Microsoft Applied to Patent TV Achievements

[craddoke]

It's the gamification apocalypse! Non-stop gaming but no more games!

 

[Alpha Maeko]

Achievement unlocked: "Didn't clean room for a week, and the Kinect can see uwupsiwasn'tsupposedtosayth-"

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

The Kinect is starting to sound like Over-Attached Girlfriend

http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEyLzEyLzA0LzM2L2JyZWFraW5ndXB3LmJhaC5qcGcKcAl0aHVtYgk5NTB4NTM0IwplCWpwZw/4528fab1/23f/breaking-up-with-overly-attached-girlfriend-is-hard-to-do-video--41226717ee.jpg

"Whatcha doin? Whatcha watching? How long you been doin that for? Can I help? Do you want me to change the channel? I can do that for you!"

Yikes

 

[Elate]

Well, I've always described achievements and trophies as a marketing tool, and now it looks like they literally will be...

"The new season of Dancing with the Stars starts this Saturday, tune in for 100 Achievement points. Sit through an entire episode without leaving your sofa for the other 900... the Kinect will be monitoring you..."

Microsoft is just fast becoming the embodiment of this industry's shameless excess.

We were all wondering when that dystopian future was going to occur, you joke about that, but considering they're patenting it, it could very soon be a reality. This is how they're going to control mankind, first it's the console achievements, then TV, then day to day things like showering and going to work, then penalties for NOT doing achievements, next thing you know, you have to earn Microsoft points through achievements at the diamond mines to keep your life card topped up, otherwise they forcefully reposes your corpse.

 

[Poetic Nova]

I just facepalmed so hard my head almost fell of....

 

[VoidWanderer]

...

Seriously? I get having achievements for gaming, because you earn it (supposedly, tutorial and chapter achievements shouldn't exist). Watching TV?

You'd think Sony, the TV manufacturer would've done this huh?

 

[Roxas1359]

My god I could just see it now:
Achievement Unlocked: Don't You Have a Job? - 100G
-Watched TV for over 24 hours straight (Kinect must detect you are in front of TV for this to unlock)
Achievement Unlocked: You Must Be A Riot At Parties- 20G
-Watched C-SPAN for a total of 100 hours
Achievement Unlocked: Would You Like Wings With That?- 10G
-Order Pizza Hut while watching TV on your Kinect

Achievement Unlocked: Who Says You're A Couch Potato?- 50G
Get up from your couch while the TV is still on (gotta get that pizza somehow)

Seriously this is probably the saddest thing I've seen so far out of everything.

 

[rofltehcat]

I heard they also have a patent for a system that recognizes how many people are watching a streamed movie via Kinect. No joke... although I might as well have been decepted, it sounds so horribly orwellian, it might as well be true.

Also... "hey guys, look at what awesome tv shows I have seen! And I even got the achievement for watching a whole season of 24 withing 24 hours!! You better be jealous, scrubs!"

 

[Jaeger_CDN]

And if you watch a program/movie/etc that you got from torrents your Xbone will lock up?

I imagine the Nielsen ratings people are all over this as well since they could probably buy the viewer data from Microsoft

 

[Pyrian]

How can this possibly be considered patentable?

 

[triggrhappy94]

I can't wait to see the kind of Achievement hunter websites and guides come from this.

In reality it'll probably be stuff like "Watched 'X' Commercial" seeing how MS is really trying to do the ad thing.

I may have to invest in a sex doll or CPR dummy to trick the Kinect into thinking I actually watch all their crap

 

[triggrhappy94]

How can this possibly be considered patentable?

A single company owns a patent on the genetic strand that makes women pre-disposed to develop breast or cervical cancer.
They use it to maintain a monopoly on genetic testing for the strand.
American copyright laws are really fucked up.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Wow, so now you can sit and watch TV and fell like you've accomplished something. This is a disgusting idea.

Feel sorry for the achievement whores/completionists. Must watch every episode and the repeats. lol

 

[Pyrian]

How can this possibly be considered patentable?

A single company owns a patent on the genetic strand that makes women pre-disposed to develop breast or cervical cancer.
They use it to maintain a monopoly on genetic testing for the strand.
American copyright laws are really fucked up.

I dunno, dude, there was serious development and research work involved in determining what that gene is and how to test for it. This patent is the research equivalent of a stoned marketer going, "Hey, maaan, we're collecting this data anyway, why not slap a label on it?"

 

[luvd1]

So, are there going to be achievements for watching porn too? Watching achievement hunters on rooster tooth is going to be very.... disturbing.

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

Maybe they should just stop marketing it as a game console altogether.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Wow, so now you can sit and watch TV and fell like you've accomplished something. This is a disgusting idea.

Even moreso because it's an attempt to use very basic Pavlovian conditioning to make people watch specific programs. It's not just disgusting, it's kind of evil.

 

[Mr. Q]

My god I could just see it now:
Achievement Unlocked: Don't You Have a Job? - 100G
-Watched TV for over 24 hours straight (Kinect must detect you are in front of TV for this to unlock)
Achievement Unlocked: You Must Be A Riot At Parties- 20G
-Watched C-SPAN for a total of 100 hours
Achievement Unlocked: Would You Like Wings With That?- 10G
-Order Pizza Hut while watching TV on your Kinect

Achievement Unlocked: Who Says You're A Couch Potato?- 50G
Get up from your couch while the TV is still on (gotta get that pizza somehow)

Seriously this is probably the saddest thing I've seen so far out of everything.

I've got a couple:

Achievement Unlocked: White Trash Marathon - 100G
Watched Tru-TV reality show programs for one week
Achievement Unlocked: Hunger Games - 20G
Watched 6 hours of Food Network without getting something to eat

 

[Callate]

Eighty-seven different achievements, all containing some version of the term "couch potato".