When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works .
The patent application itself describes it as “a content management system” and that it could obtain a promoted content trigger event based partially on the game, suspend a user’s interaction with the game based on the promoted content trigger event, obtain promoted audiovisual content and present it to the user, commence the user’s interaction with the game, and establish “a credit based at partially on the promoted audiovisual content, wherein the credit delays suspension of the user’s interaction with the interactive software application during a credit duration.”
Based on this description, it works similarly to some free-to-play mobile games, where ads are automatically served after you finish a round or after a few minutes of playing. The difference with this system is that it doesn’t serve ads arbitrarily; instead, it works with the game engine and even uses machine learning to determine when it’s the best time to show players the ad.
While this is still a patent application and it’s not even clear if this has been deployed in actual games, it shows what Microsoft is considering for how it could monetize free-to-play games. We’ve seen similar moves with Xbox Cloud Gaming, with the company experimenting with an ad-supported free tier for the cloud gaming service .
Xbox Game Pass imposes monthly cloud gaming limits, just 15 hours per month for Ultimate
Microsoft says physical discs should not have stopped working during the Xbox outage
Microsoft loses Brazilian court case after telling hacked Xbox user to re-purchase games
While the tech that Microsoft applied for a patent on could actually be a good thing, as it would make in-game ads less jarring, we could argue that it would encourage both gamers and publishers to focus on free-to-play titles. The idea behind these games and services is that it would allow more people, especially those who don’t want to spend cash, to enjoy gaming. However, some say that they’ve actually broken the diversity and innovation in the gaming industry, as developers and publishers focus more on monetization instead of unique games and quality titles. You can view the USPTO application here [ PDF ].
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News , or add us as a preferred source , to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/microsoft-patents-system-to-freeze-games-and-inject-ads-during-downtimes-watching-commercials-earns-ad-free-playtime-credits#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
- Techie makes his own motherboard to refurbish 15-year-old HP ProLiant N40L tower server — Raspberry Pi CM5 adds NVMe and USB 3.0
- Microsoft patents system to freeze games and inject ads during downtimes — watching commercials earns ad-free playtime credits
- NVIDIA to Acquire Hugging Face
- Acer CEO says memory makers are hyping 2030 shortage fears to protect margins — PC prices set to decline by late 2027, cheaper Chinese capacity coming online de
- Acer Nitro XV273U F5 gaming monitor review: One of the fastest LCDs on the planet
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.