configured to be output along with the audio in real-time with the display of the associated portion of the interactive content stream.

Contextual scene enhancement

A system and method for providing automated intervention in a virtual environment is disclosed. Intervention settings for a user are stored, wherein the intervention settings for the user includes one or more customized intervention triggers each corresponding to one or more trigger conditions and an intervention response. A current session associated with a user device of the user is monitored, wherein monitoring the current session includes analyzing interactions between the user and one or more other users in a virtual environment of the current session based on the intervention settings. One of the intervention triggers is identified as having occurred in the current session based on detecting the corresponding trigger conditions in the virtual environment. A workflow associated with the intervention response that corresponds to the identified intervention trigger is modulated based on the interactions between the user and the other users in the virtual environment. The intervention response is executed in the virtual environment of the current session based on the modulated workflow.

Personal space bubble in VR environments

Privacy of a conversation between a computer game player and an entity such as a person or virtual assistant is preserved by various techniques so that other players of the computer game who are not part of the conversation cannot apprehend the conversation. The conversation may be voice or txt but is not an online chat associated with the computer game.

SMS, phone and video call support while gaming

Systems and methods of intent identification for customized dialogue support in virtual environments are provided. Dialogue intent models stored in memory may each specify one or more intents each associated with a dialogue filter. Input data may be received from a user device of a user. Such input data may be captured during an interactive session of an interactive title that provides a virtual environment to the user device. The input data may be analyzed based on the intent models in response to a detected dialogue trigger and may be determined to correspond to one of the stored intents. The dialogue filter associated with the determined intent may be applied to a plurality of available dialogue outputs associated with the detected dialogue filter. A customized dialogue output may be generated in accordance with a filtered subset of the available dialogue outputs.

Intent identification for dialogue support

Systems and methods for automated visual trigger profiling and detection within virtual environments are provided. A visual trigger profile may be stored in memory that includes a set of visual trigger characteristics associated with a type of visual sensitivity. Buffered frames of an audiovisual stream that have not yet been displayed may be monitored to identify when a buffered frame includes a threshold level of the visual trigger characteristics associated with the visual sensitivity. A frame modification that decreases the level of the detected visual trigger characteristics associated with the visual sensitivity may be identified and applied to the identified frames. The modified frames may thereafter be presented during the audiovisual stream in place of the original (unmodified) identified frames.

Automated visual trigger profiling and detection

A disruptive behavior incident flag notification is received from a game player that marks a time during play of a video game corresponding to a potential disruptive behavior incident. A video clip for the disruptive behavior incident flag notification is automatically generated and stored with the disruptive behavior incident flag notification in association with an account of the game player. The game player accesses and reviews the disruptive behavior incident flag notification and corresponding generated video clip. The game player applies a validation indicator to the disruptive behavior incident flag notification. The validation indicator for the disruptive behavior incident flag notification as received from the game player is used to prioritize the disruptive behavior incident flag notification and corresponding generated video clip for platform moderator review. An incident reporting score for the game player is updated based on a platform moderator report for the disruptive behavior incident flag notification.

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Olga Rudi