Video game ratings play an important role in the gaming industry. Whether it's Metacritic, Open Critic, or individual gaming websites, gamers rely on ratings to help decide what makes sense to pick up and play. Providing ratings on individual platforms like the Nintendo eShop, however, is rare, even though ratings might prove persuasive to potential buyers. A new patent from Nintendo that offers user-unique generated ratings could mean that changes are coming, however.

The idea at face value does seem odd. An automatically generated rating made specifically for any given doesn't seem productive, since the point of ratings is to get perspective from others. Nintendo's patent focuses instead of providing ratings based on what it believes the user's perspective to be. In other words, it's a system that generates ratings based on what it believes the user is a fan of or what they'd want to play.

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In the patent's abstract, different ways that the user's automatically generated ratings are explained. One method is described as a function of gathered gameplay data based on a single user compared to data from other users. Another layer on rating generation would involve a generated rating based on external information like critical reviews, user reviews, and sales information. In other words, a base rating based on external data would then be adjusted based on an individual's personal rating data to create a final unique rating per user.

A context for how this type of rating could be used isn't provided in the patent, but it's easy to imagine its usage. For example, Nintendo could use it in its eShop to recommend games to a player that it would think the user would enjoy. Or more likely, it'd recommend games that it thinks the user would be more likely to buy and spend money on.

Ratings in shops, whether it's Nintendo's eShop or elsewhere, are incredibly rare. Sourcing third-party ratings and presenting them through a storefront is practically nonexistent. Steam does show its own internal metric of user ratings, which is a very basic system. Perhaps Nintendo is considering doing something similar.

A patent does not imply official plans, to be clear. Nintendo may indeed be considering inserting some type of rating system either into its eShop or through some other application. Odds are, however, this is just an idea that came to fruition that will never be put into production. Still, it's interesting to consider whether a Nintendo eShop rating system would prove valuable, both to Nintendo and its users.

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Source: PatentScope