That kind of data ranges from simple relationships like a "friends list" provided by the gaming platform to completely external relationships like "social media connection data.".
where players from both teams are members." Things like "the number of posts by a player in a particular community" shared with another player could also signify potential collusion.
Even "the content of extra-game communication" could be fed into the algorithm, according to the patent, such as "messages to a forum which players from both teams are participating." A "machine learning algorithm" could be used to glean any collusion-related context from this kind of out-of-game communication, or a simple keyword search could be used, according to the patent.To be clear, the patent is upfront in saying that any player data used in any of these detection algorithms "would be in compliance with privacy policies that respect players' privacy, and in accordance with player privacy settings or preferences." That said, there's something a little Big Brother-y about the prospect of a publisher like EA scanning your Twitter posts and Reddit community memberships to see if you're trying to coordinate cheating in their online game.