Apparatus and method with physical location check-in that triggers a status change in a virtual game
AssigneeZynga Inc.
InventorsMinglei Xu, Puneet Chhabra, Heidi Kay Carson, Tanya Yin Wa Buell, Christopher Michael Kirmse
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A computer readable storage medium includes executable instructions to receive a check-in indication from a physical location with a corresponding virtual location in a virtual game. An attribute in the virtual game is altered based upon the check-in indication. The attribute may be earned points for a user, a virtual object earned by a user or an enhanced popularity measure for the virtual location.
Claims21
(canceled)
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations, the operations comprising:
- detecting that a player has checked-in at a real-world physical location to unlock a virtual resource for access by the player;
- and
- unlocking the virtual resource for access by an additional player independently of a checking-in of the additional player at the real-world physical location based on a determination that the additional player has a specified relationship with the player.
A system comprising:
- at least one processor;
- a virtual game module implemented by the at least one processor and configured to:
- detect that a player has checked-in at a real-world physical location to unlock a virtual resource for access by the player;
- and
- unlock the virtual resource for access by an additional player independently of a checking-in of the additional player at the real-world physical location based on a determination that the additional player has a specified relationship with the player.
A method comprising:
- detecting that a player has checked-in at a real-world physical location to unlock a virtual resource for access by the player;
- and
- unlocking the virtual resource for access by an additional player independently of a checking-in of the additional player at the real-world physical location based on a determination that the additional player has a specified relationship with the player, wherein at least one of the detecting and unlocking is performed by at least one processor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.