A newly published PlayStation patent for a game difficulty system has caused some alarm among players. The description provided in Sony‘s application sounds a lot like adaptive difficulty, but players have noted previous attempts by companies to patent their own iterations of adaptive difficulties, like Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis System, which was successfully patented by publisher Warner Bros.
Players concerned about PlayStation’s implementation of new game difficulty system
While patents don’t always come to fruition, they are the first step in bringing a product or service to life. After all, we saw a patent for PlayStation Portal way back in 2017. Players are wondering how Sony plans to differentiate its adaptive difficulty system in order for the patent to be successful, with some hoping that the company doesn’t forcefully implement it in first-party games.
The patent reads:
The collected data maybe evaluated to identify whether a user gaming performance level corresponds to an expected level of performance. When the user gaming performance level does not correspond to an expected level of performance, parameters that change the difficultly of the game may be changed automatically.
Some say that adaptive difficulty isn’t an issue if it’s an option but decry forceful implementation. Others say that they’re worried about a system similar to the controversial skill-based matchmaking in single-player games.
