Sony patent allows viewers to remove players from games by voting or payment

Hot potatoes: Esports is very dangerous, so what is Sony doing? Put forward a patent that allows viewers of streaming games to vote or pay to remove players. In addition, viewers can send personalized messages to their members warning them of the need for improvement.

PatentFirst filed by Sony back in 2020, it was approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this week. It, titled “Viewers Vote for Players on the Bench in a Video Game,” specifically mentions Twitch as a platform that can use the tool.

The patent will use a menu system where viewers can vote to remove players. Before a player is on the bench, a threshold of 60% must be reached, and the voices of more experienced spectators will weigh more than those of others. These skill levels will be based on someone’s stats, time in the game or achievements in the game.

If your skill level is not high enough, there is always the option to pay money using real money, in-game coins or cryptocurrency to remove a player, which does not seem like the best idea, especially for players. will not have the right to veto the decision to send off and may be reassigned to a completely different match. The Pay-to-Boot option does seem to contradict Sony’s claim that the system is designed to remove problem players.

A lot of this may sound disturbing, but here’s the interesting thing: viewers will also be able to use the system to directly alert players of an improvement, which will no doubt not be used to target people for reasons other than their playability.

The patent marks Sony’s latest step in lucrative esports this year following the acquisition of the Evolution Championship Series and filing. patent for online tournaments…

As with all patents, there is no guarantee that this patent will ever become a reality – Sony may have registered it so that no one else would come up with a similar system. Given the challenges that Twitch is already grappling with, none of this seems like a particularly good idea.