Microsoft filed a new patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in early September. It is a technology that displays advertisements during what could be called a 'break time' given during gameplay, such as clearing a boss or completing a quest.

This patent was filed on April 23, and the details were made public by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on September 3. The technology is titled 'Contextually Aware Management of Interactive Software Application Access', and it is a system that delivers ads when gameplay is not interrupted on PC or console games.

This system allows players to experience games without ads for a certain period of time. Afterward, when the timer approaches expiration, an ad window appears. However, based on machine learning and detection modules, it analyzes game content to broadcast ads during moments that temporarily pause play, such as after boss battles, after cutscenes finish, during new level loading, upon quest completion, or when entering menus. The game pauses while the ad plays, and resumes once viewing is finished.

It can be seen as similar to free-to-play mobile games where ads continuously play, but the core point is that instead of blasting ads arbitrarily, it finds the proper timing to broadcast them based on the gameplay context. Microsoft explained that this technology aims to bridge the gap between free-to-play game monetization and core play by serving ads only at natural gameplay interruption points. However, how gamers will receive this remains to be seen.

This patent is currently in the filing stage, and whether it will actually be applied has not yet been decided. However, since July of this year, Microsoft has been testing a service allowing participants in the Xbox Insider Program to stream games for free in exchange for watching ads. The patent filed this time can also be interpreted as being in a similar context to this strategy.