Activision Patent Could Reward Players for Promoting the Company’s Games

A patent filed by publisher Activision with the United States patent office may offer insight into how the company wants to approach game promotion. The patent may give players rewards for promoting Activision games to their communities and audiences.

Publishers and studios are always looking to secure the best or most interesting ideas for improving player engagement with their titles. To that end, companies like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo regularly file patents with various offices, outlining their ideas and concepts. These patents, which are filed publicly, can give hints at what the companies plan, or show ultimately scrapped concepts, such as in the case of the Xbox Keystone console project that was never released.

In Activision’s case, the new patent, titled “Video Game Group Dynamic Building,” outlines an internet-based system for monitoring players who play Activision games like Call of Duty and Call of Duty: Warzone. The World Intellectual Property Organization published the patent on its Patentscope database on June 13, 2024.

Activision Patent Rewards Players Based on Livestreaming

The Activision patent was originally filed in July 2023. It’s described as a system wherein a player plays and streams their gameplay to others, and rewards are distributed based on certain events occurring. The intent behind it is to encourage players to share their exploits with others, and to get players to play those same games, achieve certain feats, and even acquire the games through the streamer. Rewards will be distributed in a manner that seems similar to Twitch Drops for games like Overwatch 2 and others.

In Activision’s reasoning, the system aims to help solve solitary tendencies in gameplay, even in contexts like online multiplayer. Using rewards to encourage players to share things like strategies, novel gameplay patterns, and feats can help streamers connect with their audiences, and in turn, help audiences be more engaged with the game. For example, if it had been an Activision game, Kai Cenat defeating Malenia in Elden Ring on stream might be considered an in-game event that would qualify for rewards for both Cenat and his viewers.

In its way, the system as described by Activision comes across as an evolved version of the referral links used by YouTubers and websites to gain revenue by encouraging their audiences to engage with the things they promote, and profit when viewers are converted into customers. It’s unknown whether Activision or Microsoft has acted on the patent to add such a system to an existing game, but its existence speaks to the ways companies are looking for ways to better engage potential customers with their products through streaming and influencing.

Activision

Date Founded

October 1, 1979

Headquarters

Santa Monica, California, United States