PlayStation To Introduce "Auto-Play" Mode To Grind Games For You

Source

"Sony often introduces convenient gameplay features into its games. While many of them tend to be quite innovative, a patent published by the company now wants to add an option already utilized in many titles. The publisher wants to secure an auto-play feature to play portions of gameplay in your place. It can auto-play grindy game sequences until you take back control.

The patent dubbed "METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AUTO-PLAYING PORTIONS OF A VIDEO GAME" wants to add an option to handle the "anticipated grinding content (AGC)." Sony mentions that it would simulate the gameplay style of users to grind through tedious portions of a game. This is already used in many MMORPG mobile and PC titles, where you can leave it up to the game to do the combat and walking to quests part for you."

"The auto-play mode uses data from the user play model to automatically play the AGC for the user using a gameplay style that simulates a gameplay style of the user. [...] When gameplay of the AGC in auto-play mode is complete, a resume notification is presented to the display screen of the user device used by the user during the gameplay," reads the patent."

So PlayStation would rather play the games for you than make them fun? That company is the worst lol

Alrighty then...

They should implement this for cinematic walking .

That's like 60% of the experience in Naughty Dog games. Between that and cutscenes there's not much "game" left

Little late for an April Fool's joke.

On a serious note, this is genuinely upsetting.

Granted, it looks like a patent drawing or whatever so it's still in the conceptual phase. But the fact that, at some point, some people sat down and had a discussion that a.) games are too grindy, b.) people don't want to play the grind, but c.) it's too lucrative to remove the grind component...

...is really depressing.

And to then double down on how much people don't want to grind, create a mechanic to grind for you, and then (I assume) charge money for it. Wow. Just wow.

In before apologists say "Ya but no one is forcing you to play"...

I agree this feature would be handy for the likes of Naughty Dog games and the same goes to any David Cage games too. Let's give it a test.

I'm thinking more like Diablo and MMO stuff. Naughty Dog and David Cage games would just become movies

Sometimes I wonder why people play video games... Like, what's in it for the player when you are willing tk let the game play itself? Just watch a movie or a TV show... No?

Sony..

bridging the gap between those that play games and those that watch others play on things like twitch. soon you'll be able to watch your game play itself. youtube mode enabled.

won't it be a bit of a diss to the publisher if anticipated grinding content keeps flashing up? exposing lazy game design. permanently enabled in ubi games

Now that's a gane changer I was waiting for to get Sony games. Oh wait, this is already possible on Youtube, for which Sony games are made for.

Soooo this plays the game for me? What a lazy shit of an idea 😂

@SolidGame_Basic will obviously find some positive in this…WoWZa!!!

@SolidGame_Basic will obviously find some positive in this…WoWZa!!!

It doesn’t sound that bad to me to be honest. Different people enjoy different parts of different games for different reasons. This just seems to help some people get through different areas of a game for them while still letting others enjoy those areas on their own. As long as they don’t charge money for it I think it’ll be fine. Just gives people an option to help get them through parts of a game that they may have just stopped playing entirely otherwise.

lol just you use YouTube at this point, then you don’t even have to pay for the game or the feature!

This could also be really handy on subsequent playthroughs of a game. Can kind of skip through parts of a game that may not have bothered you too much the first time but you may not really feel like doing again.

For me it should be all about choice there has been games I've refused to play because of the need of grinding so it's a good feature I my opinion.

Right, dude? I'm hesitant to get all bent out of shape, because it seems too stupid to be real.

For years I've been saying this world is wrong/off, and this is no exception. It's like cutting your legs off because their sore from running. Now you don't have to worry about socks, you save money on shorts instead of pants and you get the closer parking spot! What a deal!

Just like you said, even if this doesn't happen, the fact that people got paid good money to sit around and think this shit up is insane. What are we teaching kids? Don't worry, someone will do that for you. You will never know hardship or responsibility as long as WE'RE in charge. It's the same with our government. Create a problem, and then sell the solution. It only makes us weaker, and needs to stop.

I'm still glad I never bought into this gen. And if this is an indication of their future, I won't be there for the next gen either. This is disgusting.

Maybe instead of features like this one,why don’t Sony have a resume play option like the XSX has? Doesn’t resume play exist on the PC as well? I’m sure I read that somewhere?

lol

Hmmm seems like a bold strategy, let's see how it works out for them Cotton.

Seriously though, I guess I get it? I personally would never use it, and I sure as hell hope people can't use that to afk grind like a bot on mmos...

Either way, it seems as though they could have spent the time and money on the research on something a little... umm... better?

What happened to the whole "watch a video to see what to do" idea they were previously using?

@dimebag667: a common phrase I've been hearing younger folks use these days is "the writers of this timeline have really jumped the shark" in reference to current affairs, and I think they're right haha. Like there's multiple instances of what's going on currently but for some reason our timeline is the fudged-up one.

Yeah, glad I don't buy into generations, either. I sort of view it as one, big continuous thing. You start to see what's new, what's trendy, what has been done before and done again (sometimes better, sometimes worse). Mostly though you just realize gaming is gaming and it will be both good and bad and mediocre.

This is definitely part of the "bad" though, what was posted.

You have to release games for the autoplay feature to work.😏

will help tlou 2 replayability no end. can just let it auto play the first couple of hours of forced walking and snowball fights to get to the good stuff. god send

It's perfect for PlayStation gamers. They love watching cinematic scenes and now their dreams can come true of not having to play and just watch. haha

@mrbojangles25: Haha, makes sense. I think we either merged with an alternate dimension in 2012, or the more realistic answer; we being controlled by Blackrock, Vanguard, etc. The amount of companies they have a stake in is crazy. They have all the money, so if you don't play ball with them... good luck. I don't want to get too far out there, but I honestly believe they are the smoking gun for why our world is borked. The crazy part is that they could be dismantled in a day if people simply stopped using them. The problem is, humans are monsters, and don't care how bad the world is as long as they're on top.

This will be good for people like @hardwenzen who likes to have his games running by themselves so he can troll on here.

What a time to be alive. Lol

At least i don't enjoy digital games like you do. So here's that.

@hardwenzen: Regular as clockwork.

... how would this be able to imitate our gameplay style???I doubt it would be able to do too the tee

I can see a lot of people are upset about this, but it probably has something to do with accessibility, which is something I'm seeing more and more in games and is a good thing imho.

As with technology this is already way more advanced, but just saying... We kind of had this stuff way back in the Diablo 2 days (2000-2011). I remember around mid 2000s we had scripts, so we'd buy 8 copies of D2, run scripts and they could basically level up 8 of your characters while you were at school all at once.

Going from lvl 90 to lvl 98 was extremely rough and going from lvl 98 to lvl 99 was literally 500-1000 hours of pure grinding.

I was too scared to ever trust a programme taking over my character so I never did that shit.

@poarstman: I'm obviously simplifying but just to paint you a picture:

Lets say you tactic is always to slide behind the enemy, shoot them in the back of the head.

This 'AI' will also slide behind the enemy and shoot them in the back of the head.

If you often pull out your pistol instead of reloading your main firearm, this will do that etc.

If you use your knife instead of reload, it will do that

and if you often lay down flat and reload... it does that.

Companies should just focus on making good games. But I guess that, keep making bad games but have your console play them for you, is an alternative solution.

@my_user_name: movement is a key feature in most games. I am in favor of Xbox but I found the summation of Sony exclusives as being walking sims as daft as the summation of Xbox as dudebro system or Nintendo being for kids.

I'd like to be able skip cinematic walking in any game that has it whether it's a Sony game or not.

If it's not skippable, auto play would be the next best thing. (I think Shadow of Mordor had the option for it)

This is Phil Spencer's fault.

Gaming is a failed experiment.

Thanks Phil!!!..

If you need or want AI to play a game for you clearly the game itself isn’t even fun in the first place and shouldn’t have been purchased originally. As the proverb says it’s about the journey not the destination.

kinda my thoughts too.... but i guess if some portion of the game is harder (in difficulty)..its kinda okay for the simple minded, etc. lol

Worst idea ever. Then again, Sony movie games mainly play themselves, so auto-play is not going to change gameplay much anyway.

Lol, yeah. Or Sony could re-release some PS3 and PS4 games on PS5 with an included autoplay feature and charge 70 USD per game. It will be a steal.