Online matchmaking has always been a point of contention between big game developers and the gamers who love to play their games. No matchmaking system is going to work for everyone, and many favor more active players and those with extra money to spend. But a late 2019 patent by game company Electronic Arts seems to go in a different direction, one that attempts to promote good online matchmaking by using Game Quality Factors (GQF).
EA‘s history with online matchmaking hasn’t always been the most popular approach. In 2017, YouTuber YongYea released a video talking about an EA patent concerning Engaged Optimized Matchmaking (EOMM). This idea essentially attempts to pair players together based on how they play a certain game, but it can also be used to group players together based on playing time and spending habits. Some compared it to game company Activision’s much maligned 2017 patent that sought to pair players together to increase the likelihood of microtransaction purchases. However, EA’s 2019 patent is focused on an online play aspect that most gamers can support: quality games.
As with most patent language the detail in the documents is minute and hard to understand, but there are some easier ideas for gamers to grasp. One of the main points of the patent concerns the series of comparisons used by computer processors to determine how a player is placed into an online game. The patent details the process of the first four GQF scores given to a player in order to determine how likely that player is to make the next online game they are in better by inclusion.
The matchmaking system also seems to first pair players together into what is possibly a practice game (called a virtual game in the document) and determines each player’s contribution to the quality of that game. After a set amount of time, players may be removed and others added until a suitable GQF average is achieved that would signal the beginning of an actual game. As for what exactly the GQF’s are, there is some description that indicates these could be factors such as network connectivity speed and the skill balance between players and teams.
Although this matchmaking system has some positive aspects, it doesn’t seem like it has been implemented in any of EA’s current games. EA is battling a lawsuit right now concerning another of their matchmaking systems that is accused of scripting, or changing AI difficulty to encourage spending in FIFA 21. Whether or not quality-based matchmaking will be implemented in a future EA game is unclear, but any online matchmaking system that prioritizes player experience and game quality over player spending habits has to be an improvement.
Source: USPTO.gov
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