A new patent application publication from IBM sheds some light on a potential solution to the latency issues faced by modern online gaming.
Traditional approaches rely on predictive physics models, performing some of the physics-based calculations on the client side, and servers acting as authoritative units for the creation, management, and validation of in-game events and actions. While many of these in-game events and actions are inconsequential, such actions still require a large number of computing resources and low-latency infrastructure in order to maintain these details in synchronization between players. What happens when these servers are overloaded? Player immersion is broken, expectations aren't met, and the perception of quality suffers immediately.
IBM's solution: offload game data to a blockchain. This is performed by identifying a current status of user activities associated with one or more users during a gaming session, and determining whether the current status of a user's activities requires updates to a local blockchain or a session blockchain. Based on this determination, the user's status and activities are stored on either the local blockchain, session blockchain, or both! This process ultimately improves system optimization, resulting in a low-latency experience for all users.
IBM's patent application is published during a time when online gaming has increased globally. Companies like Tencent Holdings Ltd. (Tencent) have surpassed their revenue expectations as COVID-19 shutdowns spurred gaming sales to their fastest pace of growth since 2017. In the U.S., gaming sales have hit a record $10.86B between January and March of this year, a 9% increase over the previous year.
IBM continues to dominate in the Cryptocurrency Sector, with over 500 patents and patent applications, with this new application representing IBM's 3rd patent application categorized under "Video Games."
