If you have ever played any competitive game, you should be well aware of the smurfing phenomenon that ruins the experience for anyone who isn’t a top player. By creating alternate accounts, high-rank players return to the bottom of the competitive ladder, stomping through less experienced players for all sorts of reasons, often not very good ones. However, next-generation systems like the PlayStation 6may solve this long-standing issue (while also improving cloud gaming), as Sony has patented new technology to detect players using secondary accounts to make ranked modes in competitive games fairer.
“Systems and methods for using gameplay characteristics to identify a user are provided. A computing system can receive user interaction data corresponding to a first player account of a gaming platform. The user interaction data can be generated by the user associated with the first player account interacting with the gaming platform. The computing system can determine a first set of characteristics of the user interaction data,” readsa new patent filed by Sony on April 20 and published on November 5, as reported by Patentlyze.
“The computing system can determine whether the first set of characteristics match a second set of characteristics of different user interaction data associated with a second player account interacting with the gaming platform. Based on determining that the first set of characteristics match the second set of characteristics, the computing system can provide an indication that the first set of characteristics related to the first player account match the second set of characteristics.”
Looking at the patent, this new Sony tech works in a rather straightforward way. The system collects user interaction data, tracking the buttons the player presses on their controller across menus and gameplay, and an AI model looks for input patterns, such as how much time passes between button presses and how system and game menus are interacted with. Sets of inputs are then compared to other stored sets of inputs using a similarity score, which determines if one player is using two different accounts once a certain threshold is passed. An alert is then sent to the platform or the game’s developer, who can restrict ranked play or ban the secondary account altogether.
A system like this could lead to false positives, and thus the restricting and banning of legitimate main accounts, but Sony outlined some features in the patent that should reduce the risk. For starters, the AI model can determine the player’s skill level by comparing it to other known input sets belonging to high-rank players, and even discard input data that shows when a game has been thrown on purpose to update the system’s rating, which will dynamically take into account a player’s real performance and update its data accordingly.
While some users may balk at the thought of their input data being given to an AI model, every modern competitive game already records players’ input data. Modern fighting games’ replays, such as in Street Fighter 6, rely on input data to recreate the match, so this Sony tech would draw on data already stored for gameplay purposes.
I, for one, would very much welcome a system that deals with smurfing on PlayStation 6 and possibly on every other system. Back in the Street Fighter V days, I admit I did have alternate accounts, but only because the game did not allow me to use secondary characters without tanking the rank of the entire account. However, Street Fighter 6keeps track of each character’s rank separately, solving the issue.
Still, people continue to smurf in competitive games for all sorts of reasons, mostly of the negative sort, so a system like this would go a long way to level the playing field and let newcomers or less experienced players play against those close to their skill rank. The joy of competitive gaming is to improve at any given game, but when the gap in skill level is massive, only frustration remains.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack.
After joining the Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi “Suda51” Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA’s president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3.
When he’s not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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