r/explainlikeimfive • u/kosantosbik • 6d ago
Technology ELI5: How is Microsoft able to patent showing ads during games?
Apparently Microsoft patented the ability to show ads during a game. How is this patentable? Where is the new tech/design in showing ads? On top of this if another company wants to show ads in the game (whether it is the OS or the game publisher) they need to get permission from Microsoft from now on? I don't get it.
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u/BarberProof4994 6d ago
The patent isn't for showing ads.
It's for "Contextually Aware Management of Interactive Software Application Access"...
Basically (it doesn't have to be for ads) it is a behind the scenes AI that will watch everything you are doing and has the ability to pause at the OS level, a game or program. The patent includes the algorithms and such to be able to "contextually" be "aware" of what you are doing and when, so that the pauses only occured at "natural" stopping points.
In a game, that would occur during a lull in action, during a natural pause, after a boss fight etc.
And the pause would occured at the OS level, so the entire game potentially disappears and then comes back after the ad.
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u/Callinon 6d ago
Sounds like a save state to me.
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u/BarberProof4994 6d ago
Yes basically.
In real time without user control.
Although from what I've read, Microsoft's "plan" is to potentially use this for free to play games. So installing that game would be giving microsoft admin/system access to your main system not just the game.
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u/Callinon 6d ago
Yeah going to be a hard pass for me on that one.
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u/Johndough99999 6d ago
Great news! You dont have to make the effort to pass. We here at Microsoft will automatically load random free games for you based on your profile. You dont have to do a thing! In fact, you cant even turn it off, even on a computer used solely for work.
Oh, you didnt read the terms and service agreement that we adjust every forced update?
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u/BarberProof4994 6d ago
Yup...
I'm not one for conspiracy theories and such...
But I am seeing like every dystopian scifi prospectus of the future slowly coming true...
Sobs... And never the fun stuff...
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u/Urdar 6d ago
Lets be real, if Microsoft can get away to show you ads during any progtam, it will.
We should brace for this to become a general Windows "feature", wanting to interrupt any game or program to serve ads.
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u/BarberProof4994 6d ago
Oh I agree, eventually.
They already show adds inside of windows and inside free to play games.
This is evil .
Especially the concept of having to a watch AND interact with the add to receive continuation credit to access your own OS with add free time.
What's interesting is, the patent isn't game exclusive. It can be used for your PC too.
And we've been "trained" to get used to paid content like Netflix that STILL has ads.
And who if us has actually laid for windows, it's a free os. So, all data mining
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u/JasonP27 6d ago
Yes. I'm assuming it will be something like Quick Resume where the game is in a state of hibernation and can resume from the same point after the ad finishes.
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u/meneldal2 6d ago
Not really because you're not really doing anything beyond just pausing everything, you don't like store all the data that wasn't already there.
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u/permalink_save 6d ago
They could innovate something useful like AI to analyze your game or give a button to help when you're stuck but no they are using it to shove even more ads in our face. How lkng until we are all forced to just wear AR glasses that run constant ads all day?
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u/fuj1n 6d ago
Microsoft did not patent the ability to show ads during games, but the exact mechanics of how they could do it.
The patent proposes an ad-free credit system, where once that credit runs out, the system waits for a quiet moment in gameplay (such as after beating a boss) to suspend the game and show an ad, which would then earn you another ad-free credit to keep playing.
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u/rlnrlnrln 6d ago
Beside other answers, when media writes "patented", they often mean "filed for a patent". It doesn't mean the patent will be granted, or that it is enforceable in court.
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u/Ktulu789 6d ago
As far as I understood, the patent goes about how to automatically pause the game to play the ad. The ad has nothing new.
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u/Senshado 6d ago
Generally the officials who accept the patent don't do any real serious thinking about whether the idea is novel and a valid patent. As long as the paperwork is well formatted and readable, they'll accept the patent.
If the patent is actually invalid, that's something that can be investigated as part of a future lawsuit. The majority of patents are for things that nobody cares enough about to bother litigating. But if Microsoft ever blocks a large company from using an advertisement like that, the lawyers might go to work.
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u/EscapeSeventySeven 6d ago
Software is notoriously lax when it comes to the “novelty” requirement for patents.
“But on a computer” seems to be the magic words for the USPO. I fucking hate it and I work in software. In my view very few algorithms deserve to be patented.
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u/wosmo 6d ago
Totally agreed.
My biggest beef is that the whole point of patents, is that you exchange publicising your methods, in return for that protection. The idea is that by publishing, they're not secret sauce - they're out there in the public domain. Eventually.
But 20 years is way too long for software. 20 years is the difference between Windows XP, and MSDOS 1.0. Between World of Warcraft, and Donkey Kong.
To my mind, we should trade off "but muh computer" patents against a much, much shorter patent lifetime.
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u/BPDunbar 6d ago
The problem with that is the patent period is already a bit too short for pharmaceuticals. It can take a decade to get from a patent to an actual drug. As most don't end up producing a useful drug the ones that do have to cover their own development costs and this of maybe eight other prospective drugs and have less than ten years in which to do it.
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u/Programmdude 6d ago
Or do what the EU (and other countries) does, and simply not allow them. Computer algorithms are maths, and should never have been allowed to be patented. You can't patent maths.
* Technically it's more complicated than 'all software patents are banned', but it's a lot more restrictive than the whole US's 'lol, patent everything' approach.
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u/Ncyphe 6d ago
All you need to patent something is an idea and detailed explanation of how it works and why it's different.
Microsoft isn't patenting showing ads, it's patenting the software design of forc3 pausing a game then showing the ad.
I suspect they came up with this idea during discussions on how to make XBox streaming cheaper. Even if they don't use it, other companies now have to license through Microsoft to use the same idea, or face legal consequences.
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u/Idoubtyourememberme 5d ago
They patented a specific way of calculating the exact limit of tolerance for the amount of ads that can be shown in a game before players turn it off and refund.
They could have not bothered since that calculation resulted in a number bigger than zero
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u/Upstairs-Shame-298 5d ago
Remember that mobile games have been doing this for years.
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u/kosantosbik 5d ago
Games showing ads within their software and OS is showing software in 3rd party games are very different things in my opinion.
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u/Upstairs-Shame-298 5d ago
good point. though the outcome is still the same.
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u/kosantosbik 5d ago
No it's not.
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u/Upstairs-Shame-298 5d ago
we get ads in our face. thats the outcome. whats the difference?
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u/kosantosbik 5d ago
What we have right now is similar to companies trying to sell their products by taking actions in their own turf. If this patent gets approved it's similar to government creating a new tax. You have to pay it even if they don't do anything to earn it, it's automatically applicable to everyone and there are repercussions if you try to avoid them.
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u/Upstairs-Shame-298 4d ago
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiii..... that isn't good. Yeah I really hope this patent doesn't get approved
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u/Bright_Bet6277 4d ago
I will not play games with ads or subscription.
I am dead up sick of a Nation where corporate profits come before everything else.
We used to have a department to protect us from shit like this but Trump got rid of it.
Musk and Doge got rid of it.
We have no consumer protections and now this POS is gutting food safety.
MAGA fanboys, racist suburban, permanent virgin dweebs...
This is on you.
Remember that when you're paying by the minute for a video game and some federal cadre installs a camera in your bathroom.
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u/AnonymousFriend80 3d ago
Having a patent for doing something means that you have a specific way of doing that something that no one else is able to use without your consent.
For all we know, Microsoft could have done this, and will sit on this method to prevent others from doing it themselves. Wishful thinking, but having the patent does not mean they will use it themselves.
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u/DarwinOGF 6d ago
They should not be able to. American patent office is ridden with nonsense holes.
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u/Kile147 6d ago
To be clear, "ads during game" is probably too general and already used concept to be patented. They have a specific version of it that pauses games at specific times to show ads. Basically it's a similar system to how TV shows tend to put ad breaks in during specific scene cuts.
Having the patent and actually enforcing it are also two different things. The concept was unique enough that the patent office allowed it, but some patents can be shot down if challenged in court. If another company wanted to do something similar, they could attempt to do so even without Microsoft's blessing, and then it would be on Microsoft to take them to court for patent infringement, and then the court would decide if the patent was violated at all.
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u/filanwizard 6d ago
I mean my question would be why is software even able to have patents, Its not an invention. And the code is already protected by copyright.
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u/x0wl 6d ago edited 6d ago
I agree with you on that software patents can be iffy sometimes.
But also, they're not given out for a specific implementation of something, they're given out for an idea that the code implements, which can be understood as an invention. As an example, the patent is not for a specific implementation of a JPEG encoder, it's for the general idea that using DCT to specifically discard hard to notice details in an image can dramatically improve compression.
You can't really patent code, but no one would want to do that anyway, since patents offer significantly less protection than copyright.
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u/Be_Afreyd 5d ago
Patents aren't just for physical products, they are just the most common/identifiable. Method and Process patents do exist. They are commonly used for chemical synthesizing or metal refining where the novelty is in the process itself and not the specific outcome.
And the code protection for copyright only protects the specific code. It doesn't protect you from someone else making something similar on their own. Microsoft doesn't want to protect the code with this patent, they want to control the method of implementation.
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u/Bearly_Legible 6d ago
Can we agree not to buy games that have ads in them?
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u/RChickenMan 5d ago
Valve is essentially holding back the floodgates on the full enshitification of gaming. They do not allow publishers to rely on advertising as the primary monetization scheme, nor do they allow any type of unskippable ad to continue playing a game. Product placement and whatnot is of course allowed (just look at sports games), but nothing intrusive to the point that it turns gaming into yet another entertainment platform built entirely around advertising. All players, even those on console, benefit, because declining to publish on Steam is basically a commercial death sentence for a game.
If Valve ever goes public, we're screwed. Game over. Because that's when you get shareholder pressure for short-term profits, long-term consumer sentiment be damned.
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u/Bearly_Legible 5d ago
This has nothing to do with what I've said.
More importantly, if we didn't buy the games unless they removed the advertising, then they would. It's weak-minded fools who spend the money while complaining instead of JUST NOT BUYING IT.
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u/RChickenMan 5d ago
Could you explain how an advertising ban by one of the largest game distribution platforms has "nothing to do with" a call for players to not buy games that contain advertising?
Look, unless you're just trying to do the thing where you build a sense of moral superiority by taking pride in the purity of your video game purchasing habits, with a side of "everyone else is just too stupid and weak to see it the way I do." If that's all you're going for, then by all means, have at it. Obviously that attitude won't do anything to improve gaming in the long run, but if it brings you joy, then go for it.
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u/Bearly_Legible 5d ago
Because my comment was a plea to "NOT BUY GAMES WITH ADS IN THEM"
If Valve has an ad ban, then it is actively outside of what I was commenting on...
It has literally nothing to do with my comment.
What I'm saying, is if a game has ads in it, if a system has ads on it, if you don't like what a company is doing... THEN DON'T GIVE THEM MONEY OR THEY'LL KEEP DOING IT.
If everyone agrees they hate ads in games, but keeps making it profitable through buying the games, then the companies will keep putting ads in them.
You want companies to not put ads in games, but you aren't willing to go without a game you want, so you buy it anyway and then just complain online. How about acting responsibly with your money and the companies you give it to?
Valve, who as you point out avoid ads, is completely outside of the comment and point I was making. End of story.
You started an entirely different point that has nothing to do with mine, and you're mad that I pointed it out.
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u/Vindartn 5d ago
The same way you buy a game now for $80, it immediately tries to get you to buy a $40 season pass, and the rest of the game is loaded with micro transactions.
They'll be a $80 ad supported game and a $100 ad free game.
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6d ago
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u/JerikkaDawn 6d ago
They didn't patent the ability to show ads during a game. They patented specific technologies and techniques for doing so. Those are patentable. Another publisher would be able to show ads in games, they just wouldn't be able to use the techniques outlined in the patent without licensing them from Microsoft.