Nintendo Files Patent For Game That Plays Itself

Kotaku points out a recent patent filed by Nintendo which automates gameplay unless the user specifically chooses to play a particular part of the game. Quoting: "The new system, described in a patent filed by Nintendo Creative Director Shigeru Miyamoto on June 30, 2008, but made public today, looks to solve the issue of casual gamers losing interest in a game before they complete it, while still maintaining the interest of hardcore gamers. The solution would turn a game into a full-length cut scene of sorts, allowing players to jump into and out of the action whenever they wanted. But when played this way, gamers would not be able to save their progress, maintaining the challenge of completing a game without skipping or cheating."

This patent might be thrown out:

[gcnaddict]

Let's look at it this way: this is combining simple, linear bots into the storyline which play as the first person in the event that the main player gets bored.

Am I the only one who sees this as a bit obvious and un-patent-worthy? Games have been doing this for a while during Demo screens... just without the story advancement.

Re:Angband prior art

[StupiderThanYou]

IIRC Angband bots did that.

And they still do. The Angband borg and screensaver is available at http://itctel.com/~apwhite/andrew.html [itctel.com]

Um, prior art- Progress Quest

[coder111]

This will never stand because of this: http://www.progressquest.com/ [progressquest.com]

--Coder

Re:This patent might be thrown out:

[dougisfunny]

left 4 dead?

Re:What Happened To Nintendo?

[tepples]

FPSes suck on a console, they just suck, the controls are terrible and ultimately very little can change that. A keyboard and mouse is a much better choice for that sort of gaming.

But how do you plan to fit four keyboards and four mice around a single TV in a social gaming scenario?

Re:And in other news...

[Ophion]

What did apostrophes ever do to you?

Prior Art: Ultima Online

[EEBaum]

A friend tried to get me into Ultima Online a while back. Once I installed the app, she directed me to an app that would auto-play my character to dig for gold and such, so that I didn't have to spend countless hours on the grind work, but that I could turn off to play when I wanted.

That lasted about two hours for me. I determined that a game that needs such an app to be fun has a highly flawed design.