Hot Spot Windows for Persistent Game Equity in Wagering Games
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Solution Overview
Problem
Electronic gaming machines lack a mechanism to persistently enhance game equity and volatility through hot spot features, which are not effectively integrated into the existing random number generator systems, limiting player engagement and payout opportunities.
Innovation Solution
A gaming device and method that introduces 'hot spot' windows by associating feature symbols with configurable symbols, applying a modifier based on the presence of feature symbols in adjacent windows, which persistently modify prize awards over multiple spins, increasing game equity and volatility.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a random number generator is used to determine game outcomes, then fairness and regulatory compliance are maintained, but game equity and volatility cannot be persistently enhanced
Solution Approach 1:
The game display is segmented into multiple windows, each capable of independently displaying symbols and accumulating prizes. This segmentation allows different windows to have different hot spot statuses and multiplier values, enabling persistent enhancement of game equity while maintaining fair random outcomes through the RNG system.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically assigns hot spot status to windows based on symbol combinations and applies varying multipliers to different windows. This dynamic adjustment allows the game to adapt and enhance volatility and equity over time while the underlying RNG maintains fairness and regulatory compliance.
2Productivity
If hot spot features are integrated into the gaming system, then player engagement and payout opportunities are increased, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The hot spot feature system serves multiple functions simultaneously: it enhances player engagement, increases payout opportunities, creates volatility, and maintains regulatory compliance through the RNG. By making the window management system multi-functional, the patent avoids the need for separate systems for each function, thereby limiting the increase in overall system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces window status management as an intermediary layer between the RNG and the payout system. This intermediary handles the complexity of hot spot assignments, multiplier applications, and prize accumulations, allowing the RNG to remain simple and compliant while the window system manages the enhanced gameplay features.
3Quantity of substance
If multipliers are applied to windows with feature symbols, then prize awards are increased, but the frequency of high payouts decreases
Solution Approach 1:
Different windows are assigned different qualities (hot spot status with various multipliers) based on local conditions (presence of feature symbols). This allows certain windows to have enhanced prize values while others maintain standard payouts, creating a distribution that increases overall equity and volatility without requiring all payouts to be frequent or high.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes parameters (multiplier values, hot spot status) dynamically based on the symbols that land in each window. By adjusting these parameters after each spin based on the actual outcomes, the system can provide high payouts when feature symbols appear while maintaining reasonable payout frequency through the base game mechanics.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and apparatuses are provided for providing reel-strip-based wagering games in which the reel strips include one or more feature symbols and one or more configurable symbols. Each time a feature symbol of a reel strip is displayed in a window of the wagering game associated with that reel strip, one or more “hot spot windows” associated with that window may be determined. Hot spot windows may have a modified status applied to them that may last for a predetermined number of gameplay instances. Awards associated with the configurable symbols may, if a configurable symbol is selected for display in a window with one or more modified statuses currently applied, be modified by a modifier that is based on the applied one or more modified statuses.