Summary:

The ‘559 patent comprises a performance determination unit that determines the order of finish of the players each time an online game is completed. At the end of each game, the system tallies who won and who lost. With this information, the system then ranks all the players according to their in-game performance. The players’ information is then stored on the server so that running totals of wins and losses as well as other statistics are constantly kept. This allows players to then be matched up based on certain criteria (winning percentage, completeness of levels, etc.) and can provide players with competitive teams.

Abstract:

The CPU 161 of the video game apparatus comprises a performance determination unit 161b that determines the order of finish of the players each time a game is completed, a parameter calculation unit 161g that calculates parameters indicating the characteristics of each player in playing games based on the game history data stored in a history storage unit 162b described below and a title assigning unit 161h that assigns a title applicable during games to each player based on the calculated parameters, and the RAM 162 comprises a history storage unit 162b that stores past player game history data for each player, and a title storage unit 162c that associates the titles assigned by the title assigning unit 161h with the players and stores them.

Illustrative Claim:

1. A recording medium which stores an executable game progress control program that controls progress of a game played by a plurality of players while reflecting the game progress on game screens, said game progress control program being configured to enable a video game apparatus to function as: history storage means for storing past game history data for each player, parameter calculation means for calculating, based on the game history stored, parameter values for game playing parameters that indicate a plurality of game playing characteristic actions of each player in playing the game wherein ranges of the parameter values for respective ones of the game playing parameters are game playing parameter dependent and differ from one another, level determination means for converting the parameter values to level values based on conversion criteria specific to respective ones of the game playing parameters and which differ from each other, title assigning means for assigning titles applicable during games to the players based on relative levels of the level values converted from the parameter values of each player, said titles being indicative of the game playing characteristic actions of each player in playing the game, title storage means for associating the titles assigned with the respective players and storing the associated titles, and display means for displaying, on the game screens, the titles associated with respective opposing ones of the plurality of players.