Sony patents in-game advertising that pauses your game

Everybody hates advertising, unless it’s a Nando’s ad. But for most people, the banners that pop up in their free games, free programs, free videos and on every website they visit are a pain. But Sony’s recent patent may point to an even more annoying future.

Sony Computer Entertainment America has filed a patent for in-game ads that will actually pause in the middle of play.

Dreamt up in the dark, twisted mind of Gary Zalewski, the system works by suspending the “playing of the interactive content”, showing you how Sunlight is stronger than grease, and then resuming your game again. But hey it’s not all bad, you’ll get a warning your game is about to stop. The patent is officially described as follows:

“A method for use in advertising includes initiating playing of interactive content, suspending playing go the interactive content, displaying an advertisement, and resuming playing of the interactive content.”

It does note however that the ad should be initiated by a server, so that in a multiplayer environment one player would not be disadvantaged. So it doesn’t really matter if you on low health and about to heal when you start learning about “The Axe Effect”, because everyone got the deodorant education.

It’s probably safe to assume that this would form part of free-to-play style games, as putting this kind of horror into a game one had already paid for would cause the internet to implode from the sheer amount of simultaneous petitions started.