Reducing bandwidth requirements for peer-to-peer gaming based on importance of remote objects to a local player

In a peer-to-peer multiplayer game architecture where game objects are partitioned across participating peers, a method comprising:

• differentiating among multiple remote players to determine whether a remote player should receive continuous updates or periodic updates;
• wherein the differentiating of the multiple players is based, at least in part, on at least one of the following:
• a distance between a local avatar and a remote avatar, an angular difference between an aiming position of a local avatar and a direction toward a remote avatar, or an amount of time elapsed since an interaction between a local avatar and a game object owned by a remote player;
• sending one of continuous updates or periodic updates to each remote player according to the determination;
• and
• receiving, from the remote players, continuous and periodic updates pertaining to game objects;
• responsive to the continuous updates, updating activity of the corresponding game objects controlled by the remote players;
• responsive to the periodic updates, using guided artificial intelligence to simulate activity of the corresponding game objects controlled by the remote players.