Asynchronous Tournament System for Gaming Machines
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Casino-style games and gaming machines lack innovative features to provide novel excitement and engagement for players, despite increased variety, leading to a desire for new applications and improvements.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for implementing a tournament feature that allows synchronous or asynchronous participations, where players can engage in tournament play sequences, with scores evaluated to determine a winning score and award a prize, utilizing gaming machines with displaying, accepting, inputting, awarding, and storing means, and a tournament server for data exchange and control.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If synchronous tournament participations are implemented, then player engagement and competition are improved, but system complexity and coordination requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The tournament system is segmented into independent gaming machines that can operate autonomously. Each machine manages its own tournament participation locally, with a central server coordinating only the essential tournament framework and score aggregation. This segmentation allows synchronous tournaments to run without requiring complex real-time coordination between all machines.
Solution Approach 2:
A central tournament server acts as an intermediary between gaming machines, managing tournament registration, timing, and score collection. The server mediates the synchronous tournament process by receiving participation data from multiple machines and distributing tournament information, thereby simplifying the coordination complexity.
2Ease of operation
If asynchronous tournament participations are allowed, then player flexibility and accessibility are improved, but score evaluation and winner determination become more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by establishing a predetermined tournament framework including time windows, scoring criteria, and evaluation rules before asynchronous participations begin. This pre-configuration simplifies the score evaluation process during the actual tournament by providing clear, pre-defined parameters for comparison.
Solution Approach 2:
The system handles parameter changes by allowing tournament conditions such as time windows and scoring parameters to be dynamically adjusted based on participation patterns. The central server modifies tournament parameters to accommodate asynchronous participation while maintaining fair evaluation through standardized scoring metrics.
3Adaptability or versatility
If tournament features are added to gaming machines, then player engagement and novelty are improved, but machine functionality and software complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The gaming machine software is segmented into separate modules: the primary game engine and the tournament feature module. This segmentation allows the tournament functionality to be added as an independent layer that interfaces with but does not complicate the core game logic, maintaining ease of maintenance and updates.
Solution Approach 2:
The gaming machine is designed with universal interfaces that can handle both primary game operations and tournament feature operations through a common architecture. The machine's controlling means, displaying means, and awarding means serve dual purposes for both regular gameplay and tournament participation, reducing overall system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A tournament feature is herein disclosed. This tournament feature allows asynchronous participations in which, upon or after the tournament feature ending, scores resulting from participations are evaluated to determine a winner to be awarded a prize. In an embodiment, a method of providing the tournament feature comprises conducting a wagering game on a gaming machine; monitoring activity on the gaming machine; generating a tournament participation invitation based on said activity monitoring; detecting the invitation on the gaming machine; providing a tournament participation on the gaming machine, comprising conducting a tournament play sequence depending on which a tournament score is obtained; storing the score with a plurality of scores throughout conduct of the tournament feature; evaluating stored scores after the end of the tournament feature to determine a winning score; and awarding a prize to the player who entered the winning score.