Game dossier for an advisory services network

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided to maintain and operate a player-generated dossier within a gaming platform implemented as an advisory services network. Within the context of a serious game designed around a complex business problem of an organization, players can navigate a plurality of narrative scenes associated with pieces of evidence. A player, leveraging individuality, can select specific pieces of evidence to be included in a dossier. Further mechanisms are provided to enable the user to remove items from the dossier, add portions of evidence to the dossier, publish the dossier to other players of the serious game, and arrange items in the dossier according to a variety of ordering schemes.

1 . A dossier subsystem of a network gaming platform, comprising:
 an item management module configured to, at least one of:   add a first data item of a plurality of data items to a digital dossier associated with a player of the network gaming platform;   add a portion of a second data item of the plurality of data items to the digital dossier; or   remove a first dossier item previously included in the digital dossier,   wherein the plurality of data items relate to evidence within a game, hosted on the network gaming platform, in which a variety of players of the game attempt to solve a real-world problem for which a solution is yet to be found based on the evidence.   
     
     
         2 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 1 , wherein the item management module, in response to addition of the portion of the second data item, is configured to receive reduction parameters from the player and to extract the portion of the second data item based upon the reduction parameters. 
     
     
         3 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 2 , wherein the reduction parameters specify a region, of the second data item, of interest to the player and include boundary information of the region with respect to an entirety of the second data item. 
     
     
         4 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 an annotation module configured to acquire supplemental information from at least one of the player or the gaming platform and to incorporate the supplemental information in metadata associated with a second dossier item in the digital dossier.   
     
     
         5 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 4 , further comprising:
 a learning module configured to generate the supplemental information from the gaming platform,   wherein the learning module is further configured to employ machine learning techniques to derive the supplemental information from respective metadata of a plurality of dossier items in the digital dossier.   
     
     
         6 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 an ordering module configured to maintain an ordering of a plurality of dossier items in the digital dossier.   
     
     
         7 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 6 , wherein the ordering module is further configured to obtain at least one ordering criterion that specifies an order condition relative to a set of values respectively associated with the plurality of dossier items and to order the plurality of dossier items in accordance with the at least one ordering criterion. 
     
     
         8 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 6 , wherein the ordering module is further configured to receive an ordering instruction that indicates a placement of an item in the ordering of the plurality of dossier items and to modify the ordering to reflect the placement of the item specified in the ordering instruction. 
     
     
         9 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 6 , wherein the ordering is at least one of a linear ordering, a graph-based ordering, or a tree-based ordering. 
     
     
         10 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 1 , further comprising a publishing module configured to create a discussion thread related to the digital dossier and to expose the discussion thread to a plurality of players of the gaming platform. 
     
     
         11 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 10 , wherein the discussion thread retains posts from the plurality of players regarding the digital dossier. 
     
     
         12 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 1 , further comprising a dossier viewer module configured to generate a user interface for displaying a plurality of digital dossiers of the gaming platform. 
     
     
         13 . The dossier subsystem of  claim 12 , wherein the dossier viewer module generates at least one of a list view user interface or a graph view user interface. 
     
     
         14 . A method facilitate by at least one processor of a computing system, comprising:
 storing a plurality of data items in a digital dossier employable in a game in which a variety of players of the game attempt to solve a real-world problem for which a solution is yet to be found based on evidence input to the game;   receiving a command from a player of the game, wherein the player is associated with and authorized to make changes to the digital dossier; and   managing the digital dossier in accordance with the command.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the command is an item add command, the method further comprising:
 obtaining a new data item from a collection of data outside of the digital dossier; and   including at least one of a copy of the new data item or a reference to the new data item in the digital dossier.   
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the command is an item removal command, the method further comprising:
 removing an existing data item from the digital dossier in response to the item removal command.   
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the command is a publish command, the method further comprising:
 creating a discussion thread about the digital dossier; and   exposing the digital dossier to a plurality of players of the game via the discussion thread.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the command is an ordering command, the method further comprising:
 arranging the plurality of data items of the digital dossier based upon at least one of an ordering criterion or an ordering instruction included in the ordering command.   
     
     
         19 . A gaming platform of an advisory services network, comprising:
 a game engine associated with an instance of a game and configured to manage execution of the game, wherein the game involves a variety of players who attempt to solve a real-world problem for which a solution is yet to be found based on evidence input to the game; and   a plurality of data storage locations, comprising:
 an evidence data store configured to retain a collection of data related to a complex business problem faced by a sponsor of the game, wherein the collection of data is received from the sponsor; 
 a game information store configured to store scene information regarding a plurality of scenes of the game and narrative information for the plurality of scenes; 
 a dossier store configured to retain digital dossiers generated by players of the game; and 
   a discussion store configured to retain discussion threads,   wherein the game engine further includes a dossier module configured to manage and maintain the digital dossiers stored in the dossier store.   
     
     
         20 . The gaming platform of  claim 19 , wherein the dossier module is further configured to, in response to player input, at least one of add items from the collection of data to a digital dossier, remove items from the digital dossier, reorder items in the digital dossier, or publish the digital dossier to a discussion thread.