Shared Display Server for Gaming System Hand-Off
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Solution Overview
Problem
Modern gaming systems lack effective methods to enhance player experience and encourage play at unoccupied gaming machines, as they do not provide a compelling shared presentation of game events that can attract players to other machines.
Innovation Solution
A gaming system and method where a portion of a game play initiated at one gaming machine is displayed on a shared display arrangement visible to all machines, allowing a wider audience to view and participate, with a shared display server managing hand-off communications and queuing for display availability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If game play is displayed only at the individual gaming machine, then the player has exclusive view of their game, but the gaming machine remains unattractive to other players and unoccupied machines do not generate interest
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the individual gaming machine display with a shared display system. The shared display arrangement receives and displays game play content from multiple gaming machines, allowing a player's game to be viewed by multiple players simultaneously. This combining of display resources resolves the contradiction by enabling shared viewing capability while using existing display hardware.
Solution Approach 2:
The shared display arrangement serves multiple functions: it displays game play from any connected gaming machine, attracts players to unoccupied machines by showing active games, and provides a larger viewing format. This multi-functionality addresses the contradiction by making the display system adaptable to different gaming scenarios without requiring separate dedicated displays for each machine.
2Productivity
If a shared display arrangement is introduced to display portions of game play, then interest in games increases and participation is encouraged, but system complexity and management of hand-off communications increases
Solution Approach 1:
The shared display server acts as an intermediary between gaming machines and the shared display arrangement. It receives hand-off communications from gaming machines, manages the queue of game play content to be displayed, and controls the shared display arrangement. This intermediary simplifies the overall system by centralizing the management complexity in a dedicated server rather than requiring complex peer-to-peer coordination between multiple machines.
Solution Approach 2:
The system establishes hand-off protocols and queuing mechanisms in advance to manage transitions of game play content to the shared display. By pre-defining the rules for when and how game content is transferred to the shared display, the system avoids complex real-time negotiation and conflict resolution, thereby managing system complexity while maintaining high player engagement.
3Quantity of substance
If multiple gaming machines are connected to a shared display, then the audience for game events expands, but conflicts in hand-off communications must be managed
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-establishes hand-off protocols and queuing rules before conflicts can occur. When a gaming machine initiates a hand-off of game play content to the shared display, the server checks the queue status in advance and manages the transfer according to predefined rules, preventing communication conflicts before they arise.
Solution Approach 2:
The shared display server implements feedback mechanisms to monitor the state of the display queue and communicate availability status back to gaming machines. This feedback system ensures that hand-off communications are coordinated reliably, as each machine receives information about current display status before initiating a transfer, thereby maintaining communication reliability as the number of connected machines increases.
Data Source
AI summary
A gaming system includes multiple second gaming machines, a shared display arrangement located in a viewable position relative to the different gaming machines, and a shared display server. Each gaming machine is operable to cause its gaming machine display system to display a first portion of a game play in response to a play initiating input entered through that gaming machine's player input system. Each gaming machine is also operable to initiate a hand-off communication for a given game play in response to a hand-off condition occurring for that game play. The shared display server receives the hand-off communication for a respective game play and supplies control signals to the shared display arrangement. The shared display server functions to, after receipt of a respective hand-off communication for a given game play, cause the shared display arrangement to display a presentation for a second portion of the respective game play.