A server apparatus, which may be configured to execute a step of storing one or more first game content associated with a plurality of users, a step of selecting two or more users from among the plurality of users, an establishment step of establishing association between each user and a second game content, and a step of executing a first game part on the basis of the second game content of which association with each user may be established and a user operation on the terminal device used by each user. The second game content associated with the first user among the two or more users may be selected from among one or more first game content associated with the first user and one or more first game content associated with the second user among the two or more users.

A server system to manage esports live distribution distributes, to a viewer terminal, data for displaying an image of gameplay by players on the viewer terminal, and situation data. The situation data describes various situations, such as a viewer's watching situation, a game progress status, a player's operation situation, a reward generation situation, a posting situation of comments such as cheers, and an evaluation situation of players by viewers. In the viewer terminal, various types of situation data are compared with predetermined screen configuration change conditions, and when some of the conditions is satisfied, the present configuration of a watching screen is changed to a screen configuration associated with the satisfied condition to provide information for the viewer in such a manner as to facilitate understanding of a situation on each occasion.

A server system to manage esports live distribution distributes, to a viewer terminal, data for displaying an image of gameplay by players on the viewer terminal, and situation data. The situation data describes various situations, such as a viewer's watching situation, a game progress status, a player's operation situation, a reward generation situation, a posting situation of comments such as cheers, and an evaluation situation of players by viewers. In the viewer terminal, various types of situation data are compared with predetermined screen configuration change conditions, and when some of the conditions is satisfied, the present configuration of a watching screen is changed to a screen configuration associated with the satisfied condition to provide information for the viewer in such a manner as to facilitate understanding of a situation on each occasion.

Provided is a content playback program and a content playback device that are capable of selecting a “favorite character” of a user as an application launcher icon, in accordance with the user's progress status of a game. The user selects a single character that is a favorite character from among characters for each of which an already-obtained flag and an icon-setting flag are both set to logical “true”, thereby making it possible to set an icon of the favorite character as a game-application launcher icon on a menu screen displayed by an application launch processing unit.

The present disclosure describes methods and systems directed towards automating tournaments within a gaming environment. Data regarding a first set of players that registered for a tournament may be received by a tournament server. The players are placed in a tournament queue. If the number of players in the tournament queue exceeds a certain threshold, then one or more tournaments are created based on a model tournament, the maximum size of the tournament, and the number of players in the tournament queue. The players in the tournament queue are placed into each of the tournaments that includes one or more matches

A board game system comprises a game board, having a surface adapted to receive a board game overlay, a detector array adapted to detect the respective positions of a plurality of game pieces placed on top of the board game overlay, and a transmitter adapted to transmit data indicating the respective positions to an entertainment device; and an entertainment device, having a receiver adapted to receive from the game board data indicating the respective positions of the plurality of game pieces, a game state analyser operable to update the state of a game in dependence upon the indicated respective positions of the plurality of game pieces, and an image generator operable to generate an image for output to a display, the content of the image being responsive to the detected state of the game.

A distributed computer system for delivering a requested game experience at any venue of a plurality of distributed venues comprises: at each venue: a plurality of local units serving respective gameplay areas of the venue, each local unit coupled to a set of multimedia gaming equipment for delivering a game experience in its gameplay area, and a venue central unit configured to connect to each of the local units of that venue; a booking system for managing game bookings across the plurality of distributed venues, the booking system configured to receive, from a user device, a booking request denoting a requested venue of the plurality of distributed venues, and create a booking in response; and a master central server configured to connect to the session management system and the venue central unit of each venue; wherein the master central server is configured to generate a game session based on the booking, and automatically communicate the game session to the venue central unit of the requested venue, wherein the venue central unit receiving the game session is configured render accessible, to the local unit serving one of the gameplay areas, game details of the game session, and wherein that local unit is configured to deliver the requested game experience within that gameplay area, using its set of multimedia gaming equipment, based on the game details of the game session.

A distributed computer system for delivering a requested game experience at any venue of a plurality of distributed venues comprises: at each venue: a plurality of local units serving respective gameplay areas of the venue, each local unit coupled to a set of multimedia gaming equipment for delivering a game experience in its gameplay area, and a venue central unit configured to connect to each of the local units of that venue; a booking system for managing game bookings across the plurality of distributed venues, the booking system configured to receive, from a user device, a booking request denoting a requested venue of the plurality of distributed venues, and create a booking in response; and a master central server configured to connect to the session management system and the venue central unit of each venue; wherein the master central server is configured to generate a game session based on the booking, and automatically communicate the game session to the venue central unit of the requested venue, wherein the venue central unit receiving the game session is configured render accessible, to the local unit serving one of the gameplay areas, game details of the game session, and wherein that local unit is configured to deliver the requested game experience within that gameplay area, using its set of multimedia gaming equipment, based on the game details of the game session.

Methods and systems are provided for processing video games streamed from a cloud gaming system over a network. The method includes receiving an indication of selection of the video game, for a gaming session, through a user interface associated with a streaming device that is connected to a display screen via a pass-through device. The method includes receiving a signal that the gaming session is active, from a game streaming logic of the pass-through device. In one embodiment, the game streaming logic is configured to receive a compressed stream of the video game, decode the compressed stream of the video game, and provide image data for rendering by the display screen, and receiving user input by the game streaming logic for driving interactivity of the video game while said cloud gaming system executes said video game.

Techniques are described for an intuitive and efficient GUI. In an example, a UI elements are presented on a GUI. Each one of the UI elements can corresponds to a set of computer applications or a set of computer files having attributes and each one of the UI elements can be selected to launch, as applicable, a computer application, a computer file, or a page about the computer application or computer file. A request to sort the UI elements can be received and can indicate at least one of the attributes as a sort factor. The UI elements are sorted accordingly and presented in an updated arrangement on the GUI. An attribute used in the sorting is presented within or in proximity to the UI elements, whereas another attribute not used in the sorting is not presented in the updated arrangement.