Namco mobile social networks geolocation games related patent.

[FAST6191]

Doing my usual snout around the newly filed/released game related patents (getting harder as time drags on as the distinction games console when looking at embedded hardware in general and with the stuff going on in mobile phone and such world is rather nebulous) I found one from namco filed last July that seemed to be detailing what reads to me as an augmented reality patent for social network type games (the term social network is mentioned several times) using geolocation/location data- they appear to describe something like an augmented reality version of monopoly meets something like farmville (I also want to say Gangsters: Organized Crime but that reference might be a bit old) but it is left quite vague for the wiggle room by the looks of things.

Link
http://www.freepaten...12/0021836.html (I like this site far more than the USPTO if for no other reason than it actually works)

The abstract is horrific and presumably translated almost literally (granted poetic license does not really exist in patent translation for obvious reasons) but here is is anyway

A server includes an acquisition section that provides a user with information about a virtual event area selected based on acquired current position information and position information linked to the virtual event area, the virtual event area being linked to position information that indicates a position within a predetermined range from an acquired current position, and stores the virtual event area as acquisition information about the user when an acquisition request for the virtual event area has been received, the virtual event area being linked to user identification information, a visit processing section that provides the user with information about the virtual event area having position information that indicates a position within a predetermined range from the acquired current position, based on the acquired current position information and the position information linked to the virtual event area, and receives a visit request, and a parameter calculation section that changes a result value or a predetermined game parameter of the user when a visit request for the virtual event area stored as the acquisition information about the user has been received from another user.

Namco are something of an underrated force in the social network game world (although they have done a fair bit over the last few years culminating in the launch of BDNA Inc. last year) but this looks interesting. More curiously it might actually display some actual innovation or at least something I can not immediately shoot down with prior art (granted I am less than knowledgeable about social network games and some of the stuff that happened in augmented reality during the "early years") like the previous patent http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2012/0021835.html .

I have always enjoyed similar concepts (operation inner space was a game I kept installed on new machines for a long time) and although I do not have a mobile phone or account on a social network it certainly intrigues me.