Nintendo Patents In-Game Walkthroughs

Nintendo has filed a patent for a system that would let gamers watch in-game video walkthroughs and hints for games, or even entire automated playthroughs of games.

The system, revealed in a patent filed in June of last year but made public today, has three main features.

In one, players can go through a game as they normally would, but can access video hints that would be displayed in real-time in-game. So, if you're stuck in a puzzle in Zelda, you can pull up a video recorded by one of the game's developers (or even uploaded by another gamer), and it'll show you exactly how to do it. "In the game control method, in a case where a character that is allowed to perform a particular action is not in a party (a group to which a player character operated by a player belongs), a hint message is presented when a position at which the particular action can be performed is approached," the patent says. "Therefore, a player may not become stuck with the game, and is allowed to easily clear the game."

The second mode takes this idea to its extreme, and is essentially an automated playthrough of a game. You watch a video of a developer playing through the game, and you can jump into a scene to play for yourself whenever you feel like it. You cannot, however, save during this mode.

The third mode lets you skip directly to a certain section of a game, almost like a chapter menu on a DVD. The benefit of this, obviously, would be that you wouldn't have to slog through and waste a bunch of time playing through half a game just to get to "the good part."

The objective of this system seems to be to make games easier to finish and enjoy to completion for people who don't have the time or gaming acumen to do so. The patent makes clear that this isn't meant to turn off gamers who have the desire to finish a game the good ol' fashioned way, but just to make it less intimidating for every one else. In-game hints aren't enough to break down that barrier, the patent emphasizes. "There is a problem that a user does not have sufficient time for the game play may not enjoy the large volume of game to the end and give up halfway even when the difficulty level of game is lowered by presenting a hint or the like in the middle of the game," the patent states.

This is certainly a big leap forward, some would say in the direction of "dumbing down" the experience of playing a videogame. I personally, and I call myself a hardcore gamer, don't see much to be offended by here. This system simply would make it a lot easier for some people to finish a game, and if you don't want to utilize it because it's for "teh casuals," you don't have to. If you do, that just means you'll be saving a trip to your laptop to check GameFAQs. Furthermore, it might actually be a backdoor for Nintendo to focus on core gamers, since they'd be able to build more challenging (or relatively challenging) game experiences without fear of scaring off consumers who'd be too afraid they'd never be able to finish a game otherwise. That's my take - what do you guys think?

[Via Gamasutra and NeoGAF]

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Yeah, why not. Let people buy the game, so the game will play itself on its own. [ Hopefully gramatically correct ].

Clever Nintendo. Clever.

Why? That just takes all the fun out of it...well at least they won't force this feature upon us. It'll just kinda be there.

Oh God really? They're actually making a feature that plays the game for you! Is anyone going to get any enjoyment out of that!?

Whats the point of the hint system as well. If you really desperately need hints theres a little thing called the internet that might come in handy.

I am really, truly pissed off with this. Nintendo stooped as low as they could, then got on all fours and started digging.

raxiv:
Yeah, why not. Let people buy the game, so the game will play itself on its own. [ Hopefully gramatically correct ].

Clever Nintendo. Clever.

I hope you don't mean that. If you don't want it, then don't use it. Simple as that. Like the content filter on Gears of War. If you want gibs, then leave it off. If you were somehow possessed to buy it and let your grade school kids play it, make sure for hell that it's on when they play. Parents like that have no place to say that violent video games create homicidal maniacs. (sorry, got off topic there)

Zelda Water Temple dungeons are my downfall.

This could actually allow them to make games harder by giving people a way around the frustration of "how in shitting fuck's name are you supposed to do this". Once you know that what you're trying to do is what you're supposed to be trying to do to clear a given obstacle, you can focus on getting it right instead of wondering whether you're just missing the real solution. On the flip side, it makes it easier for people who aren't experienced gamers to play through a more complex game for much the same reasons.

Certain things are intuitive, obvious and accepted to those of us who have been playing games a long time (which buttons are almost always jump/attack/shoot/accelerate/etc, that shiny objects are meant to be collected by running into them, what kind of thing you can expect to be able to grab onto or make use of, even physics-defying silliness like the ability to jump while in mid-air) but here they're reaching out to people who are new gamers (not necessarily causal, just new) to bring them up to speed a little.

Think about it properly and you'll see the other side to this... it isn't just for making the retardedly obvious even more obvious, but _can_ be used to get previous non-gamers playing a "proper" game without having to go through a phase of being pissed off by every failure. Not everyone out there in the non-gamer market is going to be enticed into gaming by the 'opportunity' to play cutesy challenge-less puzzle games and this is their opening into the hard stuff.

Well... I hope they use it for that kind of thing. Then again it is entirely possible that'll it only ever be used by the makers of challenge-less puzzle games to remove even the "able to read and comprehend the instructions" hurdle.

Et3rnalLegend64:

raxiv:
Yeah, why not. Let people buy the game, so the game will play itself on its own. [ Hopefully gramatically correct ].

Clever Nintendo. Clever.

I hope you don't mean that. If you don't want it, then don't use it. Simple as that. Like the content filter on Gears of War. If you want gibs, then leave it off. If you were somehow possessed to buy it and let your grade school kids play it, make sure for hell that it's on when they play. Parents like that have no place to say that violent video games create homicidal maniacs. (sorry, got off topic there)

Zelda Water Temple dungeons are my downfall.

I object to what You said. I haven't written anywhere that the game will be only there to play itself on its own. We all read the article and we know its a feature. What I wrote was a satiric [spelling?] view on that.

Ng:
Furthermore, it might actually be a backdoor for Nintendo to focus on core gamers, since they'd be able to build more challenging (or relatively challenging) game experiences without fear of scaring off consumers who'd be too afraid ...

Ahhh... This is pretty clever! I wouldn't have thought of that on my own, but I agree that this would be a neat way to start making games tougher without worrying about reduced sales from people who don't buy "real"/"hardcore"/blahblahblah games. Cool stuff, cool stuff.

Meh, they can keep it. I know for a fact that people who'll get stuck on a particular part of the game are more prone to abuse the feature when it's there than to just try to figure it out one last time. Afterwards these will also be the people who'll complain that the game is too short or too easy. Sure, you can choose not to use it, but if you have a nuke at your disposal, will you go kill the entire city of New York armed with only a 9 mm.?

...I would.

Blank__:

Ng:
Furthermore, it might actually be a backdoor for Nintendo to focus on core gamers, since they'd be able to build more challenging (or relatively challenging) game experiences without fear of scaring off consumers who'd be too afraid ...

Ahhh... This is pretty clever! I wouldn't have thought of that on my own, but I agree that this would be a neat way to start making games tougher without worrying about reduced sales from people who don't buy "real"/"hardcore"/blahblahblah games. Cool stuff, cool stuff.

Don't you think this method looks awefully like the one used in Alone In The Dark? You could skip to whatever scene in the game you wanted, which meant you'd never be stuck. Sounds good in theory, but it seems like a giant buzzkill to me. Out goes the bragging about killing a difficult boss in Metroid because now everyone can see how the pros do it (I don't know how hard the bosses are usually but the final in in Hunters had me in for a good half hour).

Here's all that matters: Will this help Nintendo make money?

Methinks it might.
1. It will mean nobody gets turned off to a game because of its difficulty. All of a sudden the question becomes does it look fun, not can I beat it?
2.Games now have more value because it is accessible to the gamer and the "girlfriend." More value equals more sales.
3.They still make game guides as books despite the internet. I see Nintendo thinking, I want in on that market. I see this hint system being sold as a downloadable extra for a small fee. Just like game guides but integrated right into the game itself.

1&2 would probably have to involve the feature being free and is therefore not compatible with 3, but either way, this sounds like a money making idea.

Honestly I think it's brilliant.... I guess i'm the only one... *sulks alone in the corner*

This makes me worry about what sort of lawsuits they might file against people making their own walk-through/play-through if this patent was granted. Also, aren't patents normally granted for actual items or inventions and not merely ideas? Isn't that what a copyright or trademark is for?

EDIT: they use the term invention over and over in the application, but this is clearly an idea.

Indigo_Dingo:
While I like any talk of a chapter selection menu, I think it should stick to unlocked chapters.

And how was Alone in the Dark able to get away with DVD style skipping if Nintendo patented it?

Presumably it was just so bad than no-one gave a shit.

I think Nintendo just won the Douche of the Year award, and it's only the beginning of the year. It's not really a "big" deal, but it is VERY douchey.

PedroSteckecilo:
I think Nintendo just won the Douche of the Year award, and it's only the beginning of the year. It's not really a "big" deal, but it is VERY douchey.

How is it douchey? They're changing gaming.

I really don't care; if people can't get past a part or want some help let them. No one is forcing the hints on you.

Okay Nintendo, you're taking this whole "everyone can play!" thing a wee bit to seriously.

It's as if Nintendo thinks that "casual" are retards after all. Even "casual" gamers want a god damn challenge.

I get that if you're stuck on a certain part of Zelda or something (damn water temples) then the game itself would give you a hint. Like, after 20 minutes of wandering around, the game tells you to press a button and it shows you something that could jumpstart your thinking. Not actually showing you how it's "properly done", that gives no sense of achievment to anyone.

But this just completely undermines the whole point of gaming which is interaction. Too often I have been stuck on a boss for a few minutes and went straight to the internet for help. If that was available to me the whole time I...I don't know what would happen but it would not be good.

I understand that someone would be turned off of a game's difficulty, but this is hand-holding to the extreme.

EDIT: Though I'm probably being to bitchy about it, who knows if they're even going to use it that often in their games.

Keane Ng:

or even entire automated playthroughs of games.

Haaaaang on, the sneaky bastards have just patented videos!

...that was funnier when it first occurred to me. In hindsight, it's crap.

Feel free to click through to the patent itself, guys. There was a lot in there to parse and I'm sure plenty more info is to be mined between all the legal patent mumbo jumbo talk.

PedroSteckecilo:
I think Nintendo just won the Douche of the Year award, and it's only the beginning of the year. It's not really a "big" deal, but it is VERY douchey.

I dunno I think Sony already beat them with that chart that had numbers more misleading than Enron's accounting ledgers.

Also I love how everyone immediately castigates this idea as if it's something that would be turned on and forced to be used with a game.

Which it clearly is not. Hell I don't even have an opinion on the idea because

A. It does not affect me
B. It does not affect the people on this board directly
C. It does not affect anybody I know
D. All of the above.

Maybe it'll be good, maybe it'll be bad. But it certainly isn't going to force me to make some kind of life-changing decision because it's obviously something optional and possibly even designed to assist younger gamers, which might be a bad thing because back in those days for me we didn't have such a thing. And games were fucking hard then (NES days)

But at the same time people are starting to seem to get a lot dumber, who knows? Maybe Nintendo is trying to bring back point-and-click adventure games with silly logic?

I think the only point I have with this (aside from the fact that it's a software patent, which I dislike on principle), is that I don't think they're describing a "hint system" or "recording" (in the video sense)... it's more like Ghost Data (in racing games), or playback information used in emulator speedruns (which is proof that things are legitimately possible within the game, and not video-edited). So effectively, using Zelda as an example, Link comes to a tricky timed puzzle. A young player would be able to activate a "ghost hint" and a second Link would appear, semi-transparent, and perform the action sequence required to solve the puzzle, without actually solving it for the player.

I can see no way in which that is a bad feature.

Just shows that they don't just make samey games like everyoe else. They patent the most pointless game ruining ideas going.

Indigo_Dingo:

TsunamiWombat:

PedroSteckecilo:
I think Nintendo just won the Douche of the Year award, and it's only the beginning of the year. It's not really a "big" deal, but it is VERY douchey.

How is it douchey? They're changing gaming.

By removing the "gaming" part

They remove the "frustration" part.
Man most games feel like interactive movis today anyway, the last game that really challenged me was MGS:TTS, and that only becuase i used extreme mode and i played through it without killing anyone...
So this feature is either a blessing or a curse, i would say its a blessing, because then nobody has to BAWWWWWWWW over difficult ingame riddles or puzzles, and we can have more difficult ones right there.

Also, they dont force you to use it.
But thats only a minor point that makes the whole discussion irrelevant...

naftali1:
Why? That just takes all the fun out of it...well at least they won't force this feature upon us. It'll just kinda be there.

its like my nine year old brother, he payed my friend to get him through the entire game, he barely played.

Ah once again, new idea is scary. Lets us heap scorn on something which is an optional extra designed to help people get more from a game.

Yeah its hand holding but I occasionally like having my hand held, just as long as it stays north of the equator my wife wont mind!

You know, I used to joke with my friends, "Haha, the industry is going so casual, that eventually, the games will just play themselves!". Thanks Nintendo, for making something completely absurd and stupid possibly become a reality.

I'm not exactly sure what the entire point of it is really. You buy a game to play the damn thing, not watch some computer AI play it for you. I could understand giving hints and the like, but having it actually play the game for you? That's completely and utterly stupid.

Thankfully, I highly doubt this will take off with most developers, especially developers of core titles. They know that most people buy a game to play it, so they won't waste the time or resources to implement such a stupid feature.

electric discordian:
Ah once again, new idea is scary. Lets us heap scorn on something which is an optional extra designed to help people get more from a game.

Yeah its hand holding but I occasionally like having my hand held, just as long as it stays north of the equator my wife wont mind!

Hey, no fair, you're using my excuse with the SixaxiS.

There's no problem with giving away hints at games, everyone appreciates them once in a while. However, nobody wants to watch other people playing. Nobody. Oh sure, maybe a few glimpses of a ghost that shows the optimal course, but never actually putting down the controller to watch someone else play it the "right way".

Quite frankly, Nintendo is taking this "help people get into gaming!" thing way to seriously with this patent. This practically proves that Nintendo think that "casual" gamers are nothing but retards! Naw, that's me being pretentious, but it does say a lot about how they think of the crowd they're catering to.

"Casual" gamers may not be as "into" games as "Hardcore" gamers, but that doesn't mean they don't want a challenge. While, yes, this is just an extra side-dish to help you out, too often you'll be tempted to see what it is and POOF you don't care about playing the game anymore. That's happened a bunch of times with me whenever I looked at online walkthroughs, and it's really annoying >_>; And even if this is just a side, there's no reason why it should be a completely new feature. It should come with the game itself as a hints bar.

raxiv:

Et3rnalLegend64:

raxiv:
Yeah, why not. Let people buy the game, so the game will play itself on its own. [ Hopefully gramatically correct ].

Clever Nintendo. Clever.

I hope you don't mean that. If you don't want it, then don't use it. Simple as that. Like the content filter on Gears of War. If you want gibs, then leave it off. If you were somehow possessed to buy it and let your grade school kids play it, make sure for hell that it's on when they play. Parents like that have no place to say that violent video games create homicidal maniacs. (sorry, got off topic there)

Zelda Water Temple dungeons are my downfall.

I object to what You said. I haven't written anywhere that the game will be only there to play itself on its own. We all read the article and we know its a feature. What I wrote was a satiric [spelling?] view on that.

Okay, in that case, I apologize completely. Just realize that this is the internet so some people truly are dim and it is impossible to discern the dim from the sarcastic. Also, sarcasm sometimes doesn't work in text.

EDIT: Read the board now and my point if proven. A lot of people seem to believe that the feature is being forced upon them, don't they? (And your spelling/grammar has nothing wrong with it, if you still wanted to know. No sarcasm)

Singing Gremlin:

Keane Ng:

or even entire automated playthroughs of games.

Haaaaang on, the sneaky bastards have just patented videos!

...that was funnier when it first occurred to me. In hindsight, it's crap.

I chortled slightly. It wasn't that bad.

Oh, and everyone's freaking out like all this stuff will actually come to be! A patent is just a mediocre form of CYA that lets them do their thing without another company coming in and claiming that they should be making money off whatever that thing is. Even if a system like this does roll out, they may never use any of the automated parts.

i think that patent will get tossed out or won't hold up as certain aspects of it have prior art already out there

Personally, I just see this as an excuse for poorly designed levels that make you backtrack 20 times because you dont have the requisite precognitive abilities to know that you have to shoot down a never hinted at and difficult to see unless you're actively looking for it stalactite in order to advance.