A method and system for a platform wide party system that may be deployed in a multiplayer gaming environment. Players may associate themselves with one or more parties, wherein players within a party may choose to automatically exchange messages associated with changes in state of the players in a gaming environment. The party system exposes an API providing a plurality of function calls that may be integrated seamlessly with game play. A first player may indicate desired notification events to be received from a second player associated with the same party as the first player. Upon detection of a desired notification event on the video game console of the second player, an event notification may be communicated to a video game console of the first player causing an action to be performed on the first player's video game console. Actions may include event notifications via text and/or sound, which may be displayed to the first player while engaged in any game session and without requiring the first player to exit the current game session.

The present invention relates to an application that is configured to be operated in a multi-participant environment on a computer network. The application manages participants in an online session of a multi-user application so that if one of the participants exits the session, the session can continue without interruption. The application initiates an online session of the multi-user application, wherein the online session includes two or more participants comprised of network computers that are communicatively linked to a computer network. If the application detects that a first participant has disconnected from the online session, wherein the first participant is responsible for managing certain managerial functionality associated with the running of the multi-user application, then the application broadcasts a notification to existing participants of the online session over the communication network, thereby notifying the existing participants that the first participant has disconnected from the online session. The initiating application then re-assigns the functionality associated with the first participant to an existing participant of the online session. The participants can be communicating in a peer-to-peer arrangement or can be performing server duties in a client-server arrangement.

In an aspect, a request, from a first user of a plurality of users of an application client executing on respective mobile devices of the plurality of users, to interact with one or more other users of the plurality of users in the application client, based on a first plurality of interaction templates selected by the first user, can be received. A second user associated with a second interaction template can be determined from the plurality of users, and the determination can be based on an identification of a match between the second interaction template and a first interaction template from the first plurality of interaction templates. Interaction in the application client, between the first user and the second user, can be initiated in response to the determination of the second user. Related systems, apparatus, techniques, and articles are also described.

Methods and apparatus provide for downloading application software from a server, including: downloading the application software from the server, where a first application software file contains only a portion of the application software, and a second application software file contains more than the portion of the application software; executing the application software and generating application images based thereon, where execution of the first application software file contains enough of the application software to execute a limited amount of the application software; and displaying the application images on a display screen based on the execution of the application software, where the acquisition unit begins downloading the second application software file in a background process after downloading the first application software file and at least partially during the execution of the first application software file.

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 trained machine learning model(s) is used to determine scores (e.g., trust scores) for user accounts registered with a video game service, and the scores are used to match players together in multiplayer video game settings. In an example process, a computing system may access data associated with registered user accounts, provide the data as input to the trained machine learning model(s), and the trained machine learning model(s) generates the scores as output, which relate to probabilities of players behaving, or not behaving, in accordance with a particular behavior while playing a video game in multiplayer mode. Thereafter, subsets of logged-in user accounts executing a video game can be assigned to different matches based at least in part on the scores determined for those logged-in user accounts, and the video game is executed in the assigned match for each logged-in user account.

In an aspect, a request, from a first user of a plurality of users of an application client executing on respective mobile devices of the plurality of users, to interact with one or more other users of the plurality of users in the application client, based on a first plurality of interaction templates selected by the first user, can be received. A second user associated with a second interaction template can be determined from the plurality of users, and the determination can be based on an identification of a match between the second interaction template and a first interaction template from the first plurality of interaction templates. Interaction in the application client, between the first user and the second user, can be initiated in response to the determination of the second user. Related systems, apparatus, techniques, and articles are also described.

A game system that is a server or the like is configured to repetitively determine, during a match-up game, for each set determination period, participation continuation in the match-up game with respect to each player character according to a determination criterion which is based on acquisition of a specific item set in advance, and when it is determined that the player character does not satisfy the determination criterion at an end timing or before the end timing of the determination period, execute participation-limiting processing for limiting participation by the player character concerned in the match-up game such as loss management that involves causing the player character to suffer a loss from the match-up game in which the player character is participating.

A social game and the like that can increase the fun and amusement of a team battle and enhance players' motivation to participate in or continue a game by suppressing an occurrence of any non-participation team not participating in the battle are provided. A guild status determination unit determines, for each guild, whether the guild is in an inactive state or an active state, based on a result of detecting a login state of each player. A guild integrated control unit forcibly disbands a guild (i.e. an inactive guild) determined to be in the inactive state, based on guild activity information notified from the status determination unit. A disbandment notification unit notifies each player belonging to the inactive guild, of the disbandment of the guild.

Embodiments of the systems and methods disclosed herein provide a sponsor matching system in which players and sponsors can be matched. Upon a match based at least in part on stored sponsorship criteria and/or player preferences, a first sponsor can select a set of players to receive permission to select an advertisement associated with the first sponsor. Once a first player of the selected players selects an advertisement and an advertisement placement location associated with the first sponsor, the sponsor matching system can generate game rendering instructions for a first player system associated with the first player.