US20100222139A1

US20100222139A1 - Method and system for online payment of the virtual property trading of the network game

Info

Publication number: US20100222139A1
Application number: US12/095,676
Authority: US
Inventors: Ke Wang
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2005-12-01
Filing date: 2006-11-29
Publication date: 2010-09-02
Also published as: WO2007062591A1; CN1818958A

Abstract

A method and system for online consignment of the virtual property trading of the network game, the main theory is to setup a trading platform with the function of online payment to support a great deal of dealer terminals, and set an adapter between the trading platform and the network game provider system, by defining a serious of standardization for the adapter, make it possible to perform the data exchange between the trading platform and the game database of the network game provider system, so as to realize the changing of the coincidence relation between the virtual property formed from the network game and the game account through the operation of the user terminal, to realize the really safe consignment of the virtual property of the network game, thus ensure that the virtual property trading of the network game carries out smoothly.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method and system for the virtual property trading of the network game, and more particularly, to a method and system for online consignment of the virtual property trading of the network game.

TECHNICAL BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Usually, virtual property in network games is also called virtual property, which includes game equipments, game roles, etc. obtained by game players through game playing, its characteristic is existing in certain operator database in the form of invisible electronic data, and can be visited by many ways, such as Internet. Its value has been generally approved and has real trading demands. What it reflects maybe is working achievements such as time, energy, luck devoted by the owners, or higher value accumulated by purchasing services provided by the game providers with real currency.
At present, the application of the virtual property trading in the network games basically adopts releasing selling news on the net and meeting off the net for direct trading. But it is extremely apt to have dispute and fraud due to the indirect trading between dealers in different cities, thus the situations exist normally, such as adulterating, receiving the money but not giving the goods and releasing the false message etc.
The market potential of the virtual property trading in the network games is enormous, which makes a number of manufacturers set foot in the field of the trading platform. However, until now, the existing trading platform of the virtual property can only promise the credit to the third party. Before carrying out a trading, an appointment of trading time has to be made previously and trading has to be finished separately in their owned network game at the same time. Therefore, the current trading of the virtual property in the network games is inconvenient and far from safety, which is proved repeatedly by the swindle cases of the virtual property of the network games. The trading methods and procedures of other trading websites are as following: first, the buyer contacts sellers and applies for the trading guarantee of other trading websites; second, the buyer remits to other trading websites; third, the seller transfers the virtual property to the buyer, or through deal maker of other trading websites; fourth, the buyer notifies other trading websites of receiving the virtual property; fifth, the other trading websites remits to the seller.
The above-mentioned trading method has only guaranteed that buyer remits the seller after receiving the virtual property, however, the real transfer of virtual property cannot be promised. In the network games, usually a game player has one or more game accounts, and each game account can set up one or more game roles, which is the core of experiencing network games. When the seller consigns game role to buyers, he only gives the game account and password of the game role to the buyers; thus the seller probably can get back the game role that has been handed over by other methods after receiving the remittance from the buyers, for example, by the password protection and re-getting system offered by most network game providers. In this way, both parties can not trade fairly, the real consignment of the game roles can't be realized, and it is difficult to finish the trading fairly; secondly, this consignment method can only regard game roles under one game account as the trading objects, a part of the game roles among them can not be traded separately, so it is hard for the trading to go on; third, said trading mode is comparatively complicated and inconvenient.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a method and system for online consignment of the virtual property trading in the network games, its main purpose is to overcome all the shortcomings of current existing trading method of the virtual property in network games, that is, the incomplete consignment, complicated trading procedure, unsafe trading, both parties' entrance of the network game at the same time and finishing the trading in the network game, deal by all the game roles as a whole under a game account etc.
The present invention adopts the following technological scheme:
A method for online consignment of the virtual property trading in the network games, the method including:
1) setting up a trading platform connecting many buyers and sellers, and an adapter between this trading platform and network game provider system; 2) the trading platform transferring the game account and password of the sellers' terminal and buyers' terminal to the adapter, the adapter checking the game account and password in the game database of provider's system of the network game, after passing the verification, the adapter creating the seller token of game account and the valid time, and the buyer token of game account and the valid time back to trading platform; 3) trading platform transferring the token to the adapter according to the browse request of the buyer's terminal, then the adapter verifying the seller's token, and reading the virtual property records corresponding to the seller's account in the game database, and transferring the identification (ID) number and detailed information of the virtual property to trading platform, then the trading platform parsing the data and providing to the seller terminal for displaying; 4) according to the sell request of the seller's terminal, trading platform consigning the seller token and identification (ID) number of the virtual property to be sold, to the adapter, then the adapter search the database according to the game account indicated by the seller token, and transferring the virtual property records corresponding to the identification (ID) number, to the buffer of the game database, and pointing the storage address using a locked identification (ID) number, then returning the locked identification (ID) number and detailed information of the virtual property to the trading platform, and according to the browse request of the buyer's terminal, the trading platform transferring the locked identification (ID) number and detailed information of the virtual property to the buyer terminal for displaying; 5) according to the transfer requirement of the buyer terminal, trading platform consigning the buyer token, game account of the buyer and the locked identification (ID) number of the virtual property to be sold to the adapter, and the adapter verifying the buyer token, transferring the virtual property records corresponding to the locked identification (ID) number in the buffer of the game database to the relevant address of the game account of the buyer in the game database.
The above-mentioned method for online consignment of the virtual property of the network games, further includes: trading platform receiving the trading consignment request from the client's terminal, making use of the online payment platform, sending a payment request to client's terminal, then only after the client's terminal finishing the payment according to the requirement of the online platform and successfully, could the consignment process only go on.
For the above-mentioned method for online consignment of the virtual property of the network games, the virtual property records corresponding to every game account of the game database, includes the game props list and game role's information, when the adapter read a record corresponding to the game account, it transform the prop information in the props list and the role information to the formatting SOAP data stream of the XML format, send to the trading platform, and parse them and provide to the client terminal for displaying.
The system for online consignment of the virtual property in the network games, includes network game provider system, trading platform, user's terminal and an adapter, and a network provider's system has a game database for storing the passwords of game account and password corresponding to the game account and virtual property records, the trading platform connects many client terminals and can deal with browse and trading request of the client terminal, the adapter links the trading platform with the game database for offering a interface for their data exchanging, said adapter also includes: identification (ID) module, receiving the game account and password from the trading platform, and further verifying the validity of game account and the password in the game database, creating a token of game account and valid time for the valid user, reading the requested virtual property records in the game database or the buffer, and transferring the identification (ID) number of the virtual property and detailed information to the trading platform, and parsing them and providing to the client terminal for displaying; virtual property lock module, receiving the token and identification (ID) number of the virtual property to be sold, transferring the virtual property records corresponding to the identification (ID) number stored in the game database into the buffer of the game database, and point the storage address using a locked identification (ID) number, then returning the locked identification (ID) number and the detailed information of the virtual property to the trading platform for parsing them and providing to the client terminal for displaying; virtual property transfer module, receiving the token from the trading platform and the locked identification (ID) number of the virtual property to be bought, transferring the locked identification (ID) number and the relevant virtual property stored in the buffer to the game account contained in the token in the game database.
The above-mentioned system for online consignment of the virtual property in the network games, said trading platform further includes an online payment platform interface module for connecting online payment platforms.
In sum, the present invention has the following advantages: first, realizes the real transfer of the virtual property in network games from a game account to another in the game database of the network game provider, and achieves the real meaning consignment, guarantees the reliability and safety of the trading; second, realizes the consignment of some game roles in a game account, improves the flexibility of the trading, varies the two parties' (buyers and sellers) trading objects, and greatly increases trading opportunities; third, realizes complete online trading, gets rid of a great number of problems came out during the man-made process, reduces the possibility crimes committed by the people lack of law knowledge by the name of virtual property trading; fourth, makes the trading process simpler and faster, further brings down the costs; fifth, two parties (buyers and sellers) do not need to be online at the same time while doing a business, makes transaction to be more convenient.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

FIG. 1 is a system structure and a flowchart for the data stream, according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart for a seller sells the virtual property trading of the network game, according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for a buyer purchases the virtual property trading of the network game, according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 1-3.
There are generally at least three different participators to realize the online trading of the virtual property trading of the network game:
First participator is the network game provider. The network game provider generally operate and manage the specifically network game product, its main operation is to attract more user to use its service, and to price its service. For the network game virtual property cumulated by using its service for the user, there is no right to treatment for the provider, otherwise the provider shall infringe the right of the user, if so, they would take a risk in losing lots of the client. To realize the online consignment of the virtual property of the network game managed by the provider is just an artifice for attracting the user, said artifice is unconspicuous for advancing its main competitive ability, meanwhile, several factors, such as large and complexity of the investment for realizing the technology, and the like, go against this project, thus the impetus that the provider realizes this project is little.
Second participator is bank or other business online payment platform. The main businesses of bank are deposit and loan and payment. Meanwhile, for combining with the development of electronic business affairs progressively, each of the bank develop the online payment business in succession in order to provide the conveniently safe way to balance and transfer for funds between buyer and seller. In term of the bank, there is no difference between the payment of virtual property of network game and actual merchandise. It is simply a transfer of money from an account to another. It is unpractical that the bank realize online trading of virtual property of the network game, it also exceeds the business scope of the bank.
Third participator is the user. The user generally is owner and purchaser of the virtual property of the network game, i.e. the seller and the buyer of the virtual property of the network game. The seller wishes to sell, and the buyer wishes to buy. Delivery Versus Payment—is essential to the request of trading. In this instance that doesn't exist the online consignment platform now, if both buyer and seller want to accomplish the trading, they only use other methods such as releasing the trading news, appointing the place and time of the trading, meeting or authorizing the guarantee for third party. Based on this requirement this embodiment provides the method and system for online consignment of the virtual property of the network game.
Referring to FIG. 1, this embodiment provides a system for online consignment of the virtual property of the network game, including the network game provider 1, trading platform 3, several seller terminal 4, several buyer terminal 5, adapter 2 and online payment platform 6. In practice, generally, there are several network game provider 1 and online payment platform 6, accordingly, there should be several adapter 2. Said each unit is generally connected with the computer of Internet. Seller terminal 4 and buyer terminal 5 are generally integrated in a computer but no in two devices. In this embodiment, it is described respectively by function for convenience of description.
The network game provider 1 is a system which is already existed in the prior art, wherein including a game database 11 for storing the game account and the password and the virtual property record corresponding to the game account, the trading platform 3 for connecting several seller terminals 4 and several buyer terminals 5, and used for dealing with the request of browse and trading from each seller terminals 4 and buyer terminals 5, online payment platform 6 being connected with the trading platform 3, then realizing the payment according to the request of the trading platform 6, each seller terminals 4 and buyer terminals 5 geographically can being distributed in the different places with the far distance, its provide the operation for make a trading of the virtual property of the network game by the sellers and buyers.
Said online payment platform 6 is a payment system platform for realizing the online payment of trading built on the Internet, including the system platform of the online payment of bank financial institutions and the system platform of the online payment built by each trader based on bank financial institutions, and the like. The above-mentioned platform is well known to those skilled in the prior art and is not described in detail.
Adapter 2 is connected between trading platform 3 and game database 11 for providing interface for their data exchange. Said adapter 2 includes identification (ID) module 21 used for receiving the game account and password from the trading platform 3, verifying the validity of game account and password in the game database 11, creating a token including game account and valid time for the valid user and returning to the trading platform 3; virtual property browse module 22 for receiving the token and the browse request from the trading platform 3, reading the requested virtual property record in the game database 11 or the buffer, and sending the identification (ID) number and detailed information to the trading platform 3, parsing them to provide to seller terminal 4 or buyer terminal 5 for displaying; virtual property lock module 23 for receiving the token and the identification (ID) number to be sold from the trading platform 3, transferring the virtual property record corresponding to identification (ID) number in the game database 11, to the buffer of the game database 11, pointing said storage address used by a lock identification (ID) number, returning said lock identification (ID) number and the relevant detailed information of virtual property to the trading platform 3, parsing them to provide to buyer terminal 5 for displaying; virtual property transfer module 24 for receiving the token and the lock identification (ID) number of virtual property to be brought, from the trading platform 3, transferring the lock identification (ID) number and the relevant virtual property in the buffer to the game account which contains in said token in the game database 11.
Referring to FIG. 2, it shows a flow chart of the system for selling the virtual property of the network game owned by the seller.
First, the seller inputs the game account and password at the seller terminal 4 (step S1), the trading platform 3 receives said game account and password and sends the received game account and password to adapter 2 (step S2), encrypts the password in the transmission process according to the clear text format; ID identification module 21 of the adapter 2 searches the password in the identification list stored in the game database 11 according to the game account, said identification may be also stored in another independent database. If said game account record is not existent, the failure information of identification is returned to the trading platform 3 directly. If said game account record is existent, the relevant password in said identification list is read, in accordance with the different network games, it may need to decrypt said password to the clear text, or in accordance with the particular algorithm, to transform the password from the trading platform to the cryptograph. Then the password transmitted from the trading platform 3 compares to the password searched in the identification, if they are inconsistent, the failure information of the identification is returned to the trading platform 3 directly. If they are consistent, the identification is pass, adapter 2 create a seller token including the game account and valid time to return to trading platform 3 (step S3, S4).
Second, the seller operates to input the request for browsing the virtual property at the seller terminal 4 (step S5), the trading platform 3 sends the relevant token and the request of the browse to the adapter 2 (step S6), the virtual property browse module 22 of the adapter 2 verifies the validity of said seller token, if it is not valid, a invalid information of the token is returned to the trading platform 3, if it is valid, the relevant virtual property record of the game account contained in the said seller token is read in the game database 11, makes said identification (ID) number and detailed information to the formatting SOAP data stream of the XML format back to the trading platform 3 (step S7), the trading platform 3 parses said identification (ID) number of said virtual property and detailed information to provide to the seller terminal 4 (step S8), according to the content sent by the trading platform 3, the seller terminal 4 displays the identification (ID) number and detailed information of each virtual property in the game account of the seller (step S9)
Third, at the seller terminal 4 the seller operates to choose the Identification (ID) number of said game account to be sold (step 10), the trading platform 3 sends said Identification (ID) number and the relevant seller's token to the adapter 2 (step S11), the virtual property transfer module 23 of the adapter 2 verify the validity of said seller's token. If it is not valid, return the information of the validity of the token to the trading platform 3, if it is valid, search the game database 11 to transfer the virtual property record correspond to said Identification (ID) number of the game account of the seller's token to the buffer (step S12). And then point out said virtual property used by a lock said Identification (ID) number, and return the detailed information of the virtual property correspond to said lock Identification (ID) number to the trading platform 3 (step S13).
The above-mentioned flow accomplished the process of the virtual property to be sold in accordance with the request of the seller.
Referring to the FIG. 3, it shows the process that the buyer purchases the virtual property of the network game to be sold.
First, at the buyer terminal 5 the buyer inputs its game account and password (step S14), the trading platform 3 receives said game account and password, and sends the received game account and password to the adapter 2 (step S15), the password is encrypted according to the clear text format in the process of the transmission; according to the game account the ID identification module 21 of the adapter 2 searches the password stored in the ID identification list of the game database 11, said ID identification list may also store in another independent database, if said game account record is not existent, the fault information of ID identification is returned to the trading platform 3, if said game account record is existent, the relevant password is read in said ID identification list, in accordance with the different network game, said password may be needed to decrypt to the clear text, or according to the specific arithmetic the password from the trading platform 3 is transformed to the cryptograph, the password from the trading platform 3 is compared with the password searched in the ID identification list, if the result is inconsistent, the fault information of ID identification is returned to the trading platform 3, if the result is consistent, the ID identification is passed. The adapter 2 creates a buyer token including the game account and valid time to return to the trading platform 3 (step S16, S17).
Second, at the buyer terminal 5 the buyer operates to input the request of the virtual property to be sold (step S18), the trading platform 3 sends the relevant buyer token and browse request to the adapter 2 (step S19), the virtual property browse module 22 of the adapter 2 verifies the validity of said buyer token, if it is invalid, a invalid information of the token is returned to the trading platform 3, if it is valid, the virtual property record to be sold is read in the buffer of the game database 11, and the lock identification (ID) number and detailed information is made into the formatted SOAP data stream of the XML format to return to the trading platform 3 (step S20). The trading platform 3 parses said identification (ID) number and detailed information of the virtual property to provider to the buyer terminal 5 (step S21), according to the content provided by the trading platform 3 the buyer terminal 5 shows the lock identification (ID) number and detailed information of the virtual property to be sold (step S22).
Third, at the buyer terminal 5 the buyer operates to choose the virtual property of the network to be brought (step S23), the trading platform 3 use the online payment platform 6 by network payment platform interface module 31, a payment request is displayed on the buyer terminal 5. Only when the buyer accomplished the payment according to said payment request on the online payment platform 6 (step S24), could the trading platform sends the lock identification (ID) number of the virtual property to be brought, inputted by the buyer to the adapter 2 (step S25), the virtual property transfer module 24 of the adapter 2 verifies the validity of said buyer token. If it is invalid, a invalid information of the token is returned to the trading platform 3, if it is valid, the virtual property corresponding to said lock Identification (ID) number in the buffer is transferred to the game database 11, and is written in the game account contained in said buyer token (step S26). Thus the system accomplishes the process that the buyer purchases the virtual property of the network game to be sold.
The above-mentioned virtual property of the network game to be sold includes two types: 1) the record in the depot list of the game database 11, that is, each props can be sold independently, 2) each game role, that is, including occupation, level, state point assignment, the props in the package, and the like.
The above-mentioned method and system is only one embodiment of the invention, and are not limiting upon the design of this invention. Any non-material modifications of this invention used by this design belong to infringe on this protection scope of this invention.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

A method for online consignment of the virtual property trading of the network game of this invention is to setup a trading platform with the function of online payment to support a great deal of dealer terminals, and to set an adapter between the trading platform and the network game provider system, by defining a serious of standardization for the adapter, make it possible to perform the data exchange between the trading platform and the game database of the network game provider system, so as to realize the changing of the coincidence relation between the virtual property formed from the network game and the game account through the operation of the user terminal, to realize the really safe consignment of the virtual property of the network game, thus ensure that the virtual property trading of the network game carries out smoothly.

Claims

1. A method for online consignment of the virtual property trading of the network game, the method comprising:

1) setting up a trading platform, said trading platform connecting a plurality of dealer terminals, and setting a adapter between said trading platform and the network game provider system;

2) transferring the game account and password inputted by seller terminal and buyer terminal via the trading platform, the adapter verifying the validity of the game account and password in the game database of the network game provider system, after passing the verification, the adapter creating a seller token including a game account and valid time of the seller, and a buyer token including a game account and valid time of the buyer back to the trading platform;

3) transferring the obtained seller token to the adapter by the trading platform according to the browse request of the seller terminal, after passing the verification, reading the virtual property record corresponding to the game account of said seller in the game database, and transferring such virtual identification (ID) number and detailed information to the trading platform, the information being parsed and then is sent to the seller terminal for displaying;

4) according to the sell request of the seller terminal, transferring the seller token and the identification (ID) number of the virtual property to be consigned to the adapter, the adapter looking up the game database according to the seller game account of the seller token, transferring the virtual property record corresponding to said identification (ID) number, to the buffer of the game database, pointing said storage address using a lock identification (ID) number, returning said identification (ID) number and the relevant detailed information of the virtual property to the trading platform, according to the browse request of the buyer terminal, said lock identification (ID) number and the relevant detailed information of the virtual property being sent to the buyer terminal for displaying;

5) sending the buyer token, the buyer game account and the lock identification (ID) number of the virtual property to be bought to the adapter via the trading platform according to the consignment request of the buyer terminal, verifying the buyer token by the adapter, after passing the verification, transferring the virtual property record corresponding to said lock identification (ID) number in the buffer of game database to the relevant address of said buyer's game account in the game database.

2. A method for online consignment of the virtual property of the network game as recited in claim 1, further including:

at times when the trading platform receives the consignment request of the buyer terminal, using the online payment platform, displaying a payment request on the buyer terminal, only if the buyer terminal pays up according to the request of the online payment platform, could the consignment be allowed.

3. A method for online consignment of the virtual property of the network game as recited in claim 1, wherein each virtual property record corresponding to the game account in said game database includes the game props list and game role information, when the adapter reads a virtual property record corresponding to the game account, making the detailed information of each props in the props list and each game role information to the formatting SOAP data stream of the XML format, and sending to the trading platform, and parsing them to provide to user terminal for displaying.

4. A system for online consignment of the virtual property trading of the network game, includes the network game provider system, trading platform, user terminal and adapter, wherein the network game provider system contains a game database used for storing the game account and the password and the virtual property record corresponding to the game account, the trading platform connects to several user terminals and deals with each requests of browse and trading of user terminal, the adapter is connected between the trading platform and game database so as to provide interface with their data exchange, the adapter further includes:

identification (ID) module, receiving the game account and password transferred from the trading platform, verifying the validity of the game account and password in the game database, creating a token including the game account and valid time for the valid user, and returning it to the trading platform;

virtual property browse module, receiving the token and browse request from the trading platform, reading the requested virtual property record in the game database or the buffer, and sending the identification (ID) number and detailed information of the virtual property to the trading platform, parsing them to provide to user terminal for displaying;

virtual property lock module, receiving the token and the identification (ID) number of the virtual property to be sold from the trading platform, transferring the identification (ID) number of the virtual property to the buffer of the game database in the game database, pointing said storage address used by a lock identification (ID) number, returning said lock identification (ID) number and the detailed information of the relevant virtual property to the trading platform, parsing them to provide to user terminal for displaying;

virtual property transfer module, receiving the token and the identification (ID) number of the virtual property to be sold from the trading platform, transferring the lock identification (ID) number stored in the buffer into the game account of said token in the game database.

5. A method for online consignment system of the virtual property of the network game as recited in claim 4, wherein said trading platform further includes a network payment platform interface module for connecting the online payment platform.