BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to spectating support technology for supporting spectating of games.

2. Description of the Related Art

Recently, electronic sports (e-sports) have become popular all over the world, and video game tournaments of various genres are being held. Other than by actually participating in a game to play, video games can be enjoyed, like any other sports, by viewing other players playing the game without participating in the game. Recently, individuals are actively broadcasting movies on Internet social sites. In e-sports, too, there are attempts to broadcast the player's play. Spectators view delivered movies by viewing a video game tournament live or viewing an archived past tournament.

Patent literature 1 discloses a content delivery system for delivering content provided by a provider user to user terminals of viewer users in a manner that user experience is enriched by using functions for originating texts and images. Patent Literature 2 discloses a spectating system in which game meta data is acquired from the game system of the game being broadcast, and content for broadcast is generated and delivered based on the game meta data.

[Patent Literature 1] JP2019-74789

[Patent Literature 2] JP2018-520772

One of esports genres is a shooting game called First Person Shooter (FPS)/Third Person Shooter (TPS), in which a player sees a virtual world in the game and moves within the space for a battle in a first-person/third-person perspective. The basic rule is to manipulate an in-game avatar and defeat an opponent with a weapon such as a handheld gun. The game may not be played by avatars. Games in which a moving objects such as a vehicle, ship, airplane, etc. is manipulated for a battle may be included.

Where there are a large number of player perspectives or spectator perspectives, a spectator viewing FPS/TPS may feel puzzled which perspective should be used to view the game and may miss a “must-see scene” in the game, although this depends on the number of participants in the competitive game.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention addresses the above-described issue, and a general purpose thereof is to provide spectating support technology for supporting viewing of games in which a plurality of players compete in a three-dimensional space.

A spectating support apparatus (100) according to an embodiment of the present invention includes: a map data analysis unit (30) that refers to map data for a game in which a plurality of players compete in a three-dimensional space to extract positional information on each player; a feature parameter extraction unit (40) that extracts a feature parameter related to the game; a spectating area analysis unit (50) that analyzes one or more areas in a map that should be viewed by spectators, based on the positional information on each player and the feature parameter related to the game; and a map data generation unit (10) that generates spectating map data by associating information indicating the area that should be viewed by spectators with the map data.

Another embodiment of the present invention relates to a spectating support method. The method includes: referring to map data for refers to map data for a game in which a plurality of players compete in a three-dimensional space to extract positional information on each player; extracting a feature parameter related to the game; analyzing one or more areas in a map that should be viewed by spectators, based on the positional information on each player and the feature parameter related to the game; and generating spectating map data by associating information indicating the area that should be viewed by spectators with the map data.

Optional combinations of the aforementioned constituting elements, and implementations of the invention in the form of methods, apparatuses, systems, recording mediums, and computer programs may also be practiced as additional modes of the present invention.

